Chapter 3: Ghosts of Home

The Albuquerque airport felt like a way station between worlds—too modern for the reservation, too southwestern for Phoenix. Kai stood at the baggage claim, watching families reunite and business travelers check their phones, when he spotted Taza approaching through the crowd.

His cousin had changed in the three years since their last stilted Christmas conversation. The boyish softness was gone entirely now, replaced by the lean, weathered build of a man who worked with his hands. His black hair was longer, pulled back in a traditional style, and there was a new tattoo visible on his forearm—geometric patterns that looked like protection symbols their grandmother might have drawn.

"Kai." Taza's handshake was firm, calloused. "Thanks for coming."

"How's the search going?"

Taza's expression darkened. "Same as always. Lot of activity, not much progress. The FBI sent someone from Albuquerque—Agent Rodriguez. She's competent enough, but she's treating it like a standard missing child case. Asking about custody disputes and sexual predators."

They walked toward the exit in silence that stretched with the weight of shared history. Outside, the New Mexico sun was brilliant and merciless, nothing like the controlled environment of Kai's Phoenix apartment. Taza's truck was a battered Ford that looked like it had survived several decades and countless trips over reservation roads.

"How long has it been since you've been back?" Taza asked as they pulled onto the interstate.

"Christmas, three years ago." Kai watched the landscape roll past—high desert gradually giving way to the familiar red rocks and pine forests of home. "You know how it is."

"No, I don't. Explain it to me."

The edge in Taza's voice made Kai look over. His cousin's hands were tight on the steering wheel, jaw set in a way that suggested carefully controlled anger.

"I built a life somewhere else," Kai said carefully. "That doesn't mean I've forgotten where I come from."

"Doesn't it? When's the last time you called Grandmother? When's the last time you came to a ceremony, participated in anything that connects you to your people?"

"I send money—"

"Money." Taza's laugh was bitter. "You think that's what she needs from you?"

They were getting into dangerous territory, the old wounds that had never quite healed. Kai had heard this argument before—from his parents, from relatives, from the part of his own conscience that whispered in the dark hours of the morning. But he'd made his choice fifteen years ago, walking out of Brave Woman's Grave with his cousin's shoe in his hands and the certainty that staying would destroy him.

"This isn't about me," he said finally. "This is about finding Emma."

Taza nodded, but the tension remained. They drove in silence until the turnoff to the reservation appeared, marked by a simple sign that had been there since Kai was a child. Something twisted in his chest as they passed it—recognition, homecoming, and a deep-seated dread that made his hands shake.

The reservation looked smaller than he remembered, more worn down. The main road was still unpaved in places, and many of the houses needed work their owners couldn't afford. But the mountains remained unchanged, rising like sleeping giants against the endless blue sky. And there, in the distance, the familiar peak that housed Brave Woman's Grave watched over everything with patient malevolence.

"Agent Rodriguez is staying at the tribal offices," Taza said as they passed the small cluster of government buildings that served as the reservation's administrative center. "She wants to talk to you—apparently your name came up in the old case files."

Kai's stomach clenched. "What did she want to know?"

"Everything. About Shadi, about what happened in the cave, about why you left and never came back." Taza glanced over. "I told her you were just a kid then. That trauma affects people differently."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet. She's not stupid, and she's not going to let this drop just because it makes people uncomfortable."

They turned onto the dirt road that led to their grandmother's house, and suddenly Kai was twelve years old again, racing Taza on bikes that were too small, trying to beat the summer thunderstorms home. The house itself was exactly as he remembered—small and sturdy, built by his grandfather's hands decades ago, surrounded by the garden where their grandmother grew traditional medicines and vegetables that somehow thrived in the high desert climate.

She was waiting on the porch as they pulled up, as if she'd known the exact moment they would arrive. At eighty-three, Elena Crow Dog was still formidable—silver hair braided with ribbons, dark eyes that seemed to see through pretense to the truth beneath. She wore a simple dress and a turquoise necklace that caught the afternoon light, but there was nothing simple about the presence she commanded.

"Grandson." Her voice was exactly as he remembered, warm but carrying undertones of ancient authority. "You look thin. And tired."

Kai found himself swept into a hug that smelled of sage and coffee and the indefinable comfort of home. For a moment, he was small again, safe in arms that had bandaged his scrapes and told him stories and promised that everything would be all right.

"I missed you, Grandmother."

"Then why did you stay away so long?" The question was gentle, but it cut deep. "A man who forgets his roots grows weak, like a tree without water."

