But Coco hadn’t chosen to be an ox. If she’d been allowed to be a boy on the Oregon Trail, everything would have worked out. With all the funny costumes, the marshmallow wagons and false names, maybe her new look would’ve escaped notice. She’d change slowly after that. A baseball cap, a haircut, a nickname.

Devon’s fingertips reached Coco’s chest. She screamed. The scream wasn’t a kid’s scream or a pioneer’s scream. It was wild and wet and injured. Like something you’d hear in the backwoods, but only from a distance.

Devon retreated on the lawn. “What’s your problem?” Alex asked, sounding like he didn’t want to know.

Then someone behind them said, “Greetings, party.” The moment she spoke, in that voice that could have been set to music, Coco recognized Ms. Harper. The pioneers turned to face this final spirit.

“I am the Spirit of Personal Dissonance,” Ms. Harper said, from under her wave of crispy silver hair.

The Blackthorn matriarch backed up, spilling fistfuls of flour like snow over the feet of the surviving party.

“Doesn’t sound scary,” Alex said. “Don’t even know what that is.”

“Well,” said Ms. Harper. “I’m surprised you don’t know what dissonance is, because you, young man, are the cause of it.”

“But I’m a pillar of this community,” said Alex.

“Not anymore.” Ms. Harper twirled a twig in Alex’s face. “Lie down. You were shot with a musket by the Bell patriarch.”

“Ha,” said Devon. “Gotcha.”

“Alas,” said Ms. Harper. “Not before the Bell patriarch was mortally wounded by the Blackthorn matriarch’s bayonet, which she then, in misery, turned on herself.”

Ms. Harper narrated the deaths of three pioneers from another class. That was the last of them; six pioneers slumped in the clover with their eyes shut.

“I’m not ready to die,” Coco said.

“It’s all right, Coco,” said Ms. Harper. “You don’t die.”

Winning was this easy. But she wasn’t even proud. She took a breath. “That’s not my name anymore.”

Ms. Harper looked confused, but soon her expression settled. “The game’s over, honey.” She set her hand on Coco’s spine to guide her back to school.

Really, the end of the simulation was just the beginning. Coco knew that now. Not even Ms. Harper could help her. She pulled away and turned to face the yellow field, the milkweed, the curved path of cones. The sun was a low white hole in the sky. She would go on her journey now. She would set off.

Counselor of My Heart

AFTER CROSSING MEMORIAL DRIVE ONTO THE BANKS of the Charles, Molly let her quasi-girlfriend’s dog off the leash. Chowder bounded next to her, limbs flapping against the snow, so puppyish she wanted to shove him over. But nothing could annoy her now, not even this brat. She had a day off from the hot dog stand. The air smelled like fire.

She was just wishing the dog away when she became half-aware of the squirrel skittering across the frozen river, the scrape of its claws like a rake dragged over plastic. Later she’d wonder why she didn’t turn and face the squirrel, seriously question his purpose on the ice. Did he think he’d buried a nut out there? Had he, actually? Was it floating, swollen, an inch above the river bottom?