“We should hike up the mesa, check the sun dagger,” Calliope suggested. “Make sure it’s the equinox.” The others agreed, and she changed and fed the corn girl, drank plenty of water herself, and tied a scarf around her head and Eunjoo’s to keep from burning in the sun. They were at such a high elevation, the sun’s rays seemed magnified. Or perhaps space was stringier in this universe, enmeshed as it was in time and matter. She strapped the corn girl to her chest. Chance offered to carry Miwe e’le, but Calliope felt stronger with the corn girl, felt she needed to take her girl where Bisabuela had taken her.

“Look!” Eunjoo pointed toward the mesa’s high flattop, the tabletop mountain itself glowing with sunrise, appearing as an ancient fortress, a stronghold. But that’s not what the girl was pointing out. Swirls of blackish-­gray smoke were rising into the morning-orange sky. Calliope’s heart thudded at the sight of the campfire. Had Arlen passed them in the night? Was he waiting atop the mesa with his masked militia to take them back to the rez? She’d brought Susana’s gun just in case, and as always, Chance had his rifle slung over his shoulder. Calliope couldn’t turn back now, not when she was so close to finding her family. For all she knew, Phoenix was a heartbeat away. If they each resided on a membrane containing an entire universe, then Chaco was the umbilicus holding them together. Though she had no proof, she felt it. Like two maps of New Mexico, representing everywhere—unfolded, side by side, pinned together on the canyon wall. She remembered her early labor fever dream and shivered. Phoenix, in the dream, had pummeled her with stones. Because she couldn’t reach him? No. She had to reach him. Bisabuela wouldn’t have brought Calliope this far for nothing. She set her jaw, breathed in the thick scent of campfire, and began hiking. Whatever waited at the top of the mesa, she could handle.