I herded the sheep over the changing terrain. The springtime ground was porous, trickling from many hidden holes. The brambly new woods were as wet as a shower. During the day I watched my flock nosing around the brown hillsides, nuzzling the dead grass, and I thought, Soon there will be so much grass the sheep won’t know what to do with themselves.

The first needles of grass began to come up in the sunny spots, neon green against the soil, and then in one week the hills changed color. The daytime sky lost its wintry paleness and, in collaboration with the sun, went violet at the apex. Then we had quinces, and then we had rhubarb, which we prepared with a crumble, and we brought the tables outside and ate in the courtyard, the moths troubling our lantern light.

One evening during the singing Pear said, “Maybe you’d like to lead, Harmony.” And then I stood in the center of the hollow square. I called “The Grieved Soul.” This was the song Bay had taught me in the car when he’d driven me to the farm.

What is this that casts thee down?

Who are those that grieve thee?

Speak and let the worst be known,

Speaking may relieve thee.

I realized that the leader, supervising the voices blasting in from all sides, also got the best spot in the audience, which was exactly like subsistence farming. The worker reaps the best rewards.

The snow melted as it fell, and that was the end of the snow, and March. One morning we spotted a yellow mountain lion in the courtyard. Redwing blackbirds appeared, and peonies, coltsfoot, bloodroot, yellowroot, and pussy willows flowered. The stream swelled even more, and churned up a mist all around it. The vultures were mating.

* * *

After breakfast one morning, Dice said to Sara, “Will you help move this one out of the hayloft? Give her a bunk. Bay’s bringing a new couple in tomorrow.”

“What?” I said. “You want me in the house?”

“Yes, Harmony,” he said. “You won’t be the baby anymore.”

It was April. Seven months. I was no longer new.

“Any bunk will do,” he said to Sara.

I moved my nightgown—and it wasn’t even really mine—from the barn to one of the bedrooms. Sara showed me the wicker baskets under the beds where everyone kept clothes. “No possessions,” she said.

“I wish I could stay in the hayloft,” I said. I had come to like that rare time of privacy.

Sara sized me up. I could see the blue veins at her temples and near her ears. She was perfect for Dice, a transparent person. I knew exactly what she was thinking: my complaint would count as half-assing. “I’ll ask Dice for a prayer tonight,” she said. “Then you’ll feel better.”