“Oh that.” Chance laughed. “You know, I never asked him. What kind of animal should it have been?”

“A coyote.” She pressed her finger to his face, said, “A coyote bit me.” She said this proudly. “It hurts.”

“A coyote, oh yeah?”

He looked to Calliope, his expression asking is that a tall tale? and Calliope’s gut twitched. She felt responsible, and explained as much, told him what had happened at the convenience store, how she’d found Eunjoo crouched in front of the pack.

He turned his head back, craning to look up at Eunjoo. When he couldn’t twist that far, he pulled her easily from his shoulders, held her in front of him, face-to-face, and said solemnly, “Old Coyote is a trickster. He can’t ever be trusted. Not fully.” His lips curled into a sly smile, and he winked. “Coyote can also show you the deep mysticism of life and creation. He reveals truth behind illusion and chaos. Do you know what chaos is?”

“No.”

“I’m named after the theory, right? Chance.” He smiled wide, the furrows of his brown skin like ruts in the earth. “Oh, my mother didn’t mean to name me for an equation, but that’s the beauty of chaos. Aristotle said the least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. If you don’t know the exact initial conditions of a system, any uncertainty will be amplified and you’ll lose predictive power. You follow me?”

Eunjoo shook her head no.

Calliope laughed. “She’s a child, Chance. You have to break it down.”

“Kids are smarter than grown-ups, mujer.” To Eunjoo, “You’ve heard of the butterfly effect?”

Calliope again laughed. “I don’t think they teach that in first grade.”

“Hmm. Well they should. It’s like this: the beating of a butterfly’s wings can theoretically cause enough of an atmospheric disturbance,” he paused, corrected, “strong wind to alter later weather outcomes. Tiny things. Big changes. So, imagine big things, the changes those could render. My mother told it to me like this: if the dung beetle moves, it’s because someone has moved it. And when he moves, so too does the rabbit. And then the eagle. It never ends.” He let go of her shoe, blew a breath into his hands, opened it again as if releasing a butterfly. “Listen, little bird. The wisdom of Coyote isn’t straightforward. He’s tricky.” He reached for her hand, inspected her thumb. “This bite, he’s telling you something.” He lugged her back over his shoulders, and added, “If a small set of insect wings could change the world’s world, imagine what Coyote’s bite could do.”