WHAT RETURNS WITH THE MOON

Not all who wander are lost. Not all who return are unchanged. Not all who change are diminished.

Fifteen-year-old Emma is already grieving her mother’s death when her dog goes missing during a spring break trip to Sedona meant to help her and her father heal. Her desperate search leads to ancient places that appear only to those ready to transform grief, forcing a choice between staying trapped by loss or finding the courage to heal together.

Advance Reader Version from my Story Studio… a 10,834-word novelette.

About The Story

It’s been a year since her mother’s death, and fifteen-year-old Emma and her father can’t seem to get past the grief that’s shut down their relationship and their healing.

When her father insists on taking her to Sedona for spring break—one of her mother’s final wishes, believing it’s a place where they can heal—Emma resents the forced trip. But when he drops a bombshell about a job that could uproot their entire life, she realizes he’s making decisions without her again. Just like he did when Mom was dying.

But the desert holds mysteries that will change everything.

When their dog Lillie disappears in the red rock wilderness, Emma’s desperate search leads her to places that shouldn’t exist and people who understand loss in ways that seem impossible. A mysterious fox appears when Emma needs guidance most. And somewhere in the desert, a hidden place waits for those who are truly lost, containing what they need to find their way.

As her father’s deadline approaches, Emma must choose between staying frozen by grief or finding the courage to move forward. But in Sedona, moving forward might mean discovering that love doesn’t disappear—it just changes form.

A story of family, healing, and the mystical connections that guide us home when we’ve lost our way.

Perfect for readers who loved the emotional depth of Where the Crawdads Sing and the mystical hope of The Midnight Library.

Listen to three of the songs from the soundtrack:

LOST CANYON

DESERT’S BREATH

RISING MOON

THE STORY

One: Fractures

The crack in Emma’s ceiling looked precisely like the flatline on her mother’s heart monitor—jagged, then straight, then nothing.

She’d been staring at it for twenty minutes while Dad banged around downstairs, as if packing required that much noise. She could hear the coffee mug he had just dropped. He’d been up since 4:00 AM without needing to be.

Her phone buzzed. She ignored it.

Dad’s voice rose, carried up the stairs: “—understand the timeline, yes. I’ll have an answer Thursday morning and can start Monday if—” His voice lowered.

Emma sat up. Thursday? He’d told her they’d have spring break week in Sedona. That this trip was about taking time to just be together.

She crept to the top of the stairs.

“—no, she doesn’t know about the possible relocation yet. I wanted to see if this trip could help us both figure out some things before I have to make a decision. I’ll let you know no later than Thursday morning.” The call ended.

The words hit like cold water. Relocation? How long had he been planning this?

“Em? You awake?” His voice louder again, but different. Careful. Guilty.

She didn’t answer and returned to her room, closing the door. It was the same betrayal as the months before Mom died, when everyone spoke in half-truths and treated her like she was made of glass.

Her phone buzzed again. Maya: are you okay? text me.

When did texting become too much effort? Everything had become too hard.

Footsteps on the stairs. “Em? We need to leave for the airport in an hour.”

She opened her door before he could knock. “What relocation?”

Dad’s face cycled through expressions—surprise, resignation, something that might have been relief. “You heard.”

“I heard you lying. Again.” The anger she’d been swallowing for months. “Just like with Mom. Just like when you didn’t tell me how bad things really were.”

“That’s not—”

“Yes, it is.” Her voice cracked. “You decided I couldn’t handle the truth then, and you’re doing it again. What else haven’t you told me?”

Dad sagged against the doorframe. In that moment, he looked older than forty-two. “The new position is regional sales director. Traveling three weeks of every month. And it’s not certain yet, but we probably have to move to Denver.”

“Denver.” Dread settled in her stomach. “Away from here. Away from everything that’s left of her.”

“Away from the ghosts, Em. Maybe that’s what we both need.”

“Don’t.” The word came out fierce. “Don’t make this about what I need. This is about you.”

They stared at each other across the small hallway. Dad’s eyes were red-rimmed but determined. “Maybe it isn’t the worst thing. Maybe staying in the same house, the same patterns—maybe that’s what’s hurting us.”

Emma wanted to argue, but something in his voice stopped her. He sounded... desperate. Like he was barely hanging on.

“Why Sedona?” she asked finally. “If you’re so ready to leave everything?”

“Because your mother asked me to. Before.” He paused. “She said if things got bad, if what might happen happens, we should go back together. She said the desert would know what to do with our grief.”

“That’s the most Mom thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know.” He attempted a smile.

Emma felt something shift. Maybe an acknowledgment that he was right… Staying still meant always mourning.

“So we have until Thursday,” she said. “To figure out if you take this job. If we move. If we blow up what’s left.”

“That’s about right.”

Lillie padded into the hallway, collar jingling. The Welsh Terrier looked between them with curious calm.

“Fine,” Emma said, scratching Lillie’s ears. “But I’m not promising to make this easy.”

“I understand.”

“And don’t lie to me again… about anything—,” she stopped and shook her head.”

Dad’s throat worked. “Deal.”

They loaded the car in tense silence. Emma tucked her sketchbook into her backpack, fingers lingering on the worn cover. Inside were drawings of her mother from the last year—some from memory, some from life, one from the day before she died. She hadn’t shown anyone.

As they pulled away, Emma watched the house shrink in the side mirror. Part of her wanted to tell him to stop, to turn around, to stay inside where there was no one to offer well-meaning sympathy, even though her Mom’s presence lingered and made her hurt all the more.

But they kept driving. And somewhere between one stoplight and the next, Emma made a decision. She was tired of being protected from the truth.

“Tell me about Denver,” she said suddenly.

Dad glanced at her. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. The job, the city, what our life would look like.”

For the next hour, Dad talked. About territories and responsibilities. About a city at the foot of mountains, about starting over where nobody knew her Mom and couldn’t share stories about her. “And it means a significant pay increase, which we need.”

Emma listened to the hope creeping into his voice when he talked about the future. Maybe it was something to embrace, not just endure.

Her phone buzzed. Maya again: seriously, are you okay? i’m worried.

This time, Emma typed back: traveling with Dad. complicated stuff happening. will call you when i get back.

She hit send before she could change her mind.

“Who was that?” Dad asked.

“Maya. She’s worried.”

“She cares about you.”

“Yeah.” Emma put the phone away. “I’ve been a terrible friend lately.”

“You’ve been grieving.”

Emma touched the window. “Mom would hate that I’ve pushed everyone away.”

“She’d understand it. But yeah, she’d tell you to reconnect with Maya.”

“After Sedona?”

“Okay, after Sedona.”

Emma pulled out her phone and reread her text to Maya. Will call you when i get back. Such a small promise. She’d try to keep it.

They drove through the morning light, their fragile honesty, and the awkwardness between them. Emma again felt that cold anger at her father for not being straightforward. Trust in anyone had died with her mother. Could she find it again?

“You okay?” Dad asked.

“No,” Emma said honestly. “You?”

“No.” He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “But maybe that’s where we start.”

Lillie whined from her carrier. Emma reached back and let the dog lick her fingers through the mesh.

“I know, girl,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go either.”

But they were already gone.

