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

“If they have access to money, they could go to the Mountain School,” she said, though we all knew most people weren’t that wealthy. Others, she continued, moved in with relatives out of town. But if the returned girls didn’t have connections elsewhere, things were more difficult. Maybe they hitchhiked to someplace far away to find work as waitresses, or maids, or strippers, or worse. Maybe they lived on the streets, or stayed in shelters, or found companionship with other lost souls.

This type of life might be preferable to returning home, where the abducted girls would discover everything had changed. Their families were theirs but not. Their communities rejected them, as would universities and most employers. The stigma followed abducted girls forever. Not to mention that the girls’ markings—their very futures—might have been stolen, marked down and duplicated, then sold and transposed onto illustrated cards or books, all so collectors could have the thrill of owning the image of a real girl’s markings.

“Once those markings are recorded, they could end up anywhere,” Mrs. Ellis said. She illustrated her point by jabbing her finger at the world map rolled down over the chalkboard, as if the potential for our ruin—for the shame of having our bodies exposed to all who cared to look—lurked everywhere. I understood what Mrs. Ellis was really trying to say: that the world did not belong to us.

I burrowed deeper under the covers and reminded myself that the terror and risk we experienced was nothing compared to what girls faced elsewhere: openly thriving sex tourism, changeling river cruises, or the equitorial beach resorts where changelings were booked as just one more luxury accommodation. The information we gleaned from other nations was often vague, but we were taught in school to be grateful for our own progressive government. Our country had rape laws, antidiscrimination policies in workplaces, birth control, and the chance for most women to access the same education as men. Here, women could not be arrested based on suspicious markings. A woman fated to become a homemaker could still choose to attend school and might even be admitted to one of the lesser universities. We authorized the access of our transcripts. In short, we had rights, legal protections, and at least some degree of privacy.

We could convince ourselves we were safe.

*   *   *

Miles and I walked to school the next morning through thick fog. Droplets stuck to my eyelashes, and I felt covered, as if the fog could shield us from the signs of Deirdre’s disappearance that blinked into view all around us.

Overnight, Deirdre’s parents had plastered MISSING GIRL signs on every telephone pole within a three-mile radius. They’d photocopied Deirdre’s photo onto the flyer, and the repeated image of her smiling face took on a ghostly, otherworldly expression, the staples gleaming in the paper like little silver stabs. Already her pre-changeling face seemed a shadow of her more brilliant self. The girl in the flowing skirt in Julia’s classroom, the girl applying lipstick from a gold tube at school—I couldn’t find her in the photocopied flyer. It was like two versions of Deirdre had disappeared at once.

When I glanced at Miles, he was staring straight ahead, avoiding Deirdre’s image. Maybe he was thinking that the MISSING GIRL flyers were a futile effort. The police would give the appearance of searching for Deirdre, but they already knew she was with a man who’d set her free soon enough. The worst had already happened, they probably told Deirdre’s parents. Now it was time to wait for her to come back.

I could only wonder what my brother might be thinking because he was quiet and withdrawn that morning. Holding his secrets close yet again.

When we arrived in the schoolyard, Miles and I separated. I found Cassandra and Marie by the flagpole, their hands in their coat pockets. The top of the flagpole disappeared into the fog.

“You okay?” Cassandra asked. She wore a chic black raincoat I’d never seen before. She looked like she was in mourning.

“No,” I said. “Are you?”

Cassandra shook her head, as did Marie. We hugged, one by one, and turned to face the school’s entrance.

“Let’s get this over with.” Cassandra tightened the belt of her raincoat. “They’ll lecture us, I’m sure.”

Marie nodded. “This school hasn’t had an abduction in a long time. I saw the paper this morning. It’s been a decade.” She gazed at the building. “We don’t want to get a reputation like the city district.”

“We’re still a long way from that,” Cassandra told her. “I heard the city’s upper school stopped taking attendance this year because the skip and dropout rate is so high. And they have the highest rate of abductions of anywhere around.”

“This one abduction is enough to draw comparisons,” Marie said. “Don’t you agree, Celeste?”

I didn’t answer.

“Celeste.” Marie touched my wrist. “You’re really pale.”

I blinked at my friend. She wore a red headband, the skinny plastic kind with teeth that dug into the scalp. Those headbands hadn’t been in fashion for a long time. On another day I might have felt frustrated with Marie for making such a childish fashion choice, but in that moment, it comforted me.

“I’m fine,” I told her. “Cassie’s right, let’s get this over with.”

We headed inside and were swept up at once in a flood of students moving toward the auditorium. Our teachers stood grimly in front of their open classroom doors, watching us pass. When I accidentally caught the eye of my homeroom teacher—her expression projecting undercurrents of horror—I averted my gaze and kept moving, letting the crowd carry me forward.

*   *   *

During those days I was a good student, but I tended to view my teachers with detachment. I did not imagine my teacher’s inner life, her future or her past or her private goals and dreams. Instead I was impatient to leave the upper school for university, where I would at last have professors instead of teachers, new opportunities, freedom. It was, I believed, where I could develop into the person