Queen closed the tin, red with silver reindeer, which reminded me of my mother’s tin, and that necklace with its silver garlands, and the earrings, and how I was supposed to be in Virginia, learning expository writing and pushing my way into a future more auspicious than a knickknack store. Then she tucked the tin back among the gold bottles of peaches and tomatoes.

Queen looked me over. “Let’s cut your hair. Get that padding off the brain. And for the family resemblance, you know.”

“Cut it right now?” I said, lifting my hair, which felt like satin in the cold.

She watched me, smiling vaguely. “I promise, you’ll really feel like you belong.”

She used the sheep shears. The shears were two facing knives connected by a U of bendy metal—no hinge, like scissors, just a hooklike structure she squeezed with her hands. She held my skull with her fingertips, tilted it back and forth as the shears crunched into my long hair. With each clip my head lightened, bobbing up like a spring.

There wasn’t a mirror around to check what I looked like. In the compost toilet room there was a burned cookie sheet nailed where the mirror would have been. I kept seeking my face in it.

“I bet I look like a mental patient,” I said.

“You are one!” Queen said, and kissed me on the head.

I could feel the cold breeze blowing on my skull.

* * *

Only five of us were present at lunch. I didn’t recognize the other three. They ate quietly, standing with their plates by the sink, their heads bent.

In the afternoon, I followed the sheep higher up the mountains. I was learning. A few headstrong ewes led the flock, and so it really wasn’t sixty sheep I had to control, but four. When a sheep turned the wrong way, I’d run to stand in front of her, and sometimes that was enough. She’d shift direction without even acknowledging me, like a cat. When that didn’t work, I’d stand in front and yell a little, “Ay ay ay.” When that didn’t work I’d stand, yell, and shake a branch, making myself look bigger. If I had to escalate, I’d try jumping, throwing sticks, yelling, running right at the sheep, and pushing on their heads and shoulders. I had an innate advantage, because sheep already fear anything with eyes at the front of the head, instead of at the sides. Front eyes are for predators.

That afternoon, the sheep tromped over a stream, frozen on top, moving underneath. My knees and hands cracked the ice as I splashed into the water. I looked up and I saw a heron, the blue slashes along its narrow head, the long white curved throat, the massive tucked body, dipping its foot in the stream.