Trinity Sight

by Jennifer Givhan

  “Yes, chica. It was fairly violent and depressing. You want us to crush our bones and fall off cliffs.”

  “You didn’t listen.”

  “Come here,” Calliope said. “Let me see your thumb.” It had been bleeding steadily in the snow, dripping red into the ice. But now the white cloth wrapped around her skin was just that: white. Calliope unbandaged the thumb, gasped, “I don’t understand.” She turned the girl’s hand over in her palm, examining it as if it were a specimen in the lab. “Where …?”

  “What’s wrong, mujer?”

  “Her bite … the wound …” Calliope turned the pallid little hand over, back and forth as if she were making masa for a tortilla, searching for a slit, a scar, anything. “It’s gone.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE (QUANTUM) SUICIDE

  People disappeared. Cities disappeared. Wounds disappeared. Even scars.

  “None of this makes sense,” Calliope lamented. Night had fallen and the wind rattled through the bare bones of the trees surrounding the cabin, branches scratching against rooftop, fraying Calliope to ragged, exposed nerves. She’d made Eunjoo a sandwich, the little girl happily eating at the table, playing once more with the salt and pepper shaker figurines as if she hadn’t just nearly died in the snow, told Calliope a coyote had spoken to her, then miraculously healed right before Calliope’s eyes. Mother would’ve loved this story, attributing it all to Jesus and making the sign of the cross. What would Bisabuela have said?

  Chance said, “Mujer, at the fundamental particle level, reality is fuzzy. It’s the uncertainty principle. We can never see simultaneously both the position of a particle and its momentum. Can never see, for instance, light as both wave and particle at once. We look away and when we look back can never know which it will be. We live in a world that wants to pin reality down. Quantum science tells us there is no pinning reality.”

  “Like I said, I’ve seen it before,” Mara said, loading her rifle, pointing the muzzle away from the kitchen table, pulling back the bolt, and inserting the shells.

  “Do you have to load that thing in here?” Calliope couldn’t shake the bitterness from her voice. She’d put Eunjoo in harm’s way enough times already. She couldn’t let the girl get accidentally shot by this trigger-happy woman set on revenge. She wouldn’t let guns in the house after the story of the rifle that went off through a window and shot and killed a girl across the street, most likely a malfunction from the cold weather that had set the trigger off even with the safety on.

  “I know what I’m doing, honey. Been hunting with these rifles nearly fifty years.”

  Calliope sighed exaggeratedly, turned away. Outside, the sky was new. The stars shone impossibly bright. The cottonwoods closest to the cabin rustled in the wind, a wind-dance. She imagined them playing flutes of wind. An incantation. “Okay then, Mara. Tell me what happened when you were a little girl. Seems this is the night of stories.”

  “There’s not much more to tell, sweetheart. Chaiwa, my nanny from San Ildefonso, was my everything. A better mother than my mother. But after Trinity Site, she disappeared.”

  Shadows bulged across the bosque outside Tía’s window as the moon slipped in and out of clouds, snow hovering on the branches like white balloons floating in the darkness.

  “What happened after Chaiwa disappeared?” Calliope asked.

  Mara sighed. “Nothing. We never saw her again. My mother went crazy and my father was discharged and we left.”

  Calliope turned from the window toward Mara. “There has to be more to the story.”

  “It was Lizard’s Tail, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t understand it, but I think she made herself disappear.”

  “Not witchcraft?” Chance asked.

  Mara shook her head emphatically. “No.”

  “Lord, y’all plain crazy, that’s what I think, that’s just crazy talk,” Buick said, his Southern geniality cracking, his voice rising an octave. He shook his head emphatically, dipped the butter knife into the jelly jar, and slathered it thickly onto the last piece of bread in the bag. “Guess I must be crazy too.” He rolled his bread into a jelly doughnut and stuffed it into his mouth.

  “Maybe we are crazy, honey,” Mara said. “But if Trudy disappeared the way Chaiwa did, then I need to talk to your Elders, Chance. Find out if there’s any way to bring her back.”

  “My people go to Kothluwala’wa when they die. Join with the Spirits. I’ve never heard of leaving for that place early. But it’s worth a shot asking, I guess. There’s lots I don’t know. Believe me.”

