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

now—but at the time, I was simply inching forward in the dark, uncertain and on my own.

At the bottom of the basement stairs, I paused to allow my eyes to adjust. I thought of Miles as I waited, and how he’d grown unknowable during our game. For the first time, I understood he was capable of keeping a real secret, something that carried far more significance than anything we expressed in a game, and I worried what that could mean. There in the cool draft of the underground, an unnamed anxiety stirred to life inside me—alarm for my brother and what else he might one day hide from me.

The basement was lit by a lone, buzzing bulb, its weak illumination barely reaching the corner where earlier we’d sat coated in dust. I crept in that direction, my senses wired and alert. Finally, under the cover of cobwebs, I arrived at the word etched in the dirt. Miles had written his answer in all capitals, a message foretelling his impending deception as well as my own.

LIE, the answer read.

My first glimpse of the truth.

Mapping the Future: An Interpretive Guide to Women and Girls

Universal Marking Locations, Back View

1. Disease and Disorder

2. Spirituality

3. Joy and Mirth

4. Finances

5. Aging Process

6. Domestic Matters

7. Emotional Health

8. Intellect

9. Honesty

10. Career

11. Love and Romance

12. Benevolence

13. Self-Esteem

2

By a trick of fate, I was born exactly two years after Miles, giving us a shared birthday. Sometimes I imagined we were twins, that we were separated by neither time nor space. We looked enough alike to make twinhood seem possible: hair the same walnut color, hazel eyes shaded more brown than green, and even the same eyebrows and ear shape, as if I’d been stamped out as his copy two years too late. I was always chasing those two years, trying to catch up to my brother as if I could outsmart time itself.

That year, summer flared into autumn abruptly, moving from heat to frost with little transition. The first cool day in September was a shock, the chill rendering the air unfamiliar. I remember it so clearly because that was the day Miles asked me to walk with him to interpretation class. His teacher, Julia, wanted to see me before I matured to my adult markings. I’d only met Julia once before, but I’d heard things about her—that she was skilled as an interpreter, though her methods were unorthodox—and I was curious what she had to say to me, a near stranger.

It was late afternoon, the time of day when sunlight pooled gold and the trees were alight with bird chatter. Miles walked just ahead of me through our neighborhood, Mapping the Future tucked under his arm. I tried to keep up but remained a step or two behind. My legs were long, but his were longer. We were the same, and we were not.

He was worried about being late; I understood that without him having to say so. As the first and only male student in Julia’s class, he needed to work twice as hard to be taken seriously.

“We’ll make it,” I assured him, but we’d only just left our street and had more than a mile to go. We lived in an older neighborhood situated on the edge of downtown. It was a community of sidewalks and hedgerows, but the homes were packed together, and some showed their age. One of the houses neighboring ours dropped peels of paint like a great shedding birch, and another had plywood nailed against its upper windows. Only a few blocks away, the lawns grew green and lush, the houses bearing pillars and turrets and, in one case, a pair of lion statues flanking the walkway, their mouths cracked open in perpetual roars.

We crossed into the downtown city limits, where the streets narrowed and minuscule plants flourished in the sidewalk cracks. Broken parts sprouting new growth, decay layered with whimsy—these were the first signs we were approaching the interpretation district. A wrought iron arch reading Future as Fate marked the entrance. Once we passed under it, we entered a maze of cobblestone streets lined with crooked rows of townhouses. The upper floors of these townhouses served as residences, while interpretation businesses occupied the street level, their windows uncovered so customers could peer inside.

The interpretation district was half serious, half farce. Both real and facetious interpretation took place there, with professionals like Julia coexisting alongside pseudo interpreters who hung neon signs and distributed coupons on the street. The crystal balls, palm readings, tea leaves, tarot cards, dream interpretation—they were nothing but theater. Only the markings were true.

As Miles and I made our way down the main street, the contents of the storefront windows flashed in the corner of my eye. Lights, lace, crystals, the cheap rattle of beaded curtains—these were the trappings of fantasy. I found myself telling Miles about the girls I knew at school who patronized these businesses for a laugh. They delighted in the outlandish predictions false interpreters dreamed up: improbable romances, financial windfalls, adventure.

“Some of us are considering coming here for readings after we pass to our adult markings,” I said.

Miles shook his head. “Don’t waste your money. Besides, visiting the interpretation district as a changeling is dangerous.”

“Only at night.”

“Maybe. But it’s still too much of a risk.”

He was referring to how newly changed girls—especially bold girls, or reckless girls, or vulnerable girls from damaged families—were more likely to disappear after dark in the interpretation district. As the only city district zoned for professional interpretation, these streets attracted scores of visitors and were thus a prime target for predatory men. I already knew this, we all did, but like most people, I preferred not to dwell on it. Back then I viewed abductions as I did my own mortality: they were an indisputable fact of life and yet unfathomable, too vast and horrific to hold in my mind for more than a few seconds.

So I didn’t. I was fifteen, a teenage girl simply