“Go get Rainer,” Dice said. He always knew how hard to push. He’d told me about Queen and Cassie, and then interrupted my thoughts with talk about daisies and the definite self. He’d told me all the rules, then let me bathe in lavender.

“Why?” I asked.

“Your next lesson,” he said. I looked up at him. I knew I was frightened because my hands were shaking.

* * *

Dice led Rainer and me around to the sloping pen where the few remaining lambs sunned themselves and played, scampering sideways and tossing their heads. They were almost full-size now.

“Choose one, Harmony,” Dice said. I knew right away what he wanted. It was my second chance for slaughtering.

I chose a chubby lamb, a boy with a big round belly. Dice led us to the pallet, the frame, the pneumatic machine—they used to be right by the edge of the woods but now they were deeper in. Dice roped the lamb to a sapling. The insects roared in the afternoon, and the love-prayer feeling rose up in me like a tide, and I blinked hard to try to stay in my head, seeing through my own eyes.

Dice said, “You know why I picked you two?”

I supposed the real answer was that Rainer and I had each played a part in Queen’s pregnancy. This was our punishment. But with Dice there was always a lesson; I loved that about him. “So we can learn about life and death?” I said.

“Because both of you are weak. Rainer especially,” Dice said. I had never heard Dice be so cruel.

“What a fool,” Dice said. “Look at him.” His voice rose, his neck corded. “Look at him!” I was horrified to see tears in Rainer’s eyes.

He put his arm around Rainer. “Wouldn’t you say”—he was loud again, his voice ringing and metallic—“that no one outside the family cares about your well-being?”

“No one outside the family cares about my well-being,” Rainer repeated.

“Not your parents? Not Lindsay?” said Dice.

“No,” Rainer said.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” said Dice, gentle again. “In fact, you should be proud. We will love you like no one else can.” I loved how Dice took care. His words were even more soothing after he’d been so unkind. Rainer reminded me of a nervous horse caught in the traces; Dice rescued him and calmed him.

Dice told Rainer to sit down on the pallet. Rainer sat. Dice took me deeper into the forest. “You see, no one cares about him, or will notice his disappearance,” said Dice.

Dice handed me a knife, a Ka-Bar. I tilted the blade and looked at the forest reflected in it, smeared together.

Dice left me there. Soon he brought Rainer back behind the trees. “Do you trust me?” said Dice.

Rainer nodded.

“Do you trust Harmony?” said Dice.