  “Oh, I do believe you,” Buick said, licking the jelly from the butter knife as if it were a spoon. “I believe none of y’all know what’s going on, ’cause we’re in the Twilight Zone, that’s why.”

  Eunjoo said adamantly, “Coyote told us the answer. You’re just not listening.”

  “This conversation has officially derailed somewhere in the rugged tundra of Siberia and is now skidding across the ice in concentric circles,” Calliope said. She squeezed Eunjoo’s shoulder. “Come on, chica. Bedtime.”

  “But I slept all evening.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “Coyote’s.”

  “Nice try. Let’s go.”

  She glanced one last time out the window, unable to shake the feeling someone was watching. These stories were giving her the creeps, was all. Eunjoo’s birds from the story killing Coyote and the dead crow flown into the bathroom window. Or maybe the coyote had come looking for Eunjoo—not to tell her stories, but to make her his meal.

  She pulled the girl close, steered her toward Tía’s room.

  Before she reached the hallway, there was a knock at the front door.

  She froze.

  “Who’s that?” Eunjoo asked.

  “I have no idea,” Calliope said, her heart racing. She couldn’t dare think it was Andres and Phoenix, still exhausted from the disappointment turning to grief each time she hoped, as if she were losing them every time it wasn’t them.

  Calliope hadn’t even moved toward the door, and Mara was already poised in the entryway with her rifle aimed. “Wait, Mara. You almost shot us and Buick. Please don’t shoot whoever this is.”

  “Unless it’s the son-uh-bitch killed Loren.”

  Chance and Buick right behind her, Mara walked to the door, peered through the peephole. She called, in the same hoarse voice she’d used with Calliope when they’d first arrived, “Who’s there?”

  Half expecting Eunjoo’s demon Suuke or Coyote to come strutting through the door dragging their shattered limbs behind, Calliope breathed out when she heard the young woman’s voice.

  “It’s Amy. Denver?”

  As if they’d forgotten her.

  Calliope smiled wide, let go of Eunjoo and rushed over, stepping in front of Mara and her gun, forgetting for a moment how angry she was, thinking only how good it was to hear that voice, the first voice of reason after the light on the bridge, and she unlatched and flung open the front door, to face the mentirosa who had flown away in their only vehicle by her damn self.

  “Amy.” Calliope embraced the white girl. She wore the same army boots, skinny jeans, white tank top, and leather jacket she’d worn before and smelled of rotten garbage, a sack of moldy onions. She was shivering, her thin body a freezer pop. But it felt good to hug her. “What the hell happened? After you left us? Why’d you leave us?” Calliope clutched Amy’s shoulders, pulled away so they were face-to-face. Amy’s was scratched and bruised, her lip cut and bleeding and swollen. “Oh my God, what happened? Come in, hurry.”

  Amy’s eyes were red, brimming with tears. Calliope scooted her through the doorway, shut the door, and Amy turned around, wiping her eyes, a bittersweet smile quivering across her face. “You found your family,” she said. “Calliope, I’m so happy for you.”

  Calliope’s eyes da
rted from Amy’s to the group gathered in the living room, confused a brief moment. Then she realized. “Oh, Amy. You didn’t find yours?”

  Amy’s tears were streaming down her face now, plopping onto her tank top.

  Calliope took her hand and squeezed it, hugged her again. “No, amiga. These are Mara and Buick. They’re friends. I haven’t found my family yet either.”

  Amy’s tough bravado had vanished. Whatever had happened had changed her. She said, “I’m sorry I left you.”

  “I know.”

  Calliope introduced her properly, explaining how Amy had saved them, flown them away from the Suuke. She left out the part about the mentirosa stealing the plane and leaving them stranded.

  “Another survivor,” Buick said. “Safety in numbers.” He had jelly on his chin.

  “Wait, how’d you find us?”

  “You told me you were going to Silver City. I figured you’d get here all right with Chance.”

  Calliope pursed her lips. She could’ve gotten to Tía’s without Chance. Is that what everyone thought of her? That she was a helpless pregnant woman who needed a man to survive? She let it go, asked instead, “How’d you find my tía’s?”