Two: Arrival

Sunday Evening - Big Park, Arizona

By the time they reached the cabin, the sun was slipping behind the red rocks, casting everything in a deep orange and crimson glow. The temperature was dropping with the sun; desert evenings came on fast. Emma pressed her face to the window, trying not to remember.

“Look, Em—the way the light hits Cathedral Rock. Like the stone’s on fire.”

Her mother’s voice, always bright with wonder. Emma squeezed her eyes shut, but that just made the memory sharper.

“We’re here,” Dad said, turning onto the half-mile gravel drive marked by the aged wooden sign, carved with: LOST CANYON.

The cabin squatted among the junipers, smaller than Emma remembered. More worn. The last time they’d been here, Mom had lined candles along the porch railing. “For the magic,” she said, laughing at Dad’s protests about fire hazards.

No candles now. No magic. Just bare wood and shadows.

Dad was already moving, unloading bags. Always in motion when he should talk. Say something, she thought, to ease the ache of coming here without Mom.

Emma leashed Lillie and let her out. The dog immediately tugged, its nose to the ground, investigating. Within seconds, she’d found something in the bushes and barked.

“Lillie, no.” Emma’s voice came out flat. Even scolding felt like too much effort.

Inside, the cabin smelled of cedar and sage. On the kitchen table next to the bag of groceries Dad had stopped to pick up at Clark’s Market off of Highway 179 was a welcome basket: wine, cheese, crackers, and a brochure for local attractions. Experience the Vortex! It proclaimed.

Emma wanted to throw it away. Mom had always laughed at the vortex tours, even while believing the land here held power. “You can’t schedule a spiritual experience between lunch and shopping,” she’d said.

“Your room’s in the back,” Dad called as if she didn’t know. They’d stayed here ten times since she was three, the last two years ago when they’d told her about the cancer.

Emma didn’t move. The kitchen table where they’d played cards until midnight, Mom ruthlessly destroying them at poker. The couch where she’d read from her archaeology and anthropology journals and magazines, making pottery shards sound like mysteries and site digs like crime scene investigations.

“Em?”

“Coming.”

She forced her feet to move. The bedroom was exactly as remembered—twin bed, handmade quilt, window bench seat overlooking the wash where they’d once watched a roadrunner chase a lizard for twenty minutes.

Her backpack hit the floor. Four days. She just had to survive four days.

“I’m thinking we grab dinner in town,” Dad said from the doorway. “Oak Creek Tavern—”

“No.” Sharper than intended. “I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat.”

“I said I’m not hungry.” She had no desire to eat at her mother’s favorite restaurant, though it had also been hers in Sedona.

They stared at each other. Dad looked like he wanted to argue, then deflated. “Okay. I’ll make sandwiches.”

He left. Emma sank onto the bed, pulling out her sketchbook. She flipped past drawings of Lillie, of Maya, stopped at the one she’d drawn the night before they left—Mom at the kitchen window, morning light catching the silver threads in her hair that she wouldn’t recolor. Except Emma had drawn her eyes closed, like she was practicing being gone.

She slammed the book shut.

Outside, something howled. Coyote, probably. The sound scraped against her nerves, wild and mournful.

Lillie’s ears perked up. She grumbled, pawing at the door.

“Absolutely not,” Emma told her. “You are not chasing coyotes.”

But the dog’s distress was building, escalating to sharp barks.

“Fine. Five minutes to do your business.”

Emma clipped on Lillie’s leash, wrapping it securely around her wrist. The evening air even cooler now with the sun on the horizon, carrying the scent of juniper and something else—moisture in the air, though the sky was clear.

Lillie pulled toward the trail behind the cabin. Emma let her lead, too tired to fight. The path was familiar even in growing darkness. They’d hiked it every trip, Mom pointing out rock layers, explaining millions of years like yesterday’s news.

“See that dark band? That’s from when this whole area was under an ancient sea. Can you imagine? Water where we’re standing now.”

Emma stumbled, caught herself. Kept walking.

The trail forked ahead. Lillie strained toward the left path, the one that climbed toward the ridge. Emma had never taken it—Mom always said it was too sheer, not an easy trail. But tonight, the challenge felt like something to throw herself against.

“Okay,” she told Lillie. “But we’re going slow.”

The path was steeper than she thought; it became more a brush- and rock-choked vertical gully than a trail. Within minutes, Emma was breathing hard, sweat prickling despite the cool air, the first stinging in her feet. Good. Physical pain was easier.

At the top, Lillie froze. Her whole body went rigid; her focus fixed on something in the shadows ahead.

“What is it?” she whispered.

A shape detached itself from the rocks. In one heart-stopping moment, she thought coyote. But it was smaller, more delicate—a fox, silver in the moonlight, on the crest of the ridge, regarding them with calm interest.

Lillie didn’t bark. Didn’t lunge. Just watched, quivering slightly.

The fox tilted its head, considering them with patience. Then it turned and melted back into the darkness, leaving only the sensation of having been seen. Really seen.

Her knees gave out. She sat hard on the trail, pulling Lillie against her. And then she was crying. Not the silent tears she’d mastered, but something raw that tore from her throat. She buried her face in Lillie’s fur and sobbed—for her mother, for herself, for the girl who used to race the wind and now could barely manage nightfall.

“I can’t do this,” she gasped. “I can’t be here without her. I can’t move to Denver. I can’t—.”

Lillie licked her face, patient and steady. The stars wheeled overhead, constant. There when she was ready to see them again.

Eventually, the crying passed. Emma sat on the cool, bare ground.

“We should go back,” she told Lillie.

At the cabin, Dad was on the porch with a sandwich and his phone. He stood when he saw them, taking in Emma’s tear-stained face.

“You okay?” he asked carefully.

“Yeah.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He nodded. “There’s food inside. And that hot chocolate you like. The terrible packet kind your Mom pretended to hate.”

“She didn’t pretend. She actually hated it.”

“But she drank it anyway.”

Emma almost smiled. “Yeah. She did.” It had been practically a ritual for them on chilly evenings or mornings before a hike.

They went inside together, Lillie collapsing dramatically as if she’d climbed Everest. Emma washed her face, changed clothes, and came back to find Dad had set two mugs on the coffee table.

“I saw a fox,” she said eventually.

Dad looked up from his phone. “On the trail?”

“Yeah. It was...” She searched for words. “Weird. Like it was waiting for us.”

“Your Mom always said this was a special place. Something about...” He frowned. “She had all these stories from her research and graduate thesis.”

“In her journal,” Emma said suddenly. “And she always brought that old-timer’s field journal when we came here; the one she found in some slot canyon around here when she was a graduate student.”

“Right. She’d interviewed elders, studied ethnographic records, collected stories about wind spirits and...,” he paused, “and guides, I think. Said the academic work became personal when she experienced things herself.”

Emma felt a pang. “I listened when she talked about it, but was never interested.”

“She would have loved to share it with you. When you were ready.”

They sat quietly, both lost in their own thoughts.

“The Denver thing,” Emma said suddenly. “If you take the job. What would happen to the house?”

“We could rent it out. Keep it for a few years, see how things go.”

“So we could come back.”

“If we wanted to.”

