The Anaa’ji begins at dawn. Pink streaks fragment the sky and the fat red sun is swallowed, then spit out by marshmallow clouds, so that every face in the ceremony is only half-illuminated. Light, shadow. Evil, purity. Evil has swarmed this small Navajo town, and the ritual is a cleansing. The rhythmic chants, rising in volume and passion, wake Mary, who has overslept and curses her inadequate alarm. She dresses fast, in darkness. She hurries to the crowd. Faces turn and mouths fight smiles and eyes twinkle. She looks down and finds she’s donned a lint-wreathed polka dot skirt, a red plaid flannel jacket, mismatched socks. The people’s voices thrum and the chief brandishes his rattle. Mary’s mother looks at her with mouth twisted in anger. Mary joins the chants, copying her neighbors’ mouth shapes, because she’s not great with the Navajo language. It’s the least she can do. After all, the whole thing is her fault. Mary runs a stall in a rickety line of tourist traps that straddle the Four Corners. She sells hand-loomed rugs in traditional patterns. She loves the rich tumble of colors, the brush of the soft pile against her skin. But lately, business has flagged. Two more stalls have appeared, selling machine-loomed rugs, much cheaper than Mary’s creations. Over the last two months, her mother’s dinner table grew sparse. Collection agencies’ threats accumulated. She was late on rent, then later the next month. She’d even pawned a silver-and-turquoise ring bequeathed by her grandmother. But then, a quiet serendipity. She looked up into a juniper one afternoon and saw an immense, silvery-white owl, studying her with eyes like bullets, layered and complicated wings, like constellations. As inspiration, it was perfect. It hummed with inscrutable meanings. She got right to work. She’d had to work at night because owls are taboo. Everyone knew this. They bring chaos; they never have good intentions. They’re creatures of the selfish, ravenous gods who care little for human pain. But Mary was sure that _her _owl was different. While her mother snored, Mary hurried to her loom. The owl took shape in tufted fibers. Pure white; it was important that it looked a little like an angel. A scarlet background with no pattern of its own, so as not to distract from the central figure. Those piercing, fathomless eyes. It was the best thing she’d ever done. She loved it more than she’d ever loved a person, even David Nichols, her first crush. She hung it on the stall’s plywood side, facing outward, to lure tourists. The other stall owners oohed and aahed. Amanda Cook asked how she’d decided on just one owl, instead of a pattern. He’s just one of a kind, Mary said. Well, it’s genius, said Amanda. He’s like the answer to any question. Like a sunset, or a religion. A masterpiece. Tourists rushed up and bargained. But Mary found she couldn’t name her price. A price was an offer, but she didn’t want to offer the owl. She wanted to bask in its odd gaze, be comforted by its presence. She turned the tourists away. She was still poor, but happier, until, tragically, the chief’s wife decided to visit the stalls. She hobbled up, leaning on a twisted cane, smiling vaguely until she saw the bird. She shrieked and hollered. She battened the rug with her cane. Burn it _immediately_, she ordered. Sage and sweet grass in the fire. Do it quickly, now; perhaps the gods will forgive. Of course, said Mary, who knew she’d do no such thing. And maybe it would have been okay, except for Lincoln Whitetree. Link was Mary’s age, born and raised on the Rez like her. His quiet face was a familiar sight throughout grade school. They’d been lab partners; he’d given her her first joint as they huddled behind a reeking dumpster in the school parking lot. His first car was a rusted Corolla with no fabric on the seat cushions, but he babied it as if it were a Mercedes. Saturdays he could be seen hosing, buffing, spreading was that smelled of orange peels. When he was done the car glittered arrogantly, as if the surrounding huts and stray dogs were holding it back from its true destiny. After his graduation party, Link, fortified with six Miller Lights and a fat joint, wrapped the Carolla around a scrub oak. The car needed extensive repairs and so did Link, who’d fractured almost everything, down to the tiny bones in his toes. What followed was the old story. Link was prescribed painkillers. Link loved the thick, gentle opiate haze, which whispered that everything was kind and beautiful. When his scrips