Calliope’s stomach knotted. She wanted to say again, People don’t just disappear, but the words felt as useless as a parrot’s mocking singsong atop a shoulder. She thought of Bisabuela in the hangar. What was Mara saying, that her family had vanished ? She’d never see them again? It was ludicrous. It was insane. She sat upright, peeled Eunjoo from her lap, and waddled off the couch, her legs pins and needles from sleeping under the girl on the couch all night.

In the bathroom, she turned on the faucet out of habit and startled when she realized water was streaming. For a brief moment, she took the water as sign that things had returned to normal in the outside world—but then she remembered Tía’s land had its own water reserve, its own underground tunnels and pumps, that didn’t rely on the town, one reason of the many she and Andres had chosen this place as refuge in the crisis they foresaw. But they never foresaw this.

She splashed cold water on her face several times, stared at her reflection, pink from yesterday’s trek through the snow and the sunrise-pink light filtering through the undraped window. Her honey-colored eyes glowed in the new light, and she felt angry at her own hopeful visage. Her belly aching, she cupped water in her hands and drank it down in gulps; she was dehydrated, and couldn’t risk inducing early labor, disaster atop ruin. She stared out the window at the rising sun. Today was a Monday. Today she should have gotten dressed and gone to her weekly ob-gyn appointment. She should have been listening to her babies’ heartbeats. Twins were usually born early, at thirty-six weeks. She’d almost reached thirty-two. The doctor had wanted her to schedule a C-section, but healing after Phoenix’s had been agonizing. She’d been bedbound, her stomach and uterus on fire for weeks. She wanted a vaginal birth. Today the doctor would have made sure that was still possible. The twins hadn’t kicked all morning. She pressed against her rigid belly, whispered, You both safe in there? She had to keep them inside her if not the full month they still needed, at least until she had found—

In her dream, Phoenix was stoning her. The anger she felt, she’d seen that on his face. Was he scared, wherever he was? Were Andres and her mother with him?

Vanished. What did that even mean? Vanished where?