Chance was the one who had killed the Suuke’s partner, not Calliope. It had been Chance holding the other Suuke’s dagger. Chance who had sliced into the Suuke’s skin.
“Stay here.” She ran to the back of the truck, her mind racing. The sun barreled down from the center of the sky; sweat beaded her skin. She had no idea how she could do this.
She lifted the tarp, and from beside Amy’s rock, she grabbed the long, machete-like knife that Amy had picked up from the snow and thrown there just in case.
The scarred Suuke clenched both men in the air from their necks like kittens by the scruff. He would choke them to death. Chance was kicking wildly, struggling to get free, his face reddening.
Calliope gripped the dagger in front of her body and barreled forward, running as hard as she could, pointing the blade straight for the Suuke’s ribcage.
The Suuke threw Chance to the ground.
It grasped Arlen with both hands.
Chance’s body lay on the dirt between her and the Suuke.
She cried out.
He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.
Chance gasped for air, rolled onto his side, reaching for his gun.
He was safe.
She slowed. Arlen choked out, “Help me, brother.”
Calliope called, “Chance, let’s go.” They should grab the rocks and run back to the portal. Leave Arlen to the Suuke. That’s what he’d wanted, right? For them to leave the demon/god alone? Maybe the Suuke hadn’t been after them. The bones in Room 33, the bones of the elite, the rulers of the people, religious leaders who’d held the knowledge of crossing worlds. Maybe the Suuke had been protecting that knowledge. Had been protecting the portal. Maybe the Suuke was the guardian.
Chance turned toward Calliope, briefly. Then jumped onto the Suuke’s back.
What was he doing? Trying to save Arlen? Or the Suuke?
Calliope no longer had a clear path to the Suuke because Chance was in the way.
She grasped the dagger, searching the Suuke’s massive black-and-white body for a vulnerable spot. How could she stab it without risking Chance?
She could throw him the dagger. Would he kill it again? This time for good.
From around the front of the truck, Coyote sprung at the Suuke’s face, attacking.
Calliope stood dumbstruck for a split second. Eunjoo had been calling Coyote.
Its face bloody, the Suuke’s hands went to Coyote.
Chance and Arlen fell to the ground.
The Suuke flailed, and batted Coyote away. The trickster animal fell to the ground on its side, emitting a grave howl.
This was her opportunity.
She lunged.
With all the force of her body, with the force of the Ancients and the Ancients holding her tight, she sliced into the Suuke’s flesh, she sliced with one fell swoop and severed its head from its body. Like the bodies in Room 33, the skull fell away from the bones, head and body separated on the sand. Centuries from now, in this world or hers, would someone find this tusked jawbone buried under silt? Would they know what had happened? Who had left it thus? She was part of the story. Not only a historian, a pregnant woman, a mother. She was a warrior. A demon slayer. She dropped the dagger, keeled forward, her head between her thighs, heaving. She’d finished it.
She couldn’t believe it.
She’d saved them.
She, not Chance, had killed the Suuke.
And Chance was free.
She looked up, where Chance was kneeling on the ground. He nodded at her, his expression still stoic though not quite as inscrutable. She’d done well.
Chance pulled himself up, reached to help Arlen, still lying on his stomach.
Arlen did not reach back. “Just go.” He breathed quietly. “Brother.”
They ran to the truck, grabbed the rocks. The sun was high in the sky, hovering directly above them. Was it noon? Had they missed it? Her heart pounding, they sprinted to the doorway of the Great House.
Mara handed back the corn girl. Calliope held the rock baby under one arm, the corn girl in the other.
Holding Amy’s rock, Eunjoo nodded toward the doorway, said, “I told you he would come.”
Calliope turned, and there was Coyote, haunching on the wall surrounding Pueblo Bonito, dignified, waiting.
“You told me, chica.” She kissed the girl’s forehead. “Let’s hurry.”
Dr. Toya led the way as they rushed through the dark corridors, stumbling through doorways, deeper and deeper into the heart, toward Room 33. The skylight from the apex of the moon was now glowing otherworldly, illuminating all the passageways.