Before he could answer, she was bustling them inside, pressing coffee and fry bread into their hands with the universal grandmother's certainty that all problems could be improved with food. The house was dim and cool, filled with the accumulated treasures of a long life—family photos, traditional pottery, the loom where she still wove rugs in the old patterns.

"Tell me about Emma," Kai said when they were settled around the kitchen table.

His grandmother's expression grew grave. "Sweet child. Curious, like Shadi was. Her grandmother brought her to summer camp to learn the old ways—beadwork, traditional cooking, the stories that keep us connected to who we are."

"What happened the day she disappeared?"

"The children were learning to make traditional dolls from corn husks. Emma was excited—she'd never done anything like it before. But when the sun began to set and we called everyone in for dinner, she wasn't there."

"Did anyone see where she went?"

"The other children said she'd been talking about the mountain all day, asking questions about the old stories. About the Nimerigar." Grandmother's voice dropped to a whisper on the word, as if speaking it too loudly might draw unwanted attention. "One of the older boys told her about Brave Woman's Grave, probably trying to scare her. But Emma wasn't scared. She was... interested."

Kai's blood chilled. He could picture it perfectly—an eight-year-old girl, bright and curious, hearing the forbidden stories and feeling the same pull that had drawn him and his cousins to that dark place so many years ago. The cave called to certain children, the ones who were brave enough or foolish enough to answer.

"The searchers found tracks leading toward the mountain," Grandmother continued. "Small feet, wearing the tennis shoes her grandmother had bought her for the trip. But the tracks stopped at the tree line, like she just... disappeared."

"And her shoes?"

"At the cave mouth, just like—" Grandmother's voice broke, and she reached out to take Kai's hand in both of hers. Her fingers were papery with age but still strong, still capable of conveying comfort and connection. "I'm sorry, grandson. I know this brings back painful memories."

"It's okay." The lie came easily, practiced over fifteen years of pretending the past didn't matter. "I want to help."

"The FBI agent wants to talk to you this evening," Taza said. "I told her we'd meet her at the tribal offices at six."

Kai nodded, though the thought of discussing Shadi's disappearance with a federal investigator made his chest tight. How could he explain what had really happened in that cave without sounding delusional? How could he make her understand that some mysteries couldn't be solved with forensic science and behavioral profiles?

"There's something else," Grandmother said quietly. "Things have been... strange since Emma disappeared. Animals acting oddly, electronics malfunctioning near the mountain. And people have been hearing things."

"What kind of things?"

"Voices. Children's voices, calling from the woods at night. Mrs. Begay swears she heard her granddaughter laughing outside her window yesterday, but her granddaughter lives in Denver and hasn't been home in months."

The coffee cup trembled in Kai's hands. He set it down carefully, trying to maintain the facade of rationality he'd built his adult life around. "Stress can cause auditory hallucinations. When a community is traumatized—"

"This isn't stress, grandson." Grandmother's eyes were sharp, cutting through his explanations like a blade. "This is the same thing that happened when Shadi was taken. The mountain is... active. Hungry."

Kai wanted to argue, to insist on logical explanations and scientific reasoning. But sitting in his grandmother's kitchen, surrounded by the weight of tradition and memory, he found his certainty crumbling like old paper.

"I should unpack," he said finally. "Get ready to meet with Agent Rodriguez."

"You'll stay here, of course." It wasn't a question. "Your old room is ready."

His old room. The thought of sleeping in the same bed where he'd dreamed of cave passages and whispered voices made his skin crawl, but he couldn't refuse without seeming ungrateful or strange.

"Thank you."

As the afternoon wore on, Kai tried to settle back into the rhythm of reservation life, but everything felt off-kilter. The silence was too deep, broken only by wind through the pine trees and the distant sound of search helicopters. His phone had no signal here, cutting him off from the constant connectivity he'd grown used to in Phoenix. Even the light seemed different—sharper, more intense, throwing shadows that moved in ways that hurt to watch.

At five-thirty, he and Taza drove to the tribal offices for the meeting with Agent Rodriguez. The building was new since Kai's childhood, built with federal funding and designed to project authority and competence. But even here, in this bastion of modern law enforcement, he could feel the mountain's presence looming over everything.

Agent Rodriguez was younger than he'd expected, maybe thirty-five, with intelligent brown eyes and an air of professional competence that was somehow reassuring. She shook his hand firmly and gestured to a conference room where case files and laptops created an organized chaos of investigation.

"Mr. Martinez. Thank you for coming. I know this must be difficult, given your personal connection to the previous disappearance."

"I want to help find Emma," Kai said simply.