Emma nodded slowly. “And the travel—three weeks a month. That’s a lot.”

“It is. Some will be day trips, some longer. Your Aunt Carmen in Boulder offered to stay with you when I’m gone. But the other week, I’d be completely free. We could go places. Do things.”

“Or you could just be home.”

“Yeah. I could just be home.”

They finished their hot chocolate in thoughtful quiet. Outside, something howled again, closer this time. Lillie’s ears twitched, but she didn’t get up.

Through the window, Emma caught a glimpse of movement—a smudge of silver fur at the edge of the porch light, disappearing behind the junipers. The fox again, or another one. Just watching.

“I don’t want to leave home,” she said finally.

“I know. But maybe we both need to... even if we don’t want to.”

She stood. “I’m going to bed….”

“Okay…. Good night.” He seemed about to say something more, but didn’t.

She fell asleep thinking about foxes, silver in the moonlight.

Three: Lost

Monday

Emma woke to Lillie’s urgent whining and Dad talking on the phone in the kitchen. His work voice—calm, professional.

“—I get you’d like to know sooner, but I need until Thursday morning to—yes. Yes, I know.” A pause. “If I can answer sooner, I will.”

She blinked. Thursday. Three days to decide whether their life was about to change completely. Emma pulled the pillow over her head, but Lillie wasn’t having it. The dog jumped on the bed, sprawling on her.

“Fine. I’m up.”

The morning air was already warming as the sun climbed higher, though it would be another hour before the real desert heat set in. Dad was off the phone, staring at his coffee.

“Work?” she asked.

“They’re nervous about my decision and now want an answer sooner before they extend the offer to their second choice.”

“Why are they nervous?”

“The position is important to support the company’s expansion, and the upcoming quarterly meeting with investors is crucial. Whoever fills the position plays a huge role in that presentation.

“If you take it, then what happens?”

“If I take it, we’d have to fly home Thursday evening or early Friday. And I’d start Monday. One day next week, they’d fly me to Denver for a meeting with staff there. The actual relocation wouldn’t happen until summer, after you finish this school year. Gives us time to figure out the details.”

“What happens if you don’t take it?”

“They offer it to the next qualified guy they’re in contact with. And I go back to my current job, which...” He shrugged. “Isn’t going anywhere.”

Before she could respond, Lillie started barking at the window. Not her usual alert bark, but something more insistent.

“What’s gotten into her?” Dad moved to look outside.

She was already clipping on the leash. “She probably needs to pee. I’ll take her out.”

“Don’t go far. I thought we could hike to Devil’s Bridge today.”

Her stomach clenched. “Yeah. Sure.”

Outside, morning had transformed what seemed mysterious in darkness into the ordinary. Just red dirt and scraggly juniper. Lillie pulled toward the same trail as last night, but she steered onto the right, a level path.

They walked for twenty minutes, Lillie investigating every bush like a detective. Emma let her mind drift. It was easier that way.

Then Lillie froze.

Just like last night, her whole body went rigid. But this time, she was staring at something in the air—a butterfly, dark-winged with sunset edges, hovering just out of reach, then sailing away on the wind. Then they both saw the coyote.

“Lillie, no—”

Too late. The dog lunged, the leash coming undone. In an instant, she was gone, red bandanna flashing between the juniper and scrub brush.

“LILLIE!”

Emma ran, branches catching at her clothes. The trail split ahead into three directions, something she didn’t recall from previous hikes. No sign of the dog. No sound except her own ragged breathing.

“LILLIE, COME!”

Nothing.

Emma chose the middle path, sprinting until her chest burned. The trail climbed, twisted, and opened into a small clearing. Empty.

“Please,” she whispered. Then louder: “LILLIE! TREAT! DINNER!”

The silence was absolute.

Emma’s hands shook as she pulled out her phone, though she already knew what she’d find. No signal. The area was notorious for dead zones, unlike the cabin, which had clear sight lines to one of the new cell towers.

She ran back to the fork, tried the right path. It dead-ended at a wall of red rock. Back again, growing frantic. The left path wound upward, steep and narrow.

Halfway up, she found something: a clump of wiry tan hair caught on a thornbush. The right color, the right texture.

“LILLIE!”

Her voice cracked, echoing off stone. Somewhere in that echo, she thought she heard a bark. Just one. Above. Far away.

Emma climbed, slipping on loose rocks, skinning her palms. The path opened onto the ridge with views in all directions. She turned in a slow circle, scanning the area.

No sign of movement. Desert, rocks, and scrub in every direction. Beautiful and empty… and absolutely indifferent to one lost dog.

“Please,” Emma said to no one. To the rocks, maybe. “Please, I can’t lose her too.”

She searched until the sun was high and unseasonably hot, brutal. Her water bottle was back in the cabin. Her feet burned, and her throat felt like sandpaper. Finally, legs shaking, she had to go back.

Dad was pacing the porch when she arrived alone.

“Where have you—” He saw her face and stopped. “Where’s Lillie?”

“She chased a coyote. She pulled from me, and I didn’t… must not have secured the leash’s catch. I looked everywhere...”

“Okay, okay.” He pulled her into a hug. “We’ll find her. She’s smart, she’s tough.”

They spent the rest of the day searching together. Dad called the animal shelter, vet clinics, and ranger stations. Emma posted about Lillie on every Sedona community-related social media group she could find, her hands shaking as she uploaded photos.

Please share. Lost in Sedona near the Bell Rock area. Friendly. Wearing a red bandanna. Answers to Lillie.

By evening, they’d covered miles. Emma’s feet were blistered, her voice hoarse. No sign.

“We’ll go out again first thing,” Dad promised as they trudged back. “She’s out there. Probably curled up somewhere safe.”

Emma nodded, not trusting her voice. In her room, she sat by the window, watching darkness creep across the desert. Somewhere out there, Lillie was alone. Scared. Maybe hurt.

Or maybe, a voice whispered, already gone. Another loss.

“Stop,” Emma told herself. But the thoughts kept coming.

Emma pulled out her sketchbook, needing to keep her hands busy. She flipped past her recent drawings—Lillie, Maya, the crack in her bedroom ceiling. Stopped at the one she’d drawn the night before they left for Sedona. Mom at the kitchen window. For the first time, instead of slamming the book shut, Emma really looked at the drawing. The way she’d captured her mother’s hands wrapped around a coffee mug, the slight smile that always meant she was thinking about something good. It hurt to look at, but it was also... beautiful. The moment preserved.

The drawings blurred. Emma realized she was crying, quiet tears that dripped onto the paper.

A soft knock. Dad entered without waiting, carrying sandwiches and iced tea.

“You need to eat.”

“I’m not—.”

“I know. But do it anyway.”

He sat on the floor beside her. For a while, they just existed in the same space, sharing the weight.

“Remember that time here when Mom found that injured rabbit?” Dad said eventually. “She spent three days nursing it.”

“It died anyway.”

“Yeah. But she tried. Said that was what mattered—not the outcome, but the trying.”

Emma took a small bite of sandwich. It tasted like nothing. “What if we don’t find her before we have to leave?”

“We will.”

“But what if we don’t?”

Dad was quiet. “Then we’ll deal with that when it happens. But not before.”

