Cassandra was already opening the door, making the chimes jangle. Inside, we were met by plumes of incense smoke curling from the mantel. The room’s décor matched that smell—candelabras, scarves, crystals dangling from the fireplace. The proprietor, Chloe, was nowhere to be seen, but a handful of customers waited for her services: three women, one man who stood upon our entrance and planted himself in the far corner, and two boys too young to react as men would to our presence. But like all children, they gravitated toward us. With gentle hands open like starfish, they patted our legs, our hips, our stomachs, anything they could reach. Their mothers stood back, watching wearily, and when one of them met my eyes, she looked away, like she was ashamed for the both of us.
Miles studied a long strand of crystals and frowned. It mattered to him, that there was a dividing line in the world between the real interpreters, like Julia, and the charlatans, like Chloe. The sheer scarves tossed over lampshades, the incense, the set of runes on the mantel—it was all an affront to his own aspirations. As a boy, he couldn’t even rise to the level of Chloe’s false work.
I had long ago accepted that the interpretation district was a place of contrasts: light and dark, virtue and greed, beauty and terror. So I was not surprised when a young girl of about twelve appeared from the back rooms projecting both innocence and calculation. She wore a lavender dress with a broad ribbon tied around the waist, but she also carried a clipboard and cast a shrewd gaze upon the customers.
The lone man waved to get the girl’s attention.
“Is my wife about finished?” he asked.
The girl checked her clipboard. “Soon. Aunt Chloe is just being thorough, I’m sure. It’s important to be thorough in a reading, isn’t it?”
When Miles heard this, he laughed.
“In the meantime,” the girl continued, “I’d be happy to bring you some tea. Just give me one moment.” She looked over to Cassandra and me, her eyes narrowing. “What about you?” she asked. “Will you be joining Ms. Chloe for a reading?”
I shook my head, but Cassandra’s response was immediate.
“Yes,” she said. “I’d love a reading.”
The girl pulled a pen from the top of the clipboard and held it poised over the page. “What do you prefer—tarot, crystal ball, palm reading? Focus on love, health, financial success?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a changeling. I’d like a reading of my markings.”
The girl gave a slight nod. “Good choice. We prioritize changeling readings. Chloe will be ready for you soon. If you need anything in the meantime, please call for me. My name is Angel—I’m Chloe’s niece.” She turned to leave.
As soon as Angel disappeared into the back, I pulled Cassandra toward me. I had a bad feeling, something creeping along the edges of my mind like a lingering nightmare.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” I said.
Cassandra gently shook me off. “Celeste, it’s packed in here. There are witnesses all over the place. Nothing could happen.”
“She’s right. There’s less risk for you here than out on the streets,” Miles said. He paused. “Maybe you should get a reading, too, Celeste. It wouldn’t be real, not like if Julia did it. This could be for fun.”
“I don’t want a reading tonight, Miles.”
“Fine, I’m sorry. It was just a suggestion.”
Angel reappeared carrying a tray containing a teapot, several thick clay cups, and a stack of ginger cookies. She set the tray on the coffee table and offered tea to the man waiting for his wife. She held out the next cup for me.
“Here,” she said, and this time her smile felt genuine. I brought the tea close and inhaled. It smelled sweet and mild. It made me think of meadows and sunshine and childhood.
Cassandra and Miles both turned down the tea, though Miles accepted a cookie, which he ate in three bites. Angel left the room again, and I took a tiny sip of tea. It tasted marvelous, like honeysuckle and fresh rain, and its warmth spread through my body.
Feeling relaxed, I wandered over to the couch and sat. The cushions were worn and well used. I sank down and sipped my tea. I could taste everything, from the earthy scent of the soil the tea grew in to the sunshine that dried the leaves. When I blinked, tiny blond sparks lit up near my eyelashes. Cassandra was right to tell me to stop worrying and enjoy this time. Being a changeling truly was astounding.
I closed my eyes. A moment later, the couch shifted, sinking a little deeper. When I registered the new smell—a pungent soapy scent, with a dash of cologne—I opened my eyes.
It was the man from the corner. He blew gently across his cup of tea.
“Just keep looking straight ahead,” he said. His words were so slow and deep I almost didn’t hear him. “How does five hundred sound?”
“For what?” My voice faltered.
“One hour,” he said. “We’ll get a hotel room. It will take a little planning to make sure my wife is distracted elsewhere, but I can handle that.”
I swallowed. “What do you think I am?”
“I know exactly what you are.” Slowly, gently, in a way that I wasn’t even sure it was happening, his left hand shifted to brush against my thigh. I was wearing long pants, but I felt his hand like a jolt anyway. “You’re ripe,” he said. “I know how you girls are. When it comes down to it, you want it as much as us.”
“Five hundred?” I repeated. I was thinking of girls who had lost their way, girls without homes or parents, girls who were compelled to accept offers like this. If everything went quickly, they would never have to file a report or go to a hospital. If they were careful, their records would remain clean.
