“Oh, well, Chaiwa talked about Lizard all the time. She taught me lizards are associated with dreamtime. When we dream, we imagine different futures and decide which we’ll manifest. Lizard can break off her tail to escape predators, the tail left behind writhing, to take the predator’s attention off Lizard so she can flee. Lizard can only perform this feat once in her life, since the new tail is made of cartilage and not vertebrae. So even though she’s powerful and can rescue herself from danger by leaving part of herself behind, she has to be wise about her choice, her once-in-a-lifetime chance to flee.”

Calliope couldn’t stand it; she opened her eyes. “It’s just a metaphor.” Her voice cracked, her mouth still gluey with sleep paste. “It’s stories people tell to make sense of their world, their perceived chaos. It’s not real. It’s symbol.”

“Sweetheart,” Mara said, “I don’t think it is a metaphor. I didn’t want to believe this had anything to do with what I saw when I was a child up at Los Alamos, but I can’t deny it now. Not with what I’ve seen, what Chance tells me you’ve all been through.”

“What happened when you were a child, then? What do you think is happening?” Calliope hadn’t intended the boiling pitch in her voice, but she was angry. It wasn’t fair to think of Mara as a stranger. Yet Calliope felt alone amongst strangers.

“They accused Chaiwa of witchcraft. Mother went crazy. Dad was discharged for her unhinged behavior, her erratic ramblings in public and failure to keep the place a secret. I chalked it up to being young and easily influenced. We moved to England, and Mother died shortly after. It ruined our lives.”

“What did?” Calliope pressed.

Mara’s face went ashen, her eyes distant, as if she couldn’t believe she was going to say whatever it was … “People were disappearing.”

Calliope sighed, exasperated. “Mara, I’m sorry about what happened to your family, but don’t people often disappear in the military, during war, et cetera? Government is corrupt. Only now it’s more bald-faced, but the populace is so gullible and forgetful, so wrapped up in cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.” She sighed again, adjusted her position beneath the heat of Eunjoo’s sleeping body. “It’s always been corrupt though.”

“Not kidnapped or murdered, I don’t mean that.”

Chance reached out, touched Mara’s arm. “What do you mean?”

“In front of our eyes. There one minute, gone the next. Vanished.”