Her chest tight, she scrambled back to her car and turned the key in the ignition, willing the engine to start, then pulled away from the rail, slowly, thankful for the screech of metal scraping metal, breaking the uncanny silence.

Electricity across the city was out. She couldn’t see beyond the hazy glow of her headlights, high beams sloping up the road toward Paradise Hills, where she and Andres lived with Phoenix and Calliope’s mother. Calliope had moved back to New Mexico for a job, and, if she was honest with herself, guilt over Bisabuela, her great-grandmother.

Every stoplight was dark; every intersection, empty. She tried the radio again but got static. Checked her cellphone. Still nothing. The half-moon crept through grayish clouds, offering a spearhead of light. At the edge of town, she drove up Boca Negra, the black-mouthed road that wound through the painted rock wall and signaled entry to the volcanic caprock that formed the Petroglyph National Monument. Atop the hill came the familiar expanse of unlit desert that surrounded her house and stretched miles westward. At the corner of her street, she scanned the scattered clumps of beige and terracotta two-stories, sighing in relief: both Andres’s and her mother’s cars were in the driveway. Next door, a curtain swayed, a silhouette of a face she couldn’t quite place peering out at her. It was too dark to see clearly. Even if there had been lights, she didn’t know any of her neighbors. She’d never taken the time to meet them.

In the driveway, the garage door wouldn’t open. She pressed the clicker several times, hard. It was battery-operated and should have opened. “Phoenix?” she called when she reached her front door, unlocking and opening it. “Andres? Mamá? Are you here?” No one answered. She was lightheaded. Her voice shriller, more urgent: “Phoenix, baby? Answer me.”