“I’m so tired of losing things.”

“I know, sweetheart. Me too.”

They sat together as full dark settled. Outside, coyotes began their nightly chorus—yips and howls from everywhere.

Through the window, a familiar silhouette moved past the porch light. The fox again, unhurried, purposeful. It paused, seemed to look directly at Emma through the glass, then continued.

“Lillie’s tough,” Dad said, reading her thoughts.

“Like Mom.”

“Yeah. Like Mom.”

Emma finished half the sandwich, then gave up. Her stomach churned, she couldn’t eat.

“I’m going to stay up,” she said. “Watch for her.”

Dad looked like he wanted to argue, then didn’t. “Okay. But try to rest. Tomorrow’s going to be long.”

After he left, Emma arranged herself on the window seat, wrapped in the quilt. The desert night was alive with small sounds—rustling, chirping, the distant call of an owl. The sough of wind. But no familiar bark. No jingle of collar.

She pressed her forehead against the cool glass and tried to remember what her mother had written about wind in the desert. Something about listening. About voices carried on... Tuhl’okosh? The word surfaced from memory. Her mother had called it the wind that seeks. But what… who?

Outside, the air stirred, lifting dust in small spirals. Emma watched the patterns, remembering her mother’s voice: “The land speaks differently here. You just have to know how to listen.”

She made bargains with the universe, with God, with her mother’s memory. Just let her come back. I’ll be better. I’ll try harder. Just please.

The stars wheeled overhead, marking time. Emma’s eyes grew heavy despite her determination. She jerked awake several times, heart racing, certain she’d heard barking.

But the desert was silent.

Four: Seeking

Tuesday

Dawn came pale and hesitant. Emma woke stiff on the window seat, the quilt tangled around her legs. For one blessed moment, she forgot why she was there.

Then it crashed back. Lillie. Gone. Day two.

“Ready?” Dad stood in the doorway, already dressed, offering coffee. He looked like he’d aged five years overnight.

Emma took the coffee gratefully. “Where do we start?”

“I mapped out a grid. We’ll be systematic. And I called Tom—he’s driving up from Phoenix to help.”

Emma knew years ago there’d been friction between her father and Tom—the cabin owner’s son, her mother’s college classmate who’d introduced her to Sedona. “You didn’t have to—.”

“Yes, I did. Tom knows this land better than we do.” His voice was firm. “We’re going to find her, Em.”

They started with the trails closest to where Lillie had disappeared, calling her name until their voices went hoarse. The morning hikers they passed promised to keep an eye out.

By noon, Tom had arrived with his two teenage sons. Emma sent them a photo of Lillie, and they split up to cover more ground; Tom and his sons went south, Emma and her Dad, north. Sweeping east to west.

Emma’s feet screamed in her hiking boots, but she kept walking. Stopping felt like giving up. It was nearly 4 PM when they reached one of the tourist areas, lined with shops adjacent to some of the close-in trails. Emma knew her Dad hated the tourist traps, but they had to check with the shopkeepers. Someone might have seen her, taken her in.

They worked their way down the street, showing everyone Lillie’s photograph. Most people were sympathetic but unhelpful. Then they reached a narrow shop wedged between a crystal store and a gallery: Lost Canyon Curios.

Wind chimes sang outside the doorway, though Emma felt no breeze. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of sage and a medicinal aroma. An elderly woman sat behind the counter, sorting through old jewelry with careful fingers. Her movements were deliberate, those of someone who’d learned to work around arthritis. Black cloth spread in front of her with the makings of a bracelet. Beside it, a tube of cream, Voltaren, something.

“Help you?” the woman asked without looking up.

Emma’s throat tightened. “I lost my dog. Welsh Terrier. Red bandanna.”

Now the woman looked up. Her eyes were bright summer blue, her face weathered, her expression sharp. As she studied Emma, her gaze flicked briefly to one side, something softened her features.

“When?”

“Yesterday morning. The area around Bell Rock.”

The woman—Margaret, according to a leather name tag—set down the tarnished piece she’d been polishing, flexing her fingers, working swollen knuckles. “Foxes have been restless lately. Full moon’s coming Thursday night. They always stir things up before.”

Emma’s Dad stepped forward, the odd comment making him protective. “We’re just looking for our dog.”

“And who are you?” the old woman asked.

“I’m Jeff Copeland, and this is my daughter Emma.”

She studied Emma with uncomfortable directness. “You’re dealing with more than just a missing dog.” Margaret’s look was knowing but not unkind. “Been here thirty-five years—since 1990. Lost my husband in Vietnam twenty years before that. Took me a long time to come back to this place, but...” She gestured around the shop. “Some places call to you… when you’re ready.”

Emma sensed her Dad shift uncomfortably, he reached out to tap her arm and gesture toward the door, beckoning her closer to it. She didn’t move with him.

The old woman stood slowly and paused, her eyes closed. Then turned to pick up a purse from a back bench. “I remember a young woman. She came in here maybe twenty years ago, asking about local folklore. Said she’d studied it in college but wanted to know if the stories still lived in the land itself.” She paused. “Looked a lot like you,” she nodded at Emma. “Her name was Caroline.”

That stilled her Dad.

Emma’s breath caught. “You knew my mother?”

“Was she?” The old woman’s eyes locked on Emma’s. “We talked a few times. Lovely young woman. Said she felt called to this place, like the land, the rocks, and canyons remembered her somehow.” Margaret’s expression softened. “She understood that some knowledge can’t be learned from books. It has to be lived.”

She reached into the purse, pulled out two objects: a smooth green stone and something wrapped in faded cloth.

“For the search,” she said, pressing the bundle into Emma’s hands.

Emma unwrapped it carefully. Inside was a palm-sized carved fox, rough-hewn from red sandstone. Its tail curved like a question mark, and its eyes were just two dots of obsidian; watchful and wise.

“I can’t—how much?”

“It’s a gift.” Margaret’s voice brooked no argument as she moved back to the counter. “My husband was Hopi. He carved that for me in 1969, said foxes know the paths between what was and what will be. They help the lost find their way.” She sat back behind the counter, glancing down to one side at a small, faded black-and-white photograph. Barely visible among scattered earrings and pendants. Her fingers touched the frame absently. “Found that to be true, more than once.”

She turned to Emma’s father, holding out the green stone. “Malachite. For when you’re at a crossroads.”

He stepped forward and took it, looking stunned. “How did you—.”

“Thirty-five years of watching people wrestle with change, twenty more before that, living with it. You’ve got that look—like you’re choosing between two different paths.” Her expression softened. “Sometimes the hardest part isn’t making the choice. It’s trusting that either can lead you where you need to go.” Her gaze sharpened again and locked on Emma. “If you make it so.”

“My dog,” Emma said desperately, showing her Lillie’s photo. “Have you seen her?”

Margaret studied the image and shook her head. “But I’ll watch. Animals sense the old paths through these rocks better than we do. If she’s smart—and terriers usually are—she’ll find her way.” She studied the photo on the counter. “When the moon returns… ready to help them home.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“Then you’ll survive that too. Learned that the hard way.” She turned the scuffed gold band on her finger. “Grief doesn’t kill you, even when you think it might. It just... changes you. Shapes you differently, like wind and water shape stone.” She sat and lowered her head to her work.

