Body of Stars Laura Walter (chrome ebook reader .txt) 📖

a woman; the Office of the Future rejected that such a romantic pairing could be fated. Instead, the sanctioned interpretation might suggest that this woman in her future would be no more than a roommate. Like Anthony, Marie was destined to spend her life halfway in denial.

I turned away from Anthony, my eyes stinging. What a dangerous time we were all living through. It was a time for girls and boys my age to be exposed for who they really were.

For the rest of the afternoon, I sat sourly next to my mother. I watched Marie play with children near the butterscotch fountain, but I did not join her. I watched men ogle and caress Cassandra, but I did not intervene. I sat, watching the party carry on before me, and I silently begged Cassandra to be careful. She was a wholly different person now, and the world was filled halfway with men.

*   *   *

The next morning, and the one after that, and the one after that, I woke up the same: marked in my juvenile predictions. My parents bickered about money. Miles continued his interpretation studies and checked the mail every day for a response from the Office of the Future. Marie visited me a few times, and together we sat on my bedroom carpet and played board games like children.

Miles had given up on his blue notebook. There was no need for it now that my juvenile markings were all but expired. In its place he had bought a hardbound, unlined artist’s pad with thick, heavy pages. It waited, clean and professional, for my new future to reveal itself, to submit to being recorded.

I had grown up hearing rumors of a girl born completely blank, without a mole or mark on her body. Everyone claimed they had a friend of a friend who had a cousin who knew this unmarked girl. The truth was that no girl like this existed, no girl ever. Girls with albinism were marked in tiny pale dots. Dark-skinned girls bore markings that shined the color of honey or amber in the sun. The girl without markings was as unreal as a shimmering unicorn.

Cassandra was like a mythical creature, too. That was how I saw her, now that she had changed: beautiful, ephemeral, untouchable. At school, Marie sat on the other side of the cafeteria so she could eat in peace instead of reaching toward our friend with quivering fingers. I stayed with Cassandra to keep her company, but it felt bitter, this preview of what was to come for me. I was impatient and angry all the time. I woke up sweating under the covers, and every morning I stood in the shower, willing the water to wash off my childhood markings just to get it over with.

In reality, my change would happen as it happened for nearly everyone: in bed, silently, while I slept. A natural wonder. Later I’d think back and try to remember my dreams from that night, but I came up empty. I was a big dreamer, the dreams elaborate and long-winded; someone once told me this meant I didn’t sleep well and that I must be walking around in a state of perpetual exhaustion. This I would not disagree with. But when I think back to the night of my passage to adulthood, I can only imagine myself lying still in bed, everything inside of me taking its slow shift, regular and careful as a clock. When the clock’s hands had ticked their way to a predetermined hour and minute, it happened:

At 6:48 a.m. on Monday, October the second, I woke up changed.

II Changeling

Mapping the Future: An Interpretive Guide to Women and Girls

Method for Conducting a Reading

Breathe. Steady yourself. Rely not purely on sight but also on touch, on instinct. The task you are about to complete is both a gift and a responsibility. Respect it.

Once the subject has disrobed, take her left hand in both of your own. Hold her wrist fast with one hand while your other skims the length of her arm. Study the diagrams in this book, but also allow yourself to move by instinct. Allow the electricity to jolt straight through your bones.

Left shoulder, right shoulder, then cross over to the back of her neck. Lift your subject’s hair and read her scalp as best as possible. Move to her temples, her forehead, her cheekbones and collarbone. Cross now to her right arm and right hand before moving down: breasts, ribs, stomach, pubic area. Then upper back, lower back, hips, buttocks, the legs and ankles and feet.

Markings in this text are arranged by category, location, and pattern. Follow the index to find the applicable part of the body, the number of markings, and the precise arrangement. The diagrams are intuitive, designed for laymen and professionals alike, but this alone does not ensure accuracy. Some patterns are ambiguous, and others reveal more than one interpretation. Pay attention. A star is not a circle is not an arc is not a ring. A pale mole is not the same as a minor one. Remain open, therefore, to professional assessment. Be willing to reveal yourself.

To read and to be read is an act of trust. A true reading is an offering, a question, an act of surrender. And so we ask you to breathe again. Move your finger from the page to the skin. Touch, hold steady, tremble. Release.

7

I knew before I opened my eyes. A gentle tingling radiated through my limbs from a deep and secret source. It was subtle, like catching the glimmer of a faraway wind chime and wondering, after the sound faded away, whether it had been there at all.

The night had passed in chills and drafts, the quilt a heavy weight on my body. I did not want to lift it away. I did not want to see what had changed. I lay there, feeling my skin touching my pajamas, which touched the sheets, which touched