They were so close. On the other side of that light—was Phoenix. And the rest of her family. She could feel it. She could feel them.
That shock of light. Unbelievable light.
She grasped the rock baby.
Room 33.
The cicadas buzzing in her ears. A windstorm. Bisabuela’s voice.
The others in front of her, holding their grave goods.
Chance behind her.
She turned.
“Chance?” Her throat filled with cotton, tears prickled at her eyes.
There was no turquoise around his neck. No turquoise on his wrist. He held no stone.
He’d buried his precious ones at Old Lady Salt’s sacred lake.
He’d buried them, for her.
He was so close she could touch him. His hand on the small of her back.
He nodded toward the light. “Go ahead, mujer. There is home. There is your family.”
“Chance?” The tears were spilling down her face. “Where’s your rock?”
He reached for her, pulled her close to him.
She leaned into his body.
His rocks were dancing at the bottom of a lake. They were in the dancehall of the dead, waiting for him.
She’d known that all along, hadn’t she?
He kissed her forehead. “I’m right behind you, mujer. Tell Miwe e’le my story. Our story.” He held her tight, then let her go.
She nodded, stepped back, into the doorway of Room 33. Into the light.
Into Phoenix and her family and grasping her corn girl and her rock baby with all her strength, she closed her eyes.
A pulling in, taking back, reclaiming something stolen.
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE ANCIENT CHORUS
She opened her eyes.
The sky gray and overcast, she stood upon the packed-dirt earth, crumbled with sandstone pieces, in the ruins of Chaco Canyon, the walls mostly eaten by time and elements.
A drizzle of rain blanketed her hair and face like a rebozo.
In her arms, the corn girl, sucking her fist—and her rock baby, now a flesh-and-blood girl, identical to her sister, save a pudgy fist curled up to her chin instead of in her mouth. Calliope kissed both girls.
Mara was laughing. “Holy hell! What a ride! We made it through. We did it, honey. We did it!”
She was hugging Calliope.
Eunjoo too was laughing.
And Dr. Toya.
Calliope looked back to Eunjoo.
She was hugging a woman, her colorful sleeve tattoos and white tank top, army boots, and a black leather jacket tied around her waist.
She had a scar at the center of her throat. Same as the Suuke.
“What the fuck just happened? I had the craziest dream that that goddamn monster got me.”
Calliope, laugh-crying, threw herself, babies and all, at Amy. “You’re alive.”
“Bet your ass I’m alive, momma.” She looked down. “Hey, where’d these little cabbage patches come from?”
* * * *
The others were gathering at the truck as the raindrops fell fatter and wetter. Calliope handed Mara the babies. “I’ll be
right there.”
“You’re getting soaked, honey.”
“I just have to say goodbye.”
Mara nodded.
Calliope walked back toward the mesa. The only rock standing in the canyon. The flat-topped mountain rock jutting up from the canyon. The mesa was not ruined.
Was Chance staring at the same? Their maps linked, side by side. Close enough to touch.
Bisabuela’s voice shifted the wind.
If Calliope had known what would happen, would she have stayed?
She could have saved Susana. Could have brought her back to Reina.
And Buick. She’d left his body. She hadn’t waited long enough to find out if either he or Susana had transformed. Were they waiting, in another world, for someone to carry them home?
Cicadas buzzing, Bisabuela’s voice in her ear. Don’t ever worry the stories are not real, mija. You are the stories. She was the motherwoman who gave birth to twins, one a rock, to travel through worlds—who carried the key between cosmos in her very belly. Si no puedes creer, entonces recuerda.
Remember. She’d helped create those cosmos. The stories were messages to other times, other worlds—the stories were messages home.
Calliope was a message home.
She grasped the Coyote around her neck, the cottonwood Chance had carved for her. It was smooth and cold. She looked down. It had turned to stone.
* * * *
As daylight dimmed and streetlights gleamed, the women pulled into Calliope’s driveway. Amy had caught a bus down to Cruces. Dr. Toya had already made her way to Sky City.
“That was quite an adventure, wasn’t it?” Mara said, setting the truck in park.
