Apparently, the burial mound wasn’t evidence enough for Chance either. He asked, “Where’s your shovel?”

“Back at Trudy’s.”

“Let’s get it. Mujer, you two should get inside. It’s freezing. I’ll investigate, make sure her story checks out.”

A stubborn refusal coursed through Calliope. She needed to see the body. Needed to confirm it wasn’t anyone she loved. She felt callous hoping the dead man was Loren.

“We’ll wait out here for you,” Calliope said.

Chance shook his head, as if he’d already realized in the nearly forty-­eight hours he’d spent with Calliope there was no reasoning with her once she’d made up her mind, and he led Mara back the way they’d come.

Alone with Eunjoo, the two stood facing the snowy mound, funereal.

Eunjoo said, “It’s not Phoenix.”

Calliope dropped the girl’s hand as if it’d burned her. She turned and faced the girl, whose moon face gleamed bright against the snow, her cheeks pink with cold. “What makes you so sure?”

“I told you. I’ve seen things.”

“Those are dreams, chica. Not real.”

“If they are dreams, then we’re in the dreams.”

Calliope’s legs spindly, paper-thin, she knelt beside the girl, the ice prickling into the knees of her sweatpants, stinging her skin. “If this were a dream, would my gut ache this way? Would I be so scared and hungry and feel like I’m dying? Aren’t you cold, baby? You wouldn’t realize how cold you were, if we were dreaming. You’d be able to fly, or build a fire in your hands. You know? Magic. There’s magic in dreams, and we never realize how bad things are.” Calliope wiped her eyes on the back of her palm; she hadn’t meant to cry, to come across so harshly. But she was tired of thinking they were dead or dreaming. Her boy was missing. She should have found him by now, and she was failing him every second she was not looking. She didn’t have time for dreams.

“Don’t cry, Phoenix’s mama. Phoenix isn’t in the ground. You need the rock to find him. That’s why you haven’t found him yet. But you will.”

Calliope’s tears turned exasperated. She resisted the urge to shake the girl, tell her to wake up. “There are rocks everywhere, chica. Look around. We’re in the desert. Rocks aren’t going to help me find my son.” Her voice rose hysterically. She put her face in her hands and breathed deeply. The girl patted Calliope’s shoulder, as if she were the mother figure and not the other way around. Calliope felt ridiculous. She measured her tone. “Can you please drop this dream thing? I can’t take it.”

The girl nodded, her eyes bright with the unsaid. But Calliope didn’t want to hear it.