Body of Stars by Laura Walter (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📕

“Here’s a secret.” Deirdre leaned in. “Being a changeling is incredible. There’s so much power. People look at you, I mean really look. They want you, but they also respect you.” She shook her head. “Adults tell us how to behave so they can keep us in line, to make us afraid. Because if we’re afraid, maybe we won’t use this power to our advantage.”

“What advantage?”

“To make our own choices. To take control for once.”

I remembered how those men had stared at Deirdre in the street the other day. Like they wanted to destroy her.

“You should be careful,” I said. “Changelings are vulnerable.”

Deirdre dabbed at her eyeliner with her pinkie. I could tell I’d lost her attention. I grew ashamed, convinced she could see every plain, timid part of me.

“You don’t need to be so serious, Celeste.” She stepped closer, and I felt the pull of gravity, the revolving weight of a moon. She reached out and took my chin in her graceful fingers. It was an adult gesture, infused with intimacy and confidence, and at the time it dazzled me. Deirdre touched me as though she wanted to tilt my face toward the sky. To show me the vast unknown.

Before I could stop myself, I fell forward, unable to resist the pull any longer. I collapsed against Deirdre, pressing my face to her neck. She was all vibration, a tingling siren call. The moment was infused not with sex but with something grander—the whole of the universe and our tenuous place in it.

After a few moments, Deirdre gently detached herself.

“Everything will be fine,” she assured me. “Remember that.”

She gathered her things and left. I watched her swing out the door—Women, not Girls—before turning back to the mirror. I saw an uncertain girl reflected there, young and unknowing. Barely more than a child. Gingerly, I touched my fingertips to the glass as if I could conjure Deirdre’s reflection instead of my own. I felt like a failure, like I’d just wasted something precious.

That was the last time I would see Deirdre in school. By nightfall, she was gone.

TEMPLATE FOR MISSING GIRL POSTER

MISSING GIRL

[ALTERNATE TITLE: LOST]

[ATTACH PHOTOGRAPH]

[LAST NAME, FIRST NAME]

AGE:

HEIGHT:

HAIR COLOR:

EYE COLOR:

SKIN COLOR:

DISTINCTIVE MARKINGS:

DATE/LOCATION LAST SEEN:

CIRCUMSTANCES OF DISAPPEARANCE:

CONTACT [NAME] AT [TELEPHONE NUMBER] IMMEDIATELY IF SEEN.

4

That evening, Miles and I headed to the backyard to play brickball, a game we’d invented as children. We took turns slamming a small rubber ball against the back of the house, which the other person had to catch after no more than one bounce. It was a brutal game, spare and violent, and playing it in the final darkening moments of the evening felt right. As the light dimmed and the shadows lengthened we only played faster, as if railing against the loss of the day.

Miles played hardest, I noticed, when he was frustrated, and what most frustrated him was his unattainable dream of becoming an interpreter. I, too, threw harder when I was angry, but it was difficult for me to name the root of that anger. At fifteen, I struggled to process how I felt about the rules I was expected to follow, the risks that were mine to bear simply by nature of being a girl. Anger simmered beneath the surface, driving my gameplay. After a few rounds of brickball, my palms burned and my shoulder ached, and sometimes I walked away with bruised shins.

As we played, I thought of the markings inspector, and Deirdre’s lips, and I threw hard, hard, hard—hard enough for my mother to open an upstairs window and complain about the noise. Her silhouette against the yellow light inside drove home just how dark it had grown, and how we’d need to abandon our game even if she hadn’t ordered us to.

Miles had possession of the ball. He held on to it as our mother shut the window, her shadowy form vanishing from sight. I watched as he hesitated, his biceps flexing, and I thought he might throw it anyway. He scowled at the back of the house, and then I realized he was counting.

“Four to three,” he said, lowering his arm. “You won.” He tossed the ball into the weeds near the fence, where it was instantly swallowed by the shadows.

We headed inside to find our mother standing in the kitchen with the phone pressed to her cheek. Her hand lifted halfway to her chin, fingers trembling. Her face a mask.

“Miles,” she said in a low voice. “It’s Deirdre. She’s gone.”

Gone where? I thought at first.

My mother swiveled toward me. Red splotches bloomed across her cheeks, the first sign she was about to either yell or cry. “Celeste, you shouldn’t be hearing this.”

“Why not? I want to know what’s happening.”

Miles put a hand on my shoulder, a tenderness that felt jarring after the violence of brickball. “She’s right, Celeste. You should go.”

“But I just saw Deirdre this afternoon in school.”

My mother wasn’t listening. She’d brought the phone back to her ear to conduct a whispered conversation. Finally, she hung up.

“It’s official.” She left her hand on the receiver and leaned into it, letting it bear her weight. “Her parents have already gone to the police. Apparently someone reported seeing Deirdre on the street talking to a man.”

“She’ll be fine,” I said, but once the words were out, I wasn’t sure why I’d said them. The moment felt fractured, like reality was dismantling itself piece by piece.

“Please, Celeste,” my mother said. She blinked to hold back tears. “Go to your room. I’ve already said too much.”

I left, dazed by the sight of my mother crying, and stumbled upstairs. Without thinking, I climbed into bed and under the covers. I was shaking. First it was just my legs, but soon it spread throughout my body: a violent tremor I could not control. I pulled the blankets tighter and clenched the side of the mattress as if that could provide the mooring I needed. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. When I