Chapters (41)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- PART TWO
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If universes had collided and created whatever tunnel they’d used to cross over, or branched apart creating a parallel copy they now inhabited, then what toll had it taken on her world? Over the past six months she had only thought about getting back to Phoenix. She hadn’t considered what condition he might be in when she got home to him. She presumed he’d be fine. That Arlen and Chance were correct in their speculation that the people who’d stayed would assume she and the others who’d disappeared were dead. But what had that bloodred light done to the other world?
Or if the worlds splitting hadn’t taken a physical toll on the earth, what had the people done to it and each other these past six months? How had the US government reacted to thousands if not millions of people disappearing? She assumed it was mainly the Puebloans who’d vanished, and she’d only gotten caught in the crosswinds.
But she couldn’t know for sure. She hadn’t ventured out of the Southwest and had no idea what the rest of the globe was going through. Had indigenous peoples all over the world had their lands rightfully restored? Were there others in this new world?
If she and Chance were not safe in Zuni, then perhaps there was another place, here, they could make their home?
Mara snuffed out her cigarette, sighed. “You’ve been awful quiet, sweetheart. You’re considering it, aren’t you?”
Calliope cleared her throat; she’d forgotten for a moment where she was, so lost in her disturbing thoughts. She’d braided three other blades of grass without noticing and woven them together in the shape of a ring. She slid it on her left index finger. “Considering what?”
“Staying.”
Calliope turned toward Mara, who bore a mischievous smile.
She couldn’t abandon her child. There was no way. She felt ashamed.
“No,” she said, curtly, a little too resolute. “We’re leaving before sunrise.”
Mara murmured, again, not agreement or disapproval. She raised herself up to standing, groaning quietly, then said, “We should take the rocks with us. Bury them on the other side.”
Calliope nodded. They dug Amy’s rock out of the dirt, and for a moment Calliope feared she would reach into the ground and touch the rotting skin of her friend’s corpse, the arrow still piercing her neck.
“How will I get the rock baby from Malia’s doorway? She wouldn’t stand for it.”
“You’ll do it when she’s asleep.”
Mara lugged the rock up the stairs, Calliope following.
Mara went into the house, but Calliope lingered on the porch, her hand on the open door; she hadn’t seen Eunjoo since dinner. She should have come home already.
As if in answer to the warning that prickled Calliope’s gut, from the grazing pastures in the distance, the girl screamed.
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-THREE
PROCESSION OF GODS