"Good. I've read the case file on your cousin's disappearance, and I have to say, it's frustratingly thin on details. A lot of folklore and superstition, not much actual investigation. I'm hoping you can provide some clarity."

She opened a folder and spread out photographs—crime scene shots of Brave Woman's Grave from fifteen years ago, showing the exact spot where Shadi's shoe had been found. Looking at them was like being punched in the stomach, but Kai forced himself to study the images clinically.

"Walk me through what happened that day," Agent Rodriguez said. "From the beginning."

Kai glanced at Taza, who nodded encouragingly. Taking a deep breath, he began to tell the story he'd spent fifteen years trying to forget—the dare, the race through the cave passages, the moment when everything went wrong.

Agent Rodriguez listened without interruption, taking notes in a precise shorthand. When he finished, she sat back in her chair and studied him with those sharp brown eyes.

"That's quite a story," she said finally. "And you're certain about the sequence of events? You all entered together, ran through the passages, and emerged together?"

"Yes. No. I thought so at the time, but..." Kai struggled to put his uncertainty into words. "The cave was confusing. Dark. Maybe Shadi took a wrong turn, got lost in a passage we missed."

"But you searched afterward. You and your cousin, the search parties, trained rescuers with professional equipment. If she was simply lost in the cave system, wouldn't they have found some trace of her?"

Kai had no answer for that. The search for Shadi had been thorough and desperate, involving everyone from tribal police to federal agents to volunteer cavers from three states. They'd mapped every passage, checked every crevice, brought in sonar equipment to probe underground water channels. Nothing.

"What about the shoe?" Agent Rodriguez continued. "You said it was sitting just inside the cave mouth, but you didn't notice it when you first entered."

"We were running. It was dark. We might have missed it."

"But wouldn't you have heard it? A child stepping out of her shoe while running full speed?"

The question hung in the air between them, unanswerable and terrible. Kai felt sweat beading on his forehead despite the air conditioning.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I was twelve. It was traumatic. Maybe my memory isn't as reliable as I thought."

Agent Rodriguez nodded and made another note. "One more question. The phrase you shouted in the cave—'Here lies the Queen of Bones.' Where did that come from?"

Kai's mouth went dry. "It was something from our grandmother's stories. About the mountain, the spirits that lived there. I don't know why I said it—it just came out."

"And what did the stories say about this Queen of Bones?"

Before Kai could answer, a commotion outside drew their attention. Through the conference room window, they could see tribal police cars pulling up, their red and blue lights cutting through the gathering dusk. Agent Rodriguez frowned and stepped outside to talk to one of the officers.

When she returned, her expression was grim. "They found something. About a mile from Emma's last known location."

"What?" Taza asked.

"Footprints. Small ones, leading toward the mountain. And something else." She hesitated. "A wooden doll. Crudely carved, left sitting on a rock like someone wanted it to be found."

The blood drained from Kai's face. In his hotel room in Phoenix, locked in his carry-on bag, was another wooden doll—the one he'd found in his backpack fifteen years ago. The one his grandmother had warned him was too dangerous to throw away but too dangerous to keep close.

"Can we see it?" he asked.

Agent Rodriguez nodded. "I was hoping you might recognize it. According to the locals, these dolls have some kind of cultural significance."

As they drove toward the search site, Kai's mind raced. Two dolls, fifteen years apart, connected to two missing children and the same dark cave. Either someone was playing an elaborate and cruel game, or something far worse was happening—something that transcended the boundaries of rational explanation.

The sun was setting as they reached the location where Emma's trail had been found. Search teams were still working, their flashlights creating moving pools of light in the gathering darkness. And there, in the distance, the black mouth of Brave Woman's Grave watched everything with patient hunger.

Agent Rodriguez led them to an evidence table where the wooden doll sat in a clear plastic bag. It was almost identical to the one in Kai's luggage—crudely carved but somehow expressive, with two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth that seemed to suggest vast intelligence.

"Recognize it?" she asked.

Kai stared at the figure, feeling the weight of fifteen years pressing down on him like stone. In his pocket, his phone vibrated with a text message—impossible, since there was no cell service here. He pulled it out with shaking hands and saw words that made his blood freeze:

Welcome home, King.

The phone slipped from his nerveless fingers, clattering to the ground. Around them, the search teams continued their work, calling Emma's name into the darkness. But Kai knew, with the terrible certainty of experience, that they wouldn't find her.

Not alive. Not whole. Not unless he was willing to face the thing that waited in the mountain's depths, the thing that had been calling his name for fifteen years.

The Queen of Bones was ready for her king to come home.