Jules and Zach ran to Seth’s clothes. Jules grabbed his shirt in her hands, staring at it and shaking it out, like something might fall out of it that explained everything. Zach did the same with his pants and then his shoes, turning everything inside out and upside-down as he went through it.

Two small feathers fell from Seth’s shirt.

Jules and Zach just turned to each other and stared.

Jules was the first one to speak up.

“You saw that, right?” she asked, her voice wavering.

Zach just nodded.

“You saw something fly out of my brother’s clothes?” he said, like he was trying to confirm.

“Yes,” Jules said, looking back down at his shirt.

She squeezed her eyes shut, then reopened them, like maybe if she did it enough it would be Seth’s body in front of her, not his empty clothes.

She didn’t want Seth to be dead. Of course not. That very morning, she’d wondered what their kids would look like, a thought that was completely insane and wildly inappropriate, but she also knew that men who fell hundreds of feet usually hit the ground and died.

This has to be a dream, she thought. It doesn’t feel like a dream. Everything is so real and tangible, and I can feel the dust on his shirt, and Zach is right here, talking to me, but it has to be, right?

People don’t fly away in real life?

“I’m taking this psychology class,” Zach said, still staring at the clothes. “And I learned that men usually start manifesting schizophrenia in their mid to late twenties, though usually they hear voices long before they have a complete break with reality.”

“We must be having the same break from reality,” Jules said.

“Maybe we’re patients in a mental ward together,” offered Zach. “Otherwise, I have no idea what to make of this.”

Jules looked around again, searching for the bird that Seth had turned into.

This doesn’t feel like a psychotic break either, she thought. Not that I know what that feels like.

I hope Seth is okay, whatever happened.

“My mom had stories about stuff like this,” Zach said, slowly. “Maybe this is some kind of shared delusion that our family members all had, and so it slowly become legend after a while. Sort of like how vampire legends came about.”

“I’m not a family member,” pointed out Jules.

“Maybe you’re not real,” said Zach.

I’m pretty sure I’m real, thought Jules, but she didn’t press the issue. It wasn’t like she knew what was going on either.

“Do you think he’s coming back?” she asked, still holding the shirt, squeezing it in her hands.

“I have no idea,” said Zach.

“You know the stories.”

Zach just looked at her, and was about to say something, when something else caught his eye.

Jules whirled around.

Coming right toward them was one of the biggest birds she’d ever seen, all gold-brown, and it was carrying something in its talons. She backed away, trying to avoid getting hit, but at the last moment the bird dropped the box in front of them and then landed.

Jules and Zach didn’t move, and after a few moments, Jules spoke.

“Seth?” she whispered.

She knew it was a crazy thing to say, but then again, nothing was really making sense.

The bird — she was almost certain it was one of the golden eagles who lived on the mesa — cocked its head at her, its golden brown eyes flashing.

That’s him, she thought, suddenly certain. Those are Seth’s eyes.

The eagle was enormous, its head almost even with her waist, and its wings had easily been wider than her own arm span. Then it gave a little hop, moving away, fluttering its wings.

“What?” she said, as it hopped from foot to foot, seeming frustrated.

Then all at once, it was like the eagle melted into itself and in a blink, Seth stood there in front of them again.

The three of them stood there, silently. Seth was totally naked, but that was far from the most pressing issue.

“I think I found it,” he said, pointing at the box.

“What just happened?” asked Zach.

Seth just shrugged, and Jules got on her knees, fiddling with the lock.

“It’s still locked,” she said. “It’s hardly even rusted, it’s so dry out here.”

“Let me try something,” Zach said, taking the box.

Then he grabbed a big rock, the size of his fist, and slammed it into the box.

“Be careful!” said Jules, afraid he’d break something.

Instead, the lock fell away, and the two brothers knelt in the dirt over the box, opening the lid.

Inside was a sheaf of paper, bound together by twine that fell away when they touched it. His hands trembling, Zach unrolled the papers, careful not to let them be taken away by the wind.

The first was just a letter, and then the next and the next. Jules’s heart fell.

All that for nothing, she thought.

Then Zach flipped through one more and stopped.

UTAH TERRITORY, the next one read across the top. Underneath was a faded seal, and then handwriting. Jules couldn’t make some of it out, because it had faded with time and was written in a flowery, old script, but she could read enough.

WHEREAS, the undersigned, HIRAM ADMAS, has fulfilled his obligations to tend the soil and establish Himself and Family, the Utah Territory recognizes his ownership of the lands under his dominion.

There was more, but she couldn’t read it.

“There needs to be a map,” she said. “Something that says what it was he owned, where the boundaries were...”

Zach flipped through another page, his hands shaking, and the next one was filled with the small, flowery, neat handwriting. It was all directions.

“This is it,” Jules said. “That’s it. That’s what he owned. ‘From the river inward, three hundred acres encompassing the Table and Lands below it’ — that’s the mesa, ‘mesa’ is just Spanish for table, it must have come into common use at some later point—”

Her hands were shaking, too, and she felt like she couldn’t stop talking.

The three of them stood, looking at each other.

“So it’s over?” Seth asked.

“We have to get the deed to the right place, I’m sure,” Jules said. “I’m sure there’s a process, we have to put in the right paperwork, all that.”

I’m saying ‘we’, she thought. Why am I saying ‘we’?

Zach and Seth just nodded.

“Should we talk about this bird thing?” Zach asked.

“It just happened,” Seth said. “I was falling, and then I sort of... flexed a muscle I didn’t know I had, and then I was flying.”

He swallowed and looked at his little brother.

“Do you have the dream where you’re flying?” he asked.

Zach just nodded.

“It was just like that,” Seth said.

Jules pointed again at the box with the deed in it.

“We can talk about this later,” she said. “We need to find out now how to file this.”