“Okay,” he said. “Six fifty.” His hand was hot against my leg. “But I won’t go higher than that. It becomes a bad deal. Some girls go as low as three hundred, you know.”
I trained my eyes on Cassandra and Miles across the room. They were talking intensely. I noticed how Cassandra moved in front of my brother, how she leaned forward and smiled, how her skin glowed in the low light of the shawl-draped lamp. I saw the way my brother’s left hand reflexively curled in a fist every now and then, an unconscious resistance to her charms.
The spots in my eyes exploded into color, streaks of rainbow blotting my vision. I blinked hard, but the colors remained. I was hearing things, too—distant bells, the sound of the ocean, a far-off door slamming shut.
“If you’re not looking for business, you’d better leave. This is no place for changelings.” The warmth from the man’s hand traveled even farther up my thigh. “But you know what I think? That you need the money, and that the two of us are in a position to help each other.”
I wanted to call for help, or slap his hand away, or at least form the word no, but my body felt too heavy and slow to take even the simplest action. Breathing was all I could manage, and in this way I felt newly awakened as a changeling once more: fresh, raw, and out of control.
A woman stepped into the room then from the back. In the time it took her to appear in the doorway, the man’s hand miraculously lifted from my leg and he shifted away from me quickly, as if I might burn him.
“I had the most wonderful reading,” the woman said. She came toward the couch to address the man next to me. She had vivid, deep-black hair pulled into a tight ballerina’s bun. Her skin was smooth and young-looking, her neck dotted with jewels that sparkled when she moved. She was radiant. Chloe had told her so many wonderful things, she was explaining to her husband. She felt, at last, that she had a good sense of direction.
When the woman’s gaze drifted my way, she stopped smiling.
“Glad it went well,” the man said quickly. He stood. I could smell his sweat, his fear. I could see a bit of red creep up his neck. “Let’s go,” he added, and started pulling his wife away. She gave me a long, deadly look before they clattered out the door.
I was still holding the tea
cup, my hands trembling. Miles crossed the room and pried the cup from me. “Relax,” he said.
I didn’t know how to tell him what had happened, how that man had propositioned me and how I’d felt unable to stop him. Already guilt was creeping in, the realization that I was failing to protect myself. So I didn’t tell Miles. I didn’t say anything.
Angel appeared in the doorway and looked across the room toward Cassandra. “Chloe will see you now, miss.”
Cassandra smiled and smoothed her hair. She might have still been half drunk on rose sherry. She was probably not herself. I wanted to reach out to her, to touch her skin—to comfort myself with the reality of her body, as if this alone could keep her safe.
But I made no move, and Cassandra followed Angel, disappearing into the darkness.
Mapping the Future: An Interpretive Guide to Women and Girls
On Suffering and Hope
And here we must acknowledge that the future is sometimes too vast, too heavy with grief or guilt, for a woman to bear alone.
It is a grim truth that girls and women throughout history have attempted to alter their markings, whether through tattoos, scarring, bleaching, or other mutilations. Others dress modestly to keep their truths private, and yet others refuse to acknowledge their bodies at all, as though ignorance might prevent the future from unraveling. But the future cannot be escaped, dear reader. The future is a force, a steady unrolling of time and truth that presses on regardless of mortal whims. We advise the girls and women reading this text that such fate has played its hand in the life of every female human who has lived upon this earth—and it will be no different for you.
The future is built not only on shadow but on light. To roll back the centuries is to reveal baby girls born with pinpricks of predictions, young girls entering their spectacular bloom, and old women whose thinned skin still carries the weight of prophecy. In that sisterhood can be found suffering, yes, but also endurance and strength and, when all else is washed away: hope. That hope is part of every woman alive, and that hope is what allows a woman to withstand the worst of her fate.
No future, dear reader, can break a woman on its own.
13
Once Cassandra was gone, Miles examined my teacup. He turned it around and around in his hands, rolling it between his palms, inhaling the lingering scent of tea. A single speck of a tea leaf clung to the inside of the cup; he caught it on his fingertip and brought it close to study it.
“Did Cassie drink any tea?” he asked.
I shook my head, feeling dreamy and small. “Just that man.”
“Celeste. Listen.” His voice sounded stern. “I think you might have been drugged.”
I laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
I laughed a moment longer before the sound splintered and broke.
Miles watched me closely. “You’re not acting like yourself.”
“I should find Cassie.” I rose to my feet unsteadily.
Miles was at my side, letting me lean on him. “We need to go.” His voice was so very quiet, but I heard it. I felt I could hear everything, all over the world. I just needed to tune in.
“We can’t leave her here,” I said, and I veered toward the hallway where Cassandra had disappeared. Miles came with me, holding on to my elbow. I knew as if by instinct where to go: to the door at the end of the hallway, the door that was open just enough to reveal cracks of light around the edges. When I put my hand on this door and pushed, it opened at once.
Miles and I found ourselves in a well-appointed office with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and antique furniture. Chloe, a middle-aged woman wearing a barrage of costume jewelry, sat at a table before a spread of tarot cards. Cassandra stood in front of her. She was fully dressed, her arms crossed in defiance. My throat hitched at the sight of my friend, how alive and strong she appeared. Some part of me must have sensed the coming separation, our future breach already growing like a crack on an iced-over lake.