Calliope chuckled wryly. “Sure was.”
“You know, hun, I saw the Lizard’s Tail three times. First, with Chaiwa up in Los Alamos when I was a girl and that damned bomb in the sand set everything reeling. Then twice I’ve walked through worlds myself—with you.”
Calliope smiled and hugged Mara, said, “Go find my Tía. Tell her I’ll be down there soon.”
Calliope met Eunjoo on the side of the truck. “I couldn’t have done this without you, chica. You know that. You and Coyote.”
She kissed the top of Eunjoo’s head, her black braids shining under the streetlamp.
“You’re a good mama, Phoenix’s mama.”
Calliope nodded, tears prickling again. “Go home now, Coyote girl.”
At the neighbor’s door, Eunjoo rang the bell. Calliope worried briefly the girl’s parents would think she’d kidnapped her after all this time. Yet she had faith the Ancestors would work it out. She turned toward her corn girl and rock baby now flesh-and-blood girl as Eunjoo’s mother answered, shrieking her shock and relief, hugging her daughter, risen from the dead.
Calliope’s heart fluttering, a wild bird thrumming, she took her twins from the corn girl’s booster seat, gave Mara one last hug, then headed away from the truck, up her own front walkway.
She took a deep breath.
She still had work to do. Her old life wasn’t hers anymore. She had joined the stories, the ancient choir of rocks, and she must sing their history, the stories of the Ancestors.
But first, she had to open the door.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Iam indebted to Barbara Tedlock for her ethnographic memoir The Beautiful and the Dangerous (UNM Press, 2001), which recounts her experiences living with the Zuni people for over twenty years with her husband, Dennis Tedlock. Tedlock’s memoir proved invaluable as I researched, and the Zuni phrase “Ulohnan uteya k’ohanna pottiye” and its English translation are taken from Tedlock’s book, as are many of the Zuni words and phrasings.
I am likewise grateful for the Zuni people’s own accounts, such as those found in Virgil Wyaco’s A Zuni Life: A Pueblo Indian in Two Worlds (UNM Press, 1998), as well as conversations I’ve had the honor of participating in with tribal members on the reservation, at Zuni Pueblo Main Street, the Inn at Halona, the Ashiwi Awan Museum & Heritage Center, and elsewhere in Zuni and across New Mexico. I am so thankful for your insights.
The stories recorded in Frank Hamilton Cushing’s Zuñi Folk Tales (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, the Knickerbocker Press, 1901) proved vital to my quest for the Ancients, and many of the Coyote tales of my fictionalized novel are adapted from sacred tales that Cushing recorded, specifically: “The Coyote Who Killed the Demon Síuiuki: or Why Coyotes Run Their Noses into Deadfalls.”
The Solstice Project’s documentary “The Mystery of Chaco Canyon: Unveiling the Ancient Astronomy of the Southwestern Pueblo Indians” (Bullfrog Films, 1999), directed by Anna Sofaer, likewise provided much original inspiration for my story.
Countless other anthropological accounts of Paleo-Indian and indigenous myths have gone into the creation of the worlds and characters this book imagines. I am indebted to archaeological and environmental field research conducted by Colorado College and the University of New Mexico, which is available online. And I’m thankful for my own hometown’s wonderful library system, including the Taylor Ranch Library branch down the Boca Negra hill, which I frequent with my armfuls of books.
My love and gratitude always for my own bisabuela, Great-Grandma Veronica Martinez Lopez, for passing down the stories and taking care of me. My uncle, Dr. Ralph Casas, for researching the genealogy of our Laguna Pueblo roots, and my Auntie Laura for opening her hacienda to me. My whole Casas familia for taking us all to Las Cruces and the graveyard of our ancestors, and that lightning storm in White Sands, Grandma Linda rolling down the hills, all of us cousins learning that laughter and family are medicine. And always, my mom, Dr. Suzanne Casas Boese, for bringing me home to New Mexico, and for staying beside me every step of the way. Mi familia, you light my path. To the indigenous peoples of today and all our yesterdays, mil gracias.
