That afternoon we stand for the first time on the boardwalk of Broadway Avenue in Jackson, Wyoming. Even in January, there are plenty of tourists. Stagecoaches and horse-drawn carriages pass by every few minutes, along with a never-ending string of cars. I can’t help but scan for one particular silver truck: the mysterious Avalanche with the license plate 99CX.

“Who knew there’d be so much traffic?” I remark as I watch the cars go by.

“What would you do if you saw him right now?” Mom asks. She’s wearing a new straw cowboy hat that she was unable to resist in the first gift shop we went into. A cowboy hat. Personally I think she’s taking this Old West thing a bit too far.

“She’d probably pass out,” says Jeffrey. He bats his eyelashes wildly and fans himself, then pretends to collapse against Mom. They both laugh.

Jeffrey has already bought himself a T-shirt with a snowboarder on it and is deliberating on a real, honest-to-goodness snowboard he liked in a shopwindow. He’s been in a much better mood since we arrived at the house and he saw that all is not completely lost. He’s acting a lot like the old Jeffrey, the one who smiles and teases and occasionally speaks in full sentences.

“You two are hilarious,” I say, rolling my eyes. I jog ahead toward a small park I notice on the other side of the street. The entrance is a huge arch made of elk antlers.

“Let’s go this way,” I call back to Mom and Jeffrey. We hurry across the crosswalk right as the little orange hand starts to flash. Then we linger for a minute under the arch, gazing up at the latticework of antlers, which vaguely resemble bones. Overhead the sky darkens with clouds, and a cold wind picks up.

“I smell barbecue,” says Jeffrey.

“You’re just a giant stomach.”

“Hey, can I help it if I have a faster metabolism than normal people? How about we eat there.” He points up the street where a line of people stand waiting to get into the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.

“Sure, and I’ll buy you a beer, too,” Mom says.

“Really?”

“No.”

As they bicker about it, I’m struck with the sudden urge to document this moment, so I’ll be able to look back and say, this was the beginning. Part one of Clara’s purpose. My chest swells with emotion at the thought. A new beginning, for us all.

“Excuse me, ma’am, would you mind taking our picture?” I ask a lady walking past. She nods and takes the camera from Mom. We strike a pose under the arch, Mom in the middle, Jeffrey and me on either side. We smile. The woman tries to snap a picture, but nothing happens. Mom steps over to show her how to work the flash.

That’s when the sun comes out again. I suddenly become super aware of what’s going on around me, like it’s all slowing down for me to encounter piece by piece: the voices of the other people on the boardwalk, the flash of teeth when they speak, the rumble of engines and the tiny squeal of brakes as cars stop at the red light. My heart is beating like a slow, loud drum. My breath drags in and out of my lungs. I smell horse manure and rock salt, my own lavender shampoo, Mom’s splash of vanilla, Jeffrey’s manly deodorant, even the faint aroma of decay that still clings to the antlers above us. Classical music pours from underneath the glass doors of one of the art galleries. A dog barks in the distance. Somewhere a baby is crying. It feels like too much, like I’ll explode trying to take it all in. Everything’s too bright. There’s a small, dark bird perched in a tree in the park behind us, singing, fluffing its feathers against the cold. How can I see it, if it’s behind me? But I feel its sharp black eyes on me; I see it angle its head this way and that, watching me, watching, until suddenly it takes off from the tree and swirls up into the wide-open sky like a bit of smoke, disappearing into the sun.

“Clara,” Jeffrey whispers urgently close to my ear. “Hey!”

I jerk back to earth. Jackson Hole. Jeffrey. Mom. The lady with the camera. They’re all staring at me.

“What’s going on?” I’m dazed, disconnected, like some part of me is still up in the sky with the bird.

“Your hair’s, like, shining,” murmurs Jeffrey. He glances away like he’s embarrassed.

I look down. Gasp. Shining is not the word. My hair is an iridescent silvery-gold riot of light and color. It blazes. It catches the light like a mirror reflecting the sun. I slide my hand down the warm, luminous strands, and my heart, which seemed to beat so slowly a few moments before, begins to thump painfully fast. What’s happening to me?

“Mom?” I call weakly. I look up into her wide blue eyes. Then she turns toward the lady, all perfectly composed.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” Mom says. “You know what they say: You don’t like the weather in Wyoming, wait ten minutes.”

The lady nods distractedly, still staring at my supernaturally radiant hair like she’s trying to figure out a magician’s trick. Mom crosses to me and briskly gathers the length of my hair into her hand like a piece of rope. She shoves it into the collar of my hoodie and pulls the hood up over my head.

“Just stay calm,” she whispers as she moves into place between Jeffrey and me. “All right. We’re ready now.”

The lady blinks a few times, shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it. Now that my hair is covered, it’s like everything returns to normal, like nothing unusual has happened. Like we imagined it all. The lady lifts the camera.

“Say cheese,” she instructs us.

I do my best to smile.

We end up at Mountain High Pizza Pie for dinner, because it’s the easiest, closest place. Jeffrey scarfs his pizza while Mom and I pick at ours. We don’t talk. I feel like I’ve been caught doing something terrible. Something shameful. I wear my hood over my hair the entire time, even in the car as we make our way slowly back to the house.

When we get home Mom goes straight into her office and closes the door. Jeffrey and I, for lack of anything better to do, start to hook up the TV. He keeps looking over at me like I’m about to burst into flames.

“Would you stop gawking?” I exclaim finally. “You’re freaking me out.”

“That was weird, back there. What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. It just happened.”

Mom appears in the doorway with her coat on.

“I have to go out,” she says. “Please don’t leave the house until I get back.” Then, before we can question her, she’s gone.

“Perfect,” mutters Jeffrey.

I toss him the remote and retreat upstairs to my room. I still have a lot of unpacking to do, but my mind keeps flashing back to that moment under the archway when it felt like the whole world was trying to crawl inside my head. And my hair! Unearthly. The look on the lady’s face when she saw me that way: puzzled at first, confused, then a little frightened, like I was some kind of alien creature who belonged in a lab with scientists looking at my dazzling hair under a microscope. Like I was a freak.

I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I know Mom’s standing in the doorway to my bedroom. She tosses a box of Clairol hair dye on my bed. I pick it up.

“Sedona Sunset?” I read. “You’re kidding me, right? Red?”

“Auburn. Like mine.”

“But why?” I ask.

“Let’s fix your hair,” she says. “Then we’ll talk.”

“It’s going to be this color for school!” I whine as she works the dye into my hair in the bathroom, me sitting on the closed toilet with an old towel around my shoulders.

“I love your hair. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think it was important.” She steps back and examines my head for spots she might have missed. “There. All done. Now we have to wait for the color to set.”

“Okay, so you’re going to explain this to me now, right?”

For all of five seconds she looks nervous. Then she sits down on the edge of the bathtub and folds her hands into her lap.