“You’re not listening. My markings indicate I’ll get into medical school,” Cassandra was telling Chloe. “Julia said so, and she’s a much better interpreter than you’ll ever be.”
Chloe blinked. She wore so much eye makeup I could see clumps of mascara even from my position at the door. Her face appeared lined and worn, exhausted.
“This is ridiculous,” Cassandra went on. She smacked her hand against Chloe’s table. “Are you even listening? You’re wrong, and I want my money back.” Her voice broke, and she turned to face Miles and me. “Will one of you please tell her what Julia said—that I’ll get into medical school and become a doctor. It’s fated. It is. Tell her.”
Miles held up his hands. “Cassie, please calm down.”
“Would someone like a reading?” Chloe asked. She was staring, crestfallen, at the table before her. One by one, she slid off her clunky rings and left them glittering against the velvet tablecloth. “I offer tarot, crystal ball, palm. Love, happiness, financial success.” Her last few words ran together like smeared ink.
“This is a waste of time.” Cassandra headed for the door. “I’m going back to Julia’s. At least she knows what she’s talking about.”
“We’re right behind you,” Miles called after her, but I couldn’t move. I stared at Chloe.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. My tone was not unkind.
Chloe wouldn’t meet my eyes. She was deflated, undone. She stroked the table in front of her as though petting an imaginary animal. Her fingers trembled. I noticed every last detail, my high lucidity alerting me to a threat. Chloe was guilty. She was a criminal. She was not working in service of girls.
“When I was a child,” she began, “my markings suggested I could be something real. A lawyer, maybe.”
“We need to check on Cassie,” Miles said in a low voice.
I brushed him off. I didn’t turn around even when I heard Angel enter the room and ask us to leave. I kept my focus on Chloe. That empty teacup waiting by her side. Her rings in disarray all around her. I could have snatched one up and taken it away with me. I was sure of it.
“What have you become instead?” I asked her. I felt sleepy but careful. Whatever had been in my tea made me unsteady but also, miraculously, confident. I was on a balance beam. I was walking a tightrope. I was leaning over the edge to face great danger.
“This is unacceptable,” Angel said behind me. “Chloe, do something.”
Chloe raised her eyes. “You know what I am.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s too late for me. This is who I’ve become.”
“You two need to leave,” Angel said to Miles and me. “Now.” She walked over to Chloe and stood close to her, as if she needed protection. Chloe blinked. With a vacant smile, she reached up to stroke Angel’s hair in a loving, distracted kind of way.
“Come on,” Miles said from behind me. He took my wrist and pulled me away, dragging me back to the waiting room. That was when I remembered Cassandra.
“She’s not here.” I ignored the handful of waiting customers who watched me with concerned expressions.
“She went back to Julia’s,” Miles said. “Hurry.”
We were out the door, the chimes rioting behind us. The street was bright and full of tourists. It would be no risk for Cassandra to cross the street and make it into Julia’s townhouse. She had to be there right now. She could already be safe.
“Celeste, wait.” Miles steered me away. “We need to check something before we go to Julia’s.”
This seemed odd, but I felt so cloudy and tired I didn’t question him. He took my hand and I let him. He was my brother, my halfway twin.
Miles made a sharp left turn and pulled me into an alley. I stumbled against the rough brick wall, and it took me half a second to realize he had pushed me there.
“Are we hiding from someone?” My tongue felt thick. He m
ust have known something I didn’t. Maybe Chloe had sent men after us. Maybe I was in danger.
“Shhh.” Miles put his hands on the hem of my shirt and started to lift it. I squirmed away, confused, but he held me tighter. He pushed me against the wall, his body pinning me in place.
“Stay calm,” he said. “And keep still. This will only take a minute.”
I slapped at his hand, but he already had my shirt halfway up. He was reaching for my left side.
“Please,” he said as I struggled against him. “Those photographs aren’t good enough. I need to see your markings in person.”
I was shivering and furious and terrified, but I felt too compromised to stop him. I tried to slap him again, but it was like a slow-motion dream where fighting was impossible.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like having this gift no one believes in,” he said. “I see things no one else does. If I were a woman, I’d be a revolutionary, but because I’m a boy, I’ll never be heard.”
He ran his fingers over the markings on my stomach. Just enough light from the street entered the alley to allow him to make out my predictions. It was a frantic reading, so fast and heated I couldn’t imagine he was gaining any real insight. It was more like he was staking his claim, reminding me that the future wasn’t wholly my own.
“One day you’ll understand that I’m doing this for you,” he said. “To protect you. I’m so sorry, Celeste. I don’t know another way.”
His hand inched closer to my left side, those fateful markings on my ribs. I twisted violently. Miles held on tighter, but I was still strong.
As we struggled, silhouettes flitted past the alley, then doubled back and approached. I looked up to see two men. They were holding hands.
Body of Stars Page 14
