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

and Ali. They adopted me, moving in a protective formation that placed their bodies between mine and passersby. Later I’d learn that Miles had set it up, insisting on a small crowd to walk me home even though it was daylight, hours from dusk.

A few times, I glanced over my shoulder to see if Cassandra would appear. She didn’t. I hoped she’d found someone to walk home with, anyone aside from Jonah.

“Look,” Elissa whispered. She had red hair and freckles spelling a flurry of predictions across her cheeks. “That man across the street—he can’t stop staring at Celeste.”

We turned to see a young man, dressed for a workout in running shoes and athletic shorts, gawking at me. When he saw us looking he turned away abruptly, stumbling over his own feet.

The other girls clutched one another and laughed.

“Good thing we were here to save you,” Janet said. “He might have dragged you off somewhere so he could pretend you were his girlfriend.”

She and the others kept laughing, but I felt sick. The gentleness in that man’s expression, his sheer embarrassment—it was wrong to lump him in with monstrous men.

“It’s not funny,” I said. “Think of Deirdre.”

That quieted them down. We walked in silence for a while, passing neighbors raking leaves, biking, painting shutters. I smelled the paint, registered the tick-tick of a piece of plastic in bicycle spokes, could practically feel a yellowed leaf crushed by the rake. These were the everyday parts of life, lulling me into a sense of normalcy even as they were heightened, warped, made dazzling by my change.

When we reached my house, I cut through my front yard.

“Thanks,” I called back. The girls waved and carried on. I watched them for a second from the front stoop. It struck me as natural that there were three of them, a trio of friends traveling in a pack. I looked forward to calmer days, when Cassandra, Marie, and I could return to our old ways of being with one another.

I fumbled for my key. We kept the house locked all the time now that I was a changeling, even in daylight and when everyone was home. My father insisted on it. I followed his rules even if he often wasn’t present to enforce them—we were both so humiliated by his marking inspection that we’d begun avoiding each other. I was starting to wonder how, exactly, the father-daughter inspection ritual had persisted over the years. Women were superior at reading markings, after all, and mothers could read their daughters more freely, with less embarrassment.

But had my mother inspected my markings, she would have known the truth about the prediction on my ribs. In that sense, I was lucky it was my father. The tradition, as humiliating as it was, had helped me.

Inside, I dropped my backpack and climbed the stairs. My mother was in the upstairs hallway, laboring under the weight of shopping bags. I followed as she dragged them into her bedroom.

“I thought we had to watch our spending,” I said.

She hefted the bags onto her bed and swept a few sweaty strands of hair from her temple. “I’m going back to work. For a full position this time, not just contract work.”

I grabbed one of the bags and peeled it open. It contained neat stacks of dress pants, skirts, and collared shirts. My mother’s career markings were incomplete; they indicated success in a career path that helped others but otherwise provided few specifics. She had become a teacher and then worked in education policy. After she quit her job to have Miles and me, she occasionally worked on a freelance basis for her old employer, a charter school consortium, but never anything long-term or full-time. These clothes represented something different.

“Can you believe I didn’t have anything professional to wear that still fits? It just goes to show that there are still some surprises in life.” She gave my arm a playful jab. “Even for us.”

“When do you start?” My mouth felt dry, scaled over.

“Next week. I tried to negotiate a later start date, but they needed someone immediately.” She began pulling out her new purchases and smoothing them on the bed. “I’m looking forward to getting back to it.”

Before I was born, she’d won a Teacher of the Year award, and a regional magazine published a profile about her. That magazine issue sat by itself in the top drawer of one of the end tables in the living room. I once heard my father saying we should frame it, but my mother refused. She believed in modesty and sacrifice. When she was a new graduate, she worked for Teachers of the Nation, a program that placed young teachers in inner-city schools. She still spoke of her experiences there, usually when she wanted to make a point to Miles and me that we were spoiled.

She took my hands in her own. Her skin was cool and dry and familiar. “Something bothering you?”

I could only think of the markings on my left side, and how they foretold part of the future that perhaps shouldn’t be predicted at all. Certain predictions were too severe, too grief-filled, to be laid bare on our bodies. And yet there I was, with this marking unveiling my brother’s fate.

“Mothers almost never know,” I said slowly, “if their children will die young. Why not?”

Her expression morphed into alarm. “Why are you asking that?”

I gently pulled my hands away. “I was thinking of Donny Rheinholdt.”

She softened. “That was horrible.” Donny and Miles had been friends. A few years ago, Donny rode his bike across an intersection without looking and was hit by a car. Donny only had brothers, no sisters, so no one had the chance to be marked with his death.

“His mother didn’t see it coming. Why didn’t her markings give a hint of what would happen? Girls get marked with bad news all the time. Marie knew her whole life when her father would get sick and die.”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. For a