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
“I don’t know,” Calliope said, checking whether the coyotes were still nearby. She didn’t see any. She held the girl’s shoulders. “The coyotes are gone, chica. You’re safe.”
Tears on her cheeks, snot at her nose, Eunjoo lifted her hand, which was bleeding.
Calliope instinctively pressed the bottom of her tunic to the girl’s hand, to staunch the blood. “It bit you?” The girl nodded, wiping her nose. “Amy, get me some napkins.” No answer. She looked around. “Amy?”
“Drive.”
“What?”
“They’re back.” Amy threw her body into the passenger seat, slammed the door.
Calliope flung Eunjoo’s door shut and moved as quickly as she could to the driver’s seat. The coyotes formed a semicircle around the back of the car, growling, their reddish hair on end. Calliope pulled the gear into reverse, stepped on the gas, and drove.
SEVEN
SEVEN
PROJECT Y
Mara had to be hallucinating. People didn’t just disappear. She’d put all of that out of her mind. Since Trinity and that mushroom cloud in the sky. Since the aftermath at San Ildefonso. And Chaiwa. As she drove into Silver City to find Trudy—the usual rolling green surrounding Trudy’s ranch replaced with muted grays—Mara couldn’t stop thinking of her first trip there. Seventy-five years earlier, on the train from Princeton, Mara had watched prairie give way to sage-speckled hills. The dunes grained with yellowing shrubs reminded her of the barnacle-covered sea rocks on Dover Beach. Her father had just taken a job with the Manhattan Project, and they were heading toward an undisclosed location in the mountains of northern New Mexico.
Mara, five years old, had breathed against the pane, tracing shapes in the foggy glass with her bare fingers. She refused to wear her white kid gloves or to let her mother style her red hair. She was born with a wild streak, her mother was fond of telling dinner guests and anyone who’d listen. She was like Esau, the twin whose birthright was stolen because of his foolhardiness.
Rose tried making Mara more ladylike, befitting their family’s position. At every opportunity Mara batted away her mother’s efforts. She was young. “Leave her be,” her father would chasten her mother in his soft but rasping German voice. “She’s just a little girl. Not a lady yet.” He would kiss Mara atop her head. Even then, Mara could see that he expected decorum only from his wife. His daughter he let run as wild as the aboriginal people Rose expressed fear they would encounter in the strange new land to which they were destined.