  “Yellow pages and a map, in town.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s running water here.”

  “How?”

  “Tía’s is a genuine sanctuary, Amy. You’ll see. Go shower, eat something. I need to get Eunjoo to bed. Wait till I tell you what we’ve been through here, what this little girl has been up to. And I want to hear about your journey.”

  Amy laughed in her crumpled-bag kind of way, her smile lopsided. “Sounds good, momma.”

  Calliope didn’t bristle this time. In fact, she was relieved to hear it.

  * * * *

  Calliope lifted Eunjoo’s sweatshirt over the girl’s head. “Get in the shower, chica. I’ll get clothes.” She dug through Phoenix’s backpack: her son’s clothes. She pressed them to her face, breathed in, hoping his scent might have lingered, though she knew it was impossible. These were clean—they smelled of laundry detergent. Shower water jetting behind her like rainwater on pebbles, Calliope reached into the bottom of the bag for a clean pair of her son’s chonies and felt instead a piece of paper.

  A piece of eggshell-colored stationary, which she unfolded. It was Susana’s letterhead, a letter, inked in Susana’s hand.

  Calliope was trembling.

  When had she written it? It must’ve been old, right? A letter she’d written Calliope months before, that Phoenix had stuffed in there. She’d probably already read it.

  Or Eunjoo had picked it up from the table at Susana’s. A grocery list, a list of sites to explore. Directions. It couldn’t have been anything else.

  She was afraid to read it. The words swirled black ink across the page, hazy, unfocused.

  Eunjoo was singing now, from the shower, her bird’s voice rasping a tune Calliope vaguely recognized as a pop song from the radio.

  She breathed deeply, read the first line:

  Calliope, mija—

  It was as if the paper had seared her hand, she dropped it to the bathroom tile. It couldn’t have been a recent note. This had to be old. They had been comadres, colleagues. Susana must have written it and forgotten to give it to Calliope, before the world broke apart. It was a coincidence. Eunjoo had picked up a harmless piece of paper from the table. Coincidence Eunjoo had been carrying a letter from Susana to Calliope this whole time.

  A clock picked up and jostled, hands frozen at the time of death, that was all.

  She retrieved the letter from the tile, began again:

  Calliope, mija—

  She turned to stone.

  I swear I’m not crazy, I’m not—

  How will I return to her, ama? Dust. Ash.

  Hold yours tight.

  (She’s in my hand, this rock. Entiendes?)

  Ten cuidado. Me voy al otro lado,

  Susana

  Calliope sucked in the air around her. It wasn’t enough air. She couldn’t breathe. She pressed the letter to her chest, willed her lungs to expand.

  “Eunjoo?”

  The singing stopped.

  “Eunjoo,” her voice harsh, scolding.

  The girl peeked her head from behind the shower curtain.

  “Did you see where this letter came from? Did you see how it got into the backpack?”

  Eunjoo’s gaze darted to the letter, then briefly, fearfully at Calliope, then back to the tile. She said nothing.

  “Did you put it there?”

  Eunjoo stared at the floor.

  “Did Susana say something to you? Did you talk to her?”

  Eunjoo shook her head.

  Calliope’s voice caught in her throat, she whispered, “Please.”

  The water streamed behind the curtain. Eunjoo said, her voice small, “It was on the table.”

  When? How? She thought back.

  There hadn’t been time.

  Susana had been scribbling into the dirt when Calliope pulled up to the house; she’d still been there, a statue on the ground, when she’d gone inside, changed Eunjoo, gone back to the car. Then she was gone.

  But not to the house to write a note. How could Susana have written a note? She was catatonic. She was singing pío pío pío.

  Then she was dead. In the barn. There’d been no time.

  Unless she’d written the note before Calliope even arrived.

  And Calliope had missed it. She’d missed it. How had she missed it?

  She could’ve saved her friend. Susana, why?

  “Why didn’t you give it to me?”

  The water running down Eunjoo’s face, she looked scared.

  “Why?” Calliope repeated, forcefully.

  “I didn’t want to make you sad.”