This book has been a family endeavor from the very beginning. My mom for reading draft after draft, for nearly passing out with me at Starbucks from our twilight excursions and NaNoWriMo shenanigans, and for gamboling with the Suuke and me. Your laughter lights my path.
My Grandma Marge, fellow writer, lifetime mentor, whose courage, intelligence, grace, and generosity teach me again and again. I love you forever, Grandma. Thank you for keeping all my books on your shelf.
My partner, Andrew, for visiting every historic and archaeological site in New Mexico with me and our little wolf pack, howling at solstice moons, rolling down the White Sand hills, hunkering in a Los Alamos bomb shelter, watching and discussing every episode of Through the Wormhole multiple times, in all the bubble universes, and acting out action scenes with me so I could cross the arroyos and slay the beasts. I love you, my copilot on this endless adventure.
My daughter, Lina, for gladly climbing aboard my back or belly so I could run around the house feeling out just how a pregnant mama would have carried a girlchild through the desert. I’ll carry you, always. And for lending Eunjoo your beautiful bird-squeak voice.
And my son, Jeremiah, for thinking through parallel worlds with me—your knowledge of deep story from superhero movies does my writer-mama heart good. And for lending Phoenix your backpack full of wonder. There are no worlds I wouldn’t cross for you, my children.
Thank you all those loves and dear ones who read and offered insights. My mentor Lynn Hightower, who believed in the story from the onset. And who fell in love with Chance, as I did. For editor extraordinaire, Toni Kirkpatrick, for your inspiring, incisive feedback. For my Albuquerque bestie, sci-fi/magical real wonder, Jennifer Krohn Bourgeois, for our coffee dates, for introducing me to rumballs!, and for our smartypants everything-literary chats. You’ve been such a compass, such a lighthouse. Thank you. Dear UNM poeta, fellow California/New Mexico hybrid, Melisa Garcia, for your attention to Bisabuela’s words, to making sure my acentos were on point! I am grateful for you. My dear poeta friend, Sherine Gilmour, who offered a heartful of e
dits and those fancy, flaming NY chocolates! My high school friend Nicole Ward, for believing in me all this time. Ann Sargent, who carried what Calliope carried and shared your story with me. My sister friend, Avra Elliott, for writing magic in the desert with me, for casting spells with me, for understanding me. My PFF, Alicia Elkort, for envisioning the strongest, most spitfire women and girls, and for being the sharpest editor I could hope for, the dearest friend—love you forever. My lovebug poeta, Stephanie Bryant Anderson, for the daily emotional support—I love you, woman. Fellow Wally poet Kerrin McCadden, for introducing me to your generous, know-how husband Cliff Coy, who schooled me on all things planes. Sci-fi poeta/novelist & Binder mama I adore, LaToya Jordan, for your always-helpful feedback. Dear poeta, Aurora Lewis, for encouraging exchanges. For all my friends and loves in Facebook Land who shared knowledge and joy with me—and taco memes. My dear magical poet, Stacey Balkun, for all the domestic fabulism and world-building and craft. You rock. Tarot-reader of light, Eileen Murphy, for your friendship and support. Bordista sistas Lauren Marie Fleming and Jessenia Chena Lua, fellow Imperial Valley survivors, dear writer loves who believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. My friend Leslie Contreras Schwartz for support, solidarity, and love.
All the gratitude for my dream agent, Laura Blake Peterson. Your staunch belief in Calliope’s story, and all my stories to come, has made my dreams come true. I’m so thankful for your savvy support. My wonderfully supportive Blackstone Press editor, Vikki Warner. #TeamCalliope! I appreciate our shared vision of strong women doing badass things in the world. The whole Blackstone team has been amazing and I couldn’t ask for a better crew on Calliope’s journey! And Megan Tripp for pulling Calliope up from the slush pile. Thank you forever. For my dear editor, Peggy Hageman, whose patient incisions and astute sutures helped me see the story anew. And for Ember Hood, wonder editor, catcher of things great and small!
Finally, for my first writing teacher, true believer in love and light and following our dreams wherever they take us, even if they return us to the beginning—Irena Praitis. I carry your wisdom always.
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