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
Amy was not lying about how fancy it was inside—and spacious, with three separate rooms divided by mesh and zippered doors, the first with folding chairs, the last with sleeping bags, and the middle like a kitchen with bags of dry food and an ice chest still cool with ice packs. How long had its owners been gone, and why hadn’t they taken their expensive gear with them? Would they return? Calliope felt a bit like Goldilocks as she took an Arizona iced tea in a glass bottle from the ice chest, popped open the top, gulped it down. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she’d been, how exhausted. She wanted to apologize to her friends, who were talking quietly in the lawn-chair room of the tent. Instead, she finished her iced tea in the makeshift kitchen and returned to the bedroom where she unrolled a sleeping bag and curled herself inside. She took Susana’s gun from the pouch of her leggings, placed it on the ground beside a flashlight she presumed belonged to the camper whose tent they were occupying, and for the first time in two days, since she’d awoken from her blackout on the bridge, since her whole family had disappeared, she fell hard asleep.
* * * *
The rain pelted the tent in a continuous stream like static on a radio.
She dreamt of the Suuke. His body was spotted white, with two snakes painted on his chest. On his feet were blue-and-orange dance moccasins; on his right calf, tortoise shells and antelope hooves rattling. He carried a large knife, sweeping the hair from his mask with it. He also carried a bow and arrows and bloody eagle feathers.
An old woman in buckskin leggings and a dress made of rabbit skins, her arms and shoulders bare, carried Eunjoo away from the Suuke. In her hair was an eagle feather dyed red. On her back was a large woven basket, cornucopia-shaped and filled with twigs. She too carried eagle feathers and a crook. Calliope wanted to come closer, to see if Eunjoo was asleep. Or dead.
She awoke. It had been nagging at her, only she hadn’t realized it until she’d dreamt it. How had the girl known there was a monster chasing them from her crouching place in the back of the airplane? She’d asked, did we get away from the monster? The only windows were the cabin and the front, but the Suuke was behind them. Was there a spy hole? Had she heard it somehow?
Calliope squinted in the dark. The rain had stopped, the static gone.