ran out he turned to the rez’s heroin dealer. He overdosed on the dirty linoleum of a McDonald’s bathroom. He wasn’t found for several hours. Mary had heard his eyes were open—he always had the most penetrating, ocean-colored eyes—and he was already beginning to stink. The news broke and aunts, grandmothers, uncles, formed a screeching scrum around Mary. She was a witch; she cared nothing for tradition. She was the worst kind of evil. Abashed, she’d sworn she’d burn the rug. The chief shifted his long gray braids and said they’d better have a cleansing ceremony. Of course she didn’t burn the rug. She did haul it down from the stall’s outside wall. She toiled through the empty desert, dragging the rug, which got heavier as the sun burned hotter. She found a strange, diseased-looking cactus, which bent precariously over its own roots, as if driven by a strong wind. She rummaged in the sand until she had a six-foot hollow. Buried, the rug looked faceless, like the endless desert. Mary fed delightedly on her secret. She visited her rug at night, brushing sand from the bird’s luminous body, even more magical when drenched in moonlight. The ceremony concludes. The chief bestows reassuring smiles. Everyone piles into his house for a small gathering. Mary and her aunts nibble chicken wings, crustless sandwiches, chile-flavored fry bread. Men get drunk on the back porch. People eye Mary like unexplored ordnance. She excuses herself and returns to the desert. For the next month, the Rez is rocked by thunderstorms. Lightning blackens roofs. Shutters fling themselves from windows into soaked grass. Cars are keyed. Two dogs die, apparently poisoned, but no one knows anyone who would do such a thing. The chief gets the flu and coughs so deep in his chest that the eruptions are like avalanches. One night Mary’s mother lurks behind her as she washes dishes. I know you didn’t burn that rug, she hisses. It would be like murder to you. There’s always been something just not right about you. I don’t know what you’re taking about, Mary says, polishing a saucer. I’m going out for a while. She spreads the sand slowly, carefully unearthing the rug. The owl’s glare is still both bright and disturbing. She tacks the rug to the inside of the stall and stands staring at it. The bird stares back. A sullen discontentment emanates from their mutual regard. What has gone wrong? Well, she’d made the beak too sharp. It was like a tiny plastic pyramid. There’s an ugly gray patch on a wing; she must have grabbed the wrong color. The left leg bends at a freakish angle. The ears droop. Tears squirm hot and relentless into Mary’s throat. Yes, the bird seems to say, you should have done better, and when _will _you do better than this flimsy box of a life. Don’t you see there is more than the desert, the Rez, your stupid hopes that are too small not to be crushed like insects. Look at _that, _says someone behind her. Mary turns. A blonde tourist clutching an iPhone and a Target bag. Her boyfriend or husband, bearded, looking hot and uncomfortable. Wouldn’t that be such a nice accent for the spare room, the woman says. How much? No, says Mary. It isn’t an accent; it _needs_ accents. It can’t live in a spare room, on the margins of things. The woman eyes her; she thinks Mary is arguing for a higher price. Well then, she says. Let’s start the bidding. No. It’s not for sale. The woman turns away, muttering violently; the man gives Mary a despairing look. Mary shifts under the owl’s gaze. It seems to prickle her skin, like hawthorne. She stares for a while, then hauls it off its pins and back into the desert. There is no moon; she can’t see the bird, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that there is a cigarette lighter in her pocket; she can’t remember putting it there, but perhaps the gods have decided on mercy instead of revenge. At first the fire is listless and weak. Then it rises, begins to crackle, then roar. Flames lick the white body, the peculiar imperfections that ruined her fierce, unbounded love. She waits for fibers to transform to ashes. Then she begins the long, despairing walk home, knowing she might never weave again, knowing she has to somehow start anew, obliterating the cage of her life with a fire just as big, as hungry, as the one that devoured the owl. Perhaps there really are gods after all. Perhaps they watch her trudge through the shifting sands, as sad as children, as vast and empty as the endless, shifting desert. And perhaps finally, they are pleased.