Queen paused before speaking again. “She died in a car accident,” she said. “I was an awful daughter, anyway. I got in lots of fights. I was a troublemaker. My friends seemed to valorize suffering. They valorized difficult personalities.” I knew what she meant: the squat’s meetings went on for hours, starting out with bulk avocado orders or whether or not to kill mice, and ending with each person splitting into their own separate rage. “It’s true that people who had never found a community often found their way to us,” she said. “But you have to know, Harmony, if society isn’t built for you, you are more likely to see its faults. You will inevitably see its faults. You will not see why you should preserve it.”

“I always wished I could hop trains,” I said, which was true.

“There are many ways to live outside society,” she said. “You don’t need to hop trains. I was at the end of the line and there was Bay, waiting with open arms.”

I didn’t know if she meant this literally. It hadn’t occurred to me that I had just been one in a series of people waiting to be held in his long scarred arms.

“Bay,” I said. I felt brokenhearted, or betrayed by Bay or by Queen, I wasn’t sure.

“Bay,” Queen said. “Seductive Bay.”

“He seduced you?” I said. I thought of our kiss. I burned to know whether Queen had kissed Bay too.

“You don’t own him,” Queen said: she knew exactly what I was thinking. “We share everything. It is one of Dice’s most important rules.”

“You don’t seem to respect Dice’s rules all that much,” I said.

She tilted her head. Her expression, something about it, filled me with dread.

“Be careful with Bay,” she said.

“Why?” I said.

“He’s like Dice’s hands,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I said. She didn’t answer.

The smell of the rosemary. The whisk of the hay. We knew some of each other’s secrets. I had to stop thinking that I could trust her. I said, “Don’t run away.”

For a moment I could see her as she was: a young woman pregnant, and scared.

CHAPTER 14

Dice found me as soon as I returned with the sheep the next morning. I felt my skin prickle. I didn’t understand how he could frighten me with a smile. “I haven’t seen you much recently, Harmony,” Dice said. “You’ve been spending all your time with Queen.”

“Not all of it,” I said. I scrutinized his face for signs of what he knew. Did he know Queen hadn’t taken the tea? Did he know Pear had allowed it to happen? But his face was perfectly vague; his eyes reminded me of those of marble statues, smooth and empty.