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

table along with a loaf of my father’s homemade bread. “Homemade” meant he dumped the ingredients into our automatic breadmaker and hit start. He didn’t mix them first as the recipe recommended, so the loaves usually came out uneven. Whenever any of us complained, he laughed and said he clearly wasn’t fated to be a great cook. But on that night, none of us said much of anything. We ate in heavy silence.

Boiled peas popped against my teeth like starbursts, the butter an oil slick on my tongue. The water had a chemical tinge to it, a pungent bite from the treatment plant. This would take some getting used to—and once I did, my changeling period would end and my senses would dull again. I didn’t see the point.

After the meal, my mother stacked our dirty plates. Each clatter felt like a drill bit held against my skull.

“Miles, why don’t you get your sister’s present?” she said. “Every girl should have a gift on the day she changes.” Her voice sounded falsely formal, as though she were reading aloud from an old etiquette book.

Miles gave her a mildly annoyed look but pushed back from the table and left the room. When he returned, he held a package wrapped in plain brown paper that he’d decorated by drawing a scene reminiscent of a fairy tale. Two children—a boy and a girl—stood next to an intricate house, the shadowed tops of trees towering over them. I wondered if the house was made of gingerbread, if the children were lost or in danger. About to be devoured.

I ripped off the paper to reveal an astrology book with Orion on its cover. I knew the story of Orion, how he chased the Pleiades sisters through the sky. I traced his stars with my finger—the bright Betelgeuse, the astonishing Rigel—and imagined other worlds in the unbearable expanse of space.

There was comfort to be found in that book, a nostalgia that Miles clearly valued as much as I did, despite his current disdain for false fortune-telling. When we were kids, he and I read the horoscopes together, laughing at their foolishness. Horoscopes, prophetic dreams, the movement of the stars: what strange fantasies some people entertained about the workings of the future. And not just men, either. Women were susceptible to fantasy, too, though I supposed that made sense. What better way to escape your reality than to imagine your way out of it? Back then Miles and I could afford to pretend the future was no more than another game, something we could create and change at will.

After opening my birthday gift, I thought it only fair that I gave Miles his. I was proud of the present—a set of watercolor pencils, which I bought after months of saving the modest bit of chore money our parents could afford—but when Miles opened it, he fell silent. Only later did I see the implication of my gift. Those pencils, when used in his new, blank notebook, would be perfect for mapping my markings.

“Thanks, Celeste,” he finally said. He looked at me, and I tried to imagine what he might be seeing. Surely not a sister capable of both bearing and concealing his ruin.

Mapping the Future: An Interpretive Guide to Women and Girls

On Fate and Certainty

The future is not a heavy, settled thing like a stone, but rather more like a riverbank: carved by the weight of moving water.

That a woman’s predictions are not always predictable is a common source of frustration, but we implore readers to maintain patience in the face of uncertainty. Some markings, it is true, provide as many questions as answers. A thoughtful interpreter knows to absorb those inquiries, layering them into her final reading. She is thorough and careful and slow. Most of all, she respects the few mysteries available to her.

We ask all readers to be as wise as this learned interpreter—to remember that fate will unfold regardless of our demands, and that knowing a great deal about our futures does not entitle us to know it all.

8

That night I locked my door and wrapped myself in blankets. I pictured our cobwebbed basement, the word LIE etched into the dirt. Of the two of us, Miles had always been better at keeping secrets, but it was time for me to learn. I’d have to be careful, and smart, and I could never slip up. Not even once.

Sleep came in spurts, in drifting periods of shallow unconsciousness. When morning finally broke, I waited until I heard Miles leave for school and then got in the shower, running the water as hot as I could stand it. Afterward, I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped into the hall. My mother had agreed to let me stay home for one more day, but she’d gone to the store and the house felt too quiet and empty.

When I passed Miles’s room, I noticed his birthday presents lying on the bed. There, right on top, were the watercolor pencils I’d given him. A few spilled halfway from the opened package. Red, purple, green, brown. I let my gaze linger on the brown one. It was a fawn-colored shade, the color of my markings. I grabbed it and took it back to my bedroom.

Down went the towel to the ground. In front of the mirror, I pressed the pencil to my cheek. When I pulled back, a perfect dot floated on the surface of my skin. If I only gave it a passing glance, I couldn’t distinguish this mark from a real one.

I placed my index finger on the fake mole, applying pressure. When I lifted my finger the counterfeit mark remained, unchanged. I rubbed at it lightly, but still it endured. A tissue dampened in my water glass and more furious scrubbing finally erased it.

With the thrill of blasphemy, I examined the moles on my left side. Adding a single dot in the star-shaped cluster would change its meaning. I lowered the