They left with the carved fox heavy in Emma’s pocket and more questions than answers. Dad kept turning the malachite over in his fingers as they walked.

They searched until sunset painted the rocks a deeper crimson. Tom and his boys reported. They’d checked the southern trails, washes, and climbing areas. No sign of Lillie anywhere.

Back at the cabin, Emma couldn’t eat. Could barely speak. She sat on the porch holding the carved fox in her lap, watching night creep across the desert. Dad sat beside her, solid though solemn.

As the last light faded, Emma spotted movement at the edge of the clearing. The fox again—not approaching, just present. It sat on its haunches, perfectly still, watching them with primal patience. After a moment, it rose and trotted away, disappearing into the brush.

“Did you see that?” Emma whispered.

Dad followed her gaze. “See what?”

“A fox again. Or just... shadows.” She grew quiet. “Tomorrow’s our last full day,” Emma said after a while. “If we don’t find her...”

“We’ll find her.”

“But if we don’t. If you have to give them an answer Thursday morning and we have to leave...”

He was quiet. “Then we’ll figure it out. Maybe I don’t take the job. Maybe I ask for more time.”

“You can’t do that. Not because of me. Not again.” Emma turned to face him. “Mom would hate this. Us going nowhere… even when we’re somewhere… like here… a place she loved.”

“Lillie is missing, Em. I think we’re allowed to focus on that.”

“She’s missing because I wasn’t paying attention. Because I messed up and didn’t attach the leash properly.” Her voice broke. “I can’t be the reason you don’t take this job, too.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Dad pulled her close. “This isn’t your fault. Things happen. Dogs chase things. Sometimes the world just... shifts under our feet.”

Emma buried her face in his shoulder. “But why won’t the hurt shift? It’s so heavy sometimes I can’t breathe.”

“I know. Me too.”

The stars emerged overhead. Emma could hear her Mom explain how Big Park had become a Dark Sky community, limiting light pollution to let the sky reveal more of its splendor. She studied the carved fox, its black eyes glinting, the question-mark tail caught in the porchlight. Emma found herself talking to it silently, the way she used to talk to her mother’s photo.

If that woman—Margaret—is right about you knowing the path home, show Lillie the way. I don’t need magic. I just need my dog back.

The fox, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. But holding it made Emma feel less alone. Less like she was pleading to an indifferent universe.

“Tomorrow,” Dad said finally. “Fresh start, fresh energy.”

Emma nodded, though she wasn’t sure she had any left. Everything felt worn down, used up. But what else could she do but keep trying?

She thought of Margaret in her shop, her swollen hands still creating. Still going on despite the pain. Maybe that was the only way to get anywhere, continuing when everything in you wanted to stop.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “Tomorrow.”

They went inside, leaving the desert to its mysteries. Emma kept the carved fox with her. She fell asleep clutching it, dreaming of red bandannas and sunset-colored butterflies, always just out of reach.

Five: Finding

Wednesday

Emma’s feet were a mess of blisters. She had smeared antibiotic and antiseptic cream on them before pulling on her socks, then grimaced as she pulled on her boots. The Timberland Women’s Chocorua Trail Boots, her mother had bought her the last Christmas before… which she’d never worn or broken in.

Tom and his sons had returned to Phoenix. Everyone they’d checked with promised to ‘keep an eye out,’ which Emma knew might be good intentions, but meant most would soon forget.

Tomorrow was Thursday. Decision day.

“There’s one more place,” Dad said over breakfast that Emma wasn’t eating. “I just remembered it, a good ways from here but connected with several trails. Your Mom mentioned it once—said it was too rough in spots, more of a hard scramble than for a family hike.”

They drove in silence, the morning already warm. Bell Rock loomed ahead, that familiar sleeping giant that had watched over so many family memories. Emma touched the carved fox in her pocket, a new nervous habit.

The trailhead was barely marked, just a narrow gap between two boulders near the base of Bell Rock, still a distance reachable by Lillie, who could run forever if she was in hot pursuit.

“Wait... I remember this. Mom showed me once, said maybe when I was older...” Emma’s voice trailed off. When she was older. As if they’d have infinite time.

The path climbed steeply from the start, switchbacking through broken rock, winding around the shoulders of rock formations and through fissures that opened into broader, level segments, before narrowing again. Emma’s calves burned, her feet on fire, but she pushed harder. This trail felt different. The air thicker, charged.

After thirty minutes of climbing, coming through a slot, the trail forked. Dad consulted his phone’s GPS, confused. “This isn’t showing up at all. Are you sure—”

“There.” Emma pointed ahead and above to the vertical arroyo, a wash, topped out where the rock face scalloped, forming a deep and broad shelf above the trail. There sat a small structure, half-hidden by gnarled junipers growing from the broken rock, fused into the red stone escarpment behind it. “Is that a building?”

They picked their way upward to it, climbing, clawing, feet sliding on loose stone. As they reached the shelf, seeing its form, Emma realized what it was—an old chapel, built from the same red rock as the landscape. The wooden door hung crooked, windows empty of glass.

Near the entry, Emma noticed something that made her pulse quicken—more wiry black and tan hairs caught on the doorframe, and in the soft dirt, small paw prints.

“She was here,” Emma breathed. “Lillie was here.”

“I’ve never heard of this place,” Dad said, wonder tinging his voice. “How long has it been here?”

Emma pushed the door open wider. It scraped and groaned but gave way. Inside, dust motes danced in shafts of diffused light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere—the windows were too small to account for the gentle illumination that filled the space.

Stone pews—six of them, three to a side—covered in decades of dust. A stone altar at the front, bare except for a grapefruit-sized stone resting on it.

“Hello?” Emma called, though she wasn’t sure why. “Lillie?”

Her voice echoed strangely, seeming to multiply and return from impossible angles, as if the walls themselves whispered back.

Dad stepped in behind her, his usual practical demeanor now something more reverent. “Look at this.” He examined the stone walls, where faint markings showed through the dust. Not quite writing, not quite pictures. Something older, like the land itself had formed them.

Emma moved toward the altar, drawn by something she couldn’t define. Each step felt deliberate, necessary. The silence here wasn’t empty, it was a presence… waiting. Stories held within the stone, of prayers offered by people who had been forgotten.

She thought of her mother’s research, which Emma had never fully engaged with or taken an interest in. The careful documentation of sacred places. This was what Mom had studied—not just the artifacts and interviews, but the living presence of the sacred. As she had put it, the way some places held memory in their very bones.

Without thinking, she pulled the carved fox from her pocket and set it on the altar beside the round stone, noting it too was covered with nearly effaced glyphs. It looked right there, like it belonged.

“I don’t know if anyone’s listening,” she whispered to the hushed space. “But my dog is lost. She’s small and scared and...” Her voice cracked. “I already lost my Mom. I can’t lose Lillie too. Please.”

A breeze stirred through the empty windows, carrying the perfume of sage and something that reminded her of her mother’s scent, faint as a fading memory. The carved fox caught the light, its obsidian eyes glinting… a gleam despite the indirect light.

Behind her, something clattered to the floor.