  Calliope sucked in her breath.

  It didn’t make sense. She looked at the letter.

  She looked at the girl.

  Eunjoo said nothing.

  The shower poured.

  “Turn the water off, chica.”

  Grasping the sink, she heaved herself up. Left the backpack on the floor.

  Curled onto her tía’s bed, clutching Susana’s suicide letter. Numb.

  And powerless to change one goddamned thing.

  TWENTY-THREE

  SHIFT

  Calliope’s mother had a dicho, a saying: Ahogado el niño, tapando el pozo. After the child drowns, close the well. Or, it’s wisest to prevent tragedy before it happens.

  Eunjoo was screaming from the bathroom. A heavy pounding against a wall, glass breaking from somewhere in the living room or kitchen. Sharp cracking booms of rifle fire. Firecracking of a pistol. The chaos too much to absorb, Calliope focused on only one thing. Eunjoo was screaming.

  Calliope ran to the bathroom, stuffing the letter into her shirt as she ran. At the frosted glass of the window, where she’d witnessed a crow break its neck that morning, the leering black and white spotted face she’d wanted to believe a delusion, stared back at her with protruding, toad-like eyes. Its white hair long and jetting in the wind, as if wind-shoved into the window, flattening its ghastly face against the glass. Coiled around its neck, a moss-green snake. The Suuke’s eyes darted toward Calliope frozen in the bathroom doorway, inches from a half-dressed Eunjoo squatting petrified on the bathroom rug beside the backpack. The girl had stopped screaming and they both stared at the demon from Eunjoo’s Coyote story, gripped, unmoving. The glint of a knife broke Calliope’s trance. The Suuke scraped the curved machete blade against the window like an icepick, pounding into the thick, knobbed handle, and the glass began to crackle. She grabbed the girl, turned the lock on the handle with shaky hands, for the few seconds it might buy them, and slammed the door shut.

>   In the hallway, Calliope lifted the barefoot girl and propped her on her belly, then ran to Chance beside the fireplace, his rifle aimed at the shattered glass of the blown-out vaulted windows facing the backyard, a breach in the whole wall. Semicircle around him throughout the living room and kitchen, a grim mise-en-scène: Amy with Susana’s gun, Mara with her rifle, and Buick with a butcher knife from Tía’s drawer, all intent on the gaping aperture where the window had ruptured, and where, outside the frame on the snowscaped vegetable garden, the second Suuke kneeled, hunched over, head bowed as if in prayer.

  Was it hurt? There was no blood. Only white snow surrounding. What was it waiting for?

  Chance steadied his gaze on the kneeling Suuke, whispered slantwise to Calliope, “Mujer, get back in the bedroom, lock the door.”

  Calliope whispered, “There’s another Suuke back there.”

  He jerked his head to the side, looked at her, his eyes twitching nervously, belying his otherwise stoic composure. He flashed a covert gaze toward the front door, and she calculated silently with him how long it would take her to get there.

  His lips sealed tight as a ventriloquist’s, he whispered, “There’s a truck where the old man was buried. Key’s in the ignition.”

  She glanced back at the Suuke, its head bowed.

  “Why isn’t it moving?” she asked

  “I don’t know. Can you carry the girl?”

  Calliope nodded, despite the painful weight compressing her lower back and belly; she struggled to keep from careening forward, her center of gravity askew.

  She glanced at Amy, still in her tank top and leather jacket, caught her attention and nodded toward the front door, mouthed, There are two, held up two fingers, One back there, and extended her arm toward the bedroom. We have to get out. The truck.

  Amy nodded.

  There should have been pounding from the locked bedroom door. If the first Suuke was in there.

  The second Suuke looked up, its bulging eyes casting a fire-bright target on Calliope. This one had no snake around its neck but black crow feathers darting from its neck like a choker of arrows. It carried a bow, pressed now against the ground in reprieve. A ceasefire. For how long? A basket strung over its shoulder like the old woman in Calliope’s dream who had carried Eunjoo away. Calliope shuddered. Chance had called the Suuke a pair of bogeypeople, disciplinarians. What reason had anyone in this room given the creatures to discipline? What rules had been broken?