"I don't think it would work," Grandmother said. "Do you, Chickadee?"
Chickadee shook her head once, silent
"It would be dark there now, and empty, and fleas... You got outside your people's time, into our place; but I think that Coyote was taking you back, see. Her way. If you go back now, you can still live with them. Isn't your father there?"
The child nodded.
"They've been looking for you."
"They have?"
"Oh, yes, ever since you fell out of the sky. The man was dead, but you weren't there—they kept looking."
"Serves him right Serves them all right," the child said. She put her hands up over her face and began to cry terribly, without tears.
"Go on, little one, Granddaughter," Spider said. "Don't be afraid. You can live well there. I'll be there too, you know. In your dreams, in your ideas, in dark comers in the basement. Don't kill me, or I'll make it rain..."
"I'll come around," Chickadee said. "Make gardens for me."
The child held her breath and clenched her hands until her sobs stopped and let her speak
"Will I ever see Coyote?"
"I don't know," the Grandmother replied.
The child accepted this. She said, after another silence, "Can I keep my eye?"
"Yes. You can keep your eye."
"Thank you, Grandmother," the child said. She turned away then and started up the night slope towards the next day. Ahead of her in the air of dawn for a long way a little bird flew, black-capped, light-winged.