Dad had accidentally knocked a wooden box from a shelf, spilling its contents across the stone. A photograph, a folded sheet of paper, and a stainless-steel chain with two rounded rectangles.

“Sorry,” Dad said, “I was just studying the markings and my hand...” but he sounded uncertain.

Emma knelt to gather the items. The chain caught her attention first. “What are these?”

“Military dog tags.” Dad took them from her, reading. “U.S. Army. Staff Sergeant Joseph N. Makya.” He paused. “I think that’s a Native American name.”

Emma studied the faded photograph. A dark-featured young man in uniform sitting on a boulder, beside a narrow gap in a rock face, head tilted, shading his eyes with one hand.

“Dad, look at this.”

He crouched beside her, studying the photo. “That looks like the trailhead we just entered.”

“Yeah.” Emma carefully unfolded the paper. The ink was faded but still readable:

September 4, 1970

It’s your birthday, and I came to say goodbye. When we found this place together before you shipped out, you told me stories of it. How your grandfather’s people built it as a place of crossing, where prayers could travel between worlds. You wanted us to repeat our vows here when you came home, make it official in the way your family would appreciate and approve.

So, here now I’ll say my part, then I’m leaving, not just this place but Sedona. Not because I don’t love it—it’s beautiful, like you said—but because everything here reminds me of you. Every red rock, every sunrise, every sunset. It hurts too much now.

To anyone who finds this, Joe believed the altar stone belonged outside once we said our vows here, where it could see the stars and be seen by them. I can’t do it because I hope what I leave here draws him back home. To this place to say his part, complete our vows, where I know he’ll be at peace. If you’re here and it’s been many years... before this place falls completely to ruin, please honor his wish.

P.S. Found a stray dog this morning near the ridge trail. Red scarf, no tags. Taking her with me when I leave. Seems fitting somehow. One lost thing finding another. Maybe she’ll help me remember how to live again.

“A dog,” Emma breathed. “Someone else lost a dog near here…”

Dad took the note, reread it, and glanced at the dog tags. “Margaret said she lost her husband in Vietnam... twenty years before she—.”

“Came back to Sedona in 1990. So her husband was killed in 1970.” Emma’s eyes widened, realizing something she’d seen but that hadn’t registered. “The photograph on her counter—did you see it?”

“No, you were closer.”

“It was a young woman, kneeling, hugging a dog. Decades ago.” Emma touched the fox in her pocket. “What if Margaret...”

“Is the woman who wrote this note.” Dad’s voice was thoughtful. “The timing would work.”

“That’s why she sounded so certain.” Emma clutched the letter. “She’s been where we are. Where we just were.”

Emma stood, suddenly decisive. She gathered the letter, photograph, and dog tags, returning them to the box and placing it in her backpack. She lifted the stone from the altar, tendons in her arms drawing taut as she cradled it carefully. “She said it belongs outside.”

She carried the stone into the sunlight, placing it on a flat boulder where it could see the stars. The moment it touched the rock, wind chimneyed through the slot—not harsh, but a sigh.

“We should go,” Dad said gently. “Keep searching.”

Emma nodded, went inside to retrieve her carved fox from the altar. And noticed something else—faint marks in the stone beneath where the altar stone had rested. They looked like... a paw print?

“Em? Let’s go.”

“Yeah.” She pocketed the fox and took one last look around the chapel. “Thank you,” she whispered to the empty space.

They scrambled back down in silence. At the fork, Emma glanced back up, but the chapel was already hidden again, swallowed by junipers and shadow. As if it was never there. She almost turned back to see if it remained and stopped. “Did we really just...” Emma started.

Dad shook his head, still processing. “Find a hidden chapel and help put a Vietnam veteran’s spirit to rest? Yeah. I think we did.”

“Will anyone else ever find it?”

“Maybe.”

They reached the main trail, where a family was starting their morning hike. Normal people following a marked path. Unaware of what might or might not be just ahead.

“Excuse me,” the mother called out. “Did you see a dog up there? Small, reddish bandanna?”

Emma’s heart stopped. “What?”

“Some folks at the visitor center mentioned a lost terrier. We’ve been keeping an eye out, and thought we heard barking from somewhere up in the rocks, but...” She shrugged. “Echoes are strange around here.”

“Which way?” Emma was already moving. “Where?”

The woman pointed vaguely toward the left of the area they’d come from. “Hard to say exactly—sound bounces all over out here.”

Emma took off running, Dad close behind. If other people had heard barking, maybe Lillie was closer than they thought. They followed the main trail as it curved around the base of the rocks, then took a smaller path that branched upward, veering leftward, away from the abandoned chapel.

“There!”

A flash of color among the scrub brush, grown dense between the rocks. Emma scrambled over boulders, skinning her hands. It was cloth. Red fabric, old, frayed.

“That can’t be Lillie’s,” Dad said, catching up.

“No.” Emma handed him the fabric, puzzled. “But it looks just like it.”

A bark. Clear and sharp and absolutely real.

Emma’s head snapped up, eyes tracing a vertical gully. There on the ridge above, silhouetted against the sky...

“LILLIE!”

The little terrier barked again, then disappeared.

Emma climbed like she’d never climbed before, using hands and feet, leaving skin on the rocks. Each step sent jolts of pain through her blistered feet, but she didn’t care. When she crested the ridge, Lillie was there—dirty, limping slightly, but alive. Gloriously, impossibly alive.

They crashed together, Emma falling to her knees as Lillie launched into her arms. The dog was shaking, whimpering, trying to lick Emma’s face and burrow into her chest at the same time.

“You’re hurt,” Emma sobbed, finding the torn ear and deep scratches along Lillie’s shoulder. “What happened? Where have you been?”

But she was laughing too, crying and laughing as Lillie’s tail wagged so hard her whole body shook.

Dad reached them, breathing hard. “Is she okay?”

“She’s hurt, but—.” Emma couldn’t finish. She just held Lillie tighter, feeling the solid warmth of her, the way her heart raced against Emma’s chest.

“Her bandanna’s gone,” Dad noted, then looked at the faded red fabric in his hand, a frown forming on his face.

Emma took it from him and pressed it against the deepest scratch, Lillie letting her though it had to hurt.

They made their way slowly down, Emma carrying Lillie despite the dog’s occasional protests—Welsh Terriers were notoriously tough, and Lillie was already acting like her injuries were no big deal. At the car, Dad fashioned a makeshift bandage for the worst scratches.

“Vet first,” he said. “Then I’ll call Tom. He’ll want to know we found her.”

“Dad?” Emma caught his arm. “The chapel. Should we tell anyone?”

He considered, then shook his head. “Some things are meant to be found when they need to be. Not before.”

Emma thought of Margaret, carrying her grief and her rescued dog away from Sedona fifty-five years ago. Thought of her mother, who’d known about that trail but never forced them up it. Thought of all the ways loss and discovery wound together, impossible to separate.

“Yeah,” she said. “Some things.”

As they drove toward town, Lillie settled in Emma’s lap, exhausted. Through the rear window, Bell Rock grew smaller but no less present. Still watching. Still remembering.

Emma pulled out her phone, typed a quick message to the lost pet groups: FOUND! Lillie is safe. Thank you everyone who searched.

Then she put the phone away and just held her dog. For three days, she’d been drowning in fear of losing someone else she loved. But Lillie had survived and was back in her arms.

“You know what’s funny?” she said to Dad as they drove. “I spent so much energy being angry at you for making decisions without me, but I’ve been doing the same thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Deciding I couldn’t handle what happened with Mom, could never change how I felt. Deciding we were too broken to start over.” Emma looked out at the red rocks sliding past.

“Finding Lillie changed something for you?”

“Yeah. It did.” Emma pressed her cheek against Lillie’s warm head. “I kept thinking if I lost her too, it would prove that nothing good stays. That everything I love just... disappears. But she came back. She found her way back to us… and we found a way to her.”

“And that means?”

“That maybe love doesn’t go away. Maybe it just... changes like how Mom’s love for us didn’t end when she died. It just became something else. This trip, the way she knew we’d need this place.” Emma paused, then shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounds dumb when I say it out loud, but finding Lillie made me believe... maybe we’re stronger than I thought.”

“It doesn’t sound dumb at all.”

Six: Returning

Wednesday Afternoon

The vet was young and kind, cleaning Lillie’s wounds with gentle efficiency. “Looks like she tangled with something, probably a coyote. But she’s tough. Nothing’s broken.”

“The toughest,” Emma agreed, not letting go of Lillie even as the vet worked.

“She’s dehydrated and exhausted, but she’ll heal fine. Keep the wounds clean, watch for infection.” The vet smiled. “Dogs are resilient. They don’t dwell on what happened; they just move forward.”

In the waiting room, Dad made his call. Emma caught fragments: “—found her, yes—Tom, thank you so much for everything—”

Emma checked the time on her phone: 5:38 PM. She found Margaret’s shop online. Lost Canyon Curios | Open 09:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

“Dad,” she said when he hung up. “Before we go back to the cabin, can we stop at Margaret’s shop? I have something for her.”

Dad looked curious but nodded. “Of course.”

The drive to Margaret’s shop took twenty minutes through Sedona’s spring break tourist-congested streets. They parked as close as they could get. “I’ll stay with Lillie,” he smiled at the sleeping dog, the pain killer and light sedative the vet had given had kicked in.

At the shop, the wind chimes sang the same welcome. Margaret looked up from her work counter, her seamed face drawn into a frown, then brightening when she saw Emma.

“You found her,” she said simply.

“We did.” Emma approached the counter, then carefully pulled the carved box from her backpack. “But we found something else, too. Something that we think belongs to you.”

Margaret’s eyes widened, and her hands shook as Emma handed her the box. She opened it and drew out the stainless-steel chain. When she saw the name—Staff Sergeant Joseph N. Makya—her breath caught. For a long moment, she stared, her gnarled fingers hovering over the metal without quite touching the tags.

“You found the chapel….” Her voice barely a whisper.

“We did.” Emma’s voice was gentle, explaining what had happened.

Margaret closed her eyes, tears streamed down her face, filling the creases. Her trembling finger touched the dog tags, tracing Joseph’s name with the reverence of someone who had carried his memory for over half a century.

“I left these there for him. Hoping... hoping somehow, he’d find his way back to that place. That he’d know I’d been there.” Her voice broke. “That I hadn’t forgotten.”

Emma felt her own throat tighten. The weight of fifty-five years of waiting, of hoping, of keeping faith with a love that transcended death—it was almost too much to witness. And she felt the love for her mother become something more powerful than grief.

“He’s at peace now,” Emma said softly. “We moved the altar stone outside, like you wrote that he wanted. Under the stars.”

Margaret clutched the dog tags and photo to her withered chest, her whole body shaking with the force of grief, finally, fully released. “Fifty-five years. I came back in 1990, but I could never find that place again. I walked those trails for months, searching. I thought maybe I’d imagined it all.”

“I think my Mom would say, maybe it only shows up when someone really needs it,” Emma said, the words coming out more like a question. “When someone’s lost and doesn’t know what to do?”

Margaret nodded. “Like you were. Like I was, all those years ago.”

Emma pointed at the old photo in the frame on the counter. “The dog you found, what was her name?”

“I called her Sage. She lived nineteen years, a really long time for a dog. Taught me how to go on living when I thought I couldn’t.” Margaret wiped her eyes. “When Sage passed, it got me thinking, yearning really, to come back here.” “She was my bridge back to the world.”

“Like Lillie is for me,” Emma said quietly.

“Yes. Exactly like that.” Margaret paused, studying Emma’s face. “You said you found some old red fabric up there?”

Emma nodded. “It looked like an old bandanna, like Lillie wore.”

Margaret’s eyes softened. “Sage wore red, too. Fifty-five years... amazing what the desert preserves when it wants to.”

Emma gestured at the dog tags. “They were meant for you to have again.”

“No, child. It was meant for me to give them up, change the course of my life… and for you to return them to change yours.” Margaret smiled through her tears. “You’ve helped an old woman finally find peace. That’s a priceless gift.”

She stood slowly and walked to a small shrine in the corner of the shop that Emma hadn’t noticed before. It held a single white candle, some sage, and now she placed the dog tags and faded photograph beside them. “Thank you,” Margaret said, bowing her head. “For helping us all find our way home.”

Emma smiled and turned to go. The sound of the wind chimes stayed with her as she got in the car’s back seat with Lillie. Her Dad reached to pat her knee. “That was a beautiful thing you just did.”

“It felt right,” Emma said. “Like Mom would have done.”

“Yeah.”

They drove back to the cabin in comfortable quiet. Lillie dozed beside Emma, occasionally twitching in her sleep. Emma stroked her gently, careful of the bandages.

At the cabin, they settled Lillie on her bed with water and fancy soft food. She wolfed down her dinner, then promptly fell asleep again. Though she kept one ear slightly raised, alert even in rest, a small sign that her adventure had left its mark.

“So,” Dad said, settling onto the couch beside Emma. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Any thoughts? About Denver, the job, all of it?”

Emma pulled the carved fox from her pocket, turning it over in her hands. “Margaret said something about foxes helping the lost find their way home. But what if home isn’t a place anymore? What if it’s just... us?”

Dad was quiet for a moment. “Your Mom used to say home was wherever we were all together.”

“But there’s no ‘all’ anymore. Just us.”

“Yeah. Just us.” He reached over and took her hand. “Is that enough?”

Emma thought about the past three days. The terror of losing Lillie, the strange discovery at the chapel, the way grief had shaped itself into something new. Not gone, but different. The pain there… but less.

“I think it has to be,” she said finally. “I think maybe we’ve been so fearful of losing what’s left that we forgot what we have. Each other.”

“So, Denver?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to stay afraid forever.” Emma set the fox on the coffee table between them. “Take the job, Dad. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.”

“You sure? It means we’d have to move next summer before your sophomore year.”

“So I’d finish freshman year at home, then start over in Denver.” The reality hit her. New school, leaving behind everything familiar.

“I know it’s a lot to ask. Leaving your friends—.”

“What friends?” Emma said with a vestige of bitterness. “I’ve barely talked to anyone except Maya in months. And she’ll understand. She wants me to be okay.”

Dad looked uncertain. “You don’t have to decide right now. We could—.”

“No more putting things off because we’re afraid,” Emma interrupted. “Mom always said the best outcome… the best things… often start with saying yes to something that scares you. And trying something you haven’t before.”

“She did say that.”

“A lot.”

They both laughed, and it felt good, not like betrayal or forgetting, like being able to breathe again.

“You know what?” Dad said suddenly. “Your Mom asked me to read from her journal while we were here. I kept putting it off, but...” He looked at Emma. “Want to hear what she wrote about this place?”

Emma nodded, not trusting her voice.

Dad disappeared into his room and returned with a worn leather journal, smaller than the field notebook her mother had found on her first visit to Sedona, which had triggered her love for the area and its folklore as a graduate student. He sat back down, opening it carefully.

“This is from our first trip here together, before you were born.” He cleared his throat. “‘The desert doesn’t lie to you the way cities do. It doesn’t pretend things are easier than they are, or that comfort is the same as peace. It just exists, patient and honest, surviving whatever comes. I think that’s what Jeff and I need to learn—how to weather things together instead of trying to fix or change things we can’t.’”

Dad’s voice caught slightly. Emma felt her throat tighten, hearing her mother’s voice in those words.

He continued. “‘If we ever have children, I want to bring them here, not to the vortex tours or the crystal shops, but to the quiet places where you can hear the land. Where you can learn that some things are bigger than your problems, but that doesn’t make your problems small. They’re just... part of something larger to understand… and deal with.’”

Emma felt tears on her cheeks. She reached over and touched Dad’s hand. “She knew. Even then, she knew we’d need this place.”

“There’s more.” Dad flipped ahead several pages, his own eyes shone with unshed tears. “This one’s from after you were born, after we’d been here a few times as a family.” He smiled. “‘Emma loves the roadrunners. She sits so still watching them, studying them. Jeff says she gets that from me—the need to understand what things mean, how they make her feel. But I think she’s learning something different. Observation, maybe. The art of paying attention.’”

Dad looked up, studying Emma’s face. “She was right, you know. You’ve always been good at seeing what other people miss.”

“Is that why I saw the fox? Why I could spot the chapel?”

“Maybe. Or maybe you were just ready to see.” He closed the journal gently but kept it in his lap like he wasn’t quite ready to put it away. “Your Mom believed this place had a way of giving people what they needed, when they needed it. Not always what they wanted, but what they needed.”

Emma wiped her eyes. “What did we need?”

“To realize we had each other, I think. And to find the courage to keep going.”

Outside, the desert was settling, the respite before deep night. Even Lillie seemed more peaceful, her breathing deep and steady.

“You know, I remember one time, right here, something your mother said that fits.”

“What?”

“Your Mom said that ‘There are no coincidences, only connections we don’t understand yet.’”

“What does that mean, though?”

Dad was quiet for a long moment. “I think grief blinded us, and we needed the search for Lillie to make us notice and see the things we’d otherwise miss. That chapel, Margaret’s story, the fox—maybe we discovered them because we needed to, and that’s what formed the connection.”

“So it’s not magic.”

“Does it matter? Whether it’s magic or just... heightened awareness? The important thing is that it helped us find our way.” He smiled. “Your Mom always said life is mostly about paying attention.”

Emma considered this. It felt more honest than insisting everything was supernatural, but it didn’t diminish what they’d experienced. If anything, it made it more real. “So we were ready to see and connect with what we needed.”

“To let it guide and help us to find what was lost… find what we needed.”

Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out the green malachite stone Margaret had given him, turning it over in his fingers. “You know what’s funny? Carrying this around, I kept thinking it was supposed to help me make a decision. But I think the decision was already made. I just needed to trust it.”

“The job?”

“Taking it. Moving forward. Trusting that we can handle whatever comes next.” He smiled, and for the first time in months, it reached his eyes. “Your Mom would say the stone didn’t give me the answer—it just helped me listen to what I already knew. I’ll call work early tomorrow morning. Here,” he handed her her mother’s journal, “it’s for you.”

She took it and smiled. “And I’ll call Maya.”

* * *

That night, Emma couldn’t sleep. The moon was full outside her window, painting everything silver. She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Lillie, and padded to the porch with her backpack.

The desert was alive with rustling under the moon’s light. Emma sat on the steps, the carved fox in her hands, and tried to imagine her future. Denver. A new school, new friends. Dad traveling but coming home. Both of them moving forward instead of standing still.

She pulled out her mother’s journal. The leather cover was worn soft, pages filled with careful handwriting and sketches of petroglyphs, rock formations, plants, and interview notes. Emma flipped through, stopping at an entry that made her breath catch:

“Local oral traditions speak of certain animals as guides for souls in transition—foxes especially. Multiple tribal elders I interviewed (transcribed with their permission) described paths and places that ‘find the lost.’ Not claiming to understand or interpret these sacred concepts, only documenting what was shared with me as a researcher.”

“What strikes me is the consistency across different sources: the belief that the way and some locations appear only to those in genuine spiritual need. I’ve been granted permission to visit one such path and site, and I can say that the experience was... profound. Whether psychological, spiritual, or something beyond current understanding, these places seem to offer exactly what a person needs.”

Her mother had been careful, respectful. Had studied these concepts and precepts without claiming to own or fully understand them.

“Mom?” she whispered to the night. “What do you think about what’s next?”

The wind stirred, carrying the fragrance of sage and juniper. For just a moment, Emma felt something—not her mother’s presence exactly, but something like her approval. Like permission to move on. Not forget, but move on.

A movement in the shadows caught her eye. The fox from that first night, or its twin. It sat at the edge of the porch light, regarding her with knowing eyes.

Emma held her breath. The fox tilted its head, then trotted a few steps away, pausing to look back. She heard the scratch of nails on Saltillo tile. Lille came out onto the porch and spotted the fox. Emma half-raised to warn and grab Lillie.

But Lillie didn’t lower tail and head with a forward lean, didn’t stiffen into that predator’s pre-launch stance. When the fox ambled off, she didn’t surge to follow or chase. Somehow, she understood that journey—one Emma had needed to experience—was done.

“Thank you,” Emma said to the fox.

The fox seemed to nod, then silently disappeared into the brush.

“Come on, Lille…” Emma went back inside and found Dad in the kitchen, making tea.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked, kneeling to scratch Lillie behind her ears, eliciting a gaping yawn from the dog.

“Too much to think about.”

“Good thoughts or bad thoughts?”

“Both, I think. But mostly... like maybe things might be okay.”

He handed her a mug. “Your Mom would be proud of you, Em. “

“Of both of us….”

They sat together at the kitchen table, drinking tea and making plans. Outside, something howled—not mournful this time, but wild and free. Asleep again in her bed, Lillie’s ears twitched, but she didn’t wake.

The moon set slowly, leaving the desert in gentle darkness. Emma was content, sitting in the quiet kitchen with her father and their sleeping dog, surrounded by the vast, patient desert.

What had returned with the moon wasn’t only what they’d lost. It was also what they needed: the strength to carry love forward into whatever came next.

Complete, if not unchanged.

Whole, if not unbroken.

Ready.