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

“Some people take to bloodflower more than others their first time,” he said. “Don’t worry, it will wear off soon. Where’d you get it, anyway?”

“Deirdre stopped by today.” I licked my dry lips. “She was acting strange. She thought she was being followed, and she had the idea you might have something to do with that.”

An expression I couldn’t quite decipher crossed my brother’s face: Concern? Frustration? It vanished before I could decide.

“Deirdre is troubled,” he said.

“She said an inspector came to look at her arm,” I went on. I kicked the sheets around my feet to get more comfortable. “Which I found strange, because an inspector visited me in the hospital. Remember, I tried to tell you? She had my childhood file, and she examined my arm. I was halfway convinced it was a dream.”

For a few seconds, Miles and I stared at each other. I was glad to see that his black eye had paled nearly beyond recognition.

“That’s odd,” he said finally. “But maybe that’s the protocol with returned girls.”

“Maybe.”

I looked at Mapping the Future, which he had tucked under his arm. “I suppose you’re still taking interpretation classes with Julia.”

“It’s more than that. Julia made me her apprentice. I never told you this, but she hasn’t charged me for classes for ages because she thinks I can actually make a career out of it.” He glanced at me, a quick self-conscious look like he expected me to laugh. “I know it’s unlikely, but I believe I’ll find a way to make this work. As long as I’m persistent.”

I nestled deeper under the covers. “I wish I felt that way about my chances of becoming a psychologist.” I didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in my voice.

“Hey,” Miles said. “You still have a solid future. You do. Remember that.” He touched my arm, but for once, this didn’t make me flinch. His touch felt respectful, professional. I could picture him in the future, working as an interpreter to help girls and women find their way.

But that would never happen. He would barely get to be an adult, much less have a career. He would miss out on everything, and he still didn’t know. Surely I was doing a good deed by not telling him of his fate. By concealing the pattern on my ribs, I was protecting my brother and our family from the coming years of agony. It was better to have the grief arrive all at once in a single shock wave rather than in a slow, unbearable crescendo.

“You should sleep,” he said. “Sleep is the best thing for you right now.”

He pulled the quilt over my shoulders and snapped the light off, leaving me in the dark.

*   *   *

In the morning, I stayed in bed for a long time after I woke, watching the sun grow brighter and brighter against the curtains. When I finally got up and showered, I scrubbed my skin, hard. I looked down and tried to grasp that this was the same body that existed in that wood-paneled room, that lay under a strange man. It seemed a terrible, unreal story I’d told myself, something completely beyond belief.

My bruises continued to fade. Soon they would disappear entirely.

I dressed in a dark, ankle-length dress topped with a black cardigan. I dried my hair and brushed it. I did not apply makeup. I buttoned the top button of the sweater, gave myself a last look in the mirror, and went downstairs.

My mother was in the kitchen holding a banana with its top half peeled open. She watched as I slid into my shoes in the hallway.

“I’m going to take a walk,” I said.

She looked concerned. “By yourself?”

“Mom. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

She gazed at me unhappily. “I suppose you’re right.” She walked over to the trash and dumped the banana in, even though she hadn’t finished it. The sound it made when it landed echoed inside the trash can, the kitchen, my head.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

I left. Outside, I felt my family and friends following me like phantoms. My parents would surely condemn what I was doing, but Marie might have offered her support if I hadn’t pushed her away. I wasn’t sure how Cassandra would respond; I was starting to wonder if I’d ever known her at all.

I walked until the police headquarters loomed ahead of me, a blond-brick building with a maroon roof that looked like rust. Inside, I signed the log, writing New information in abduction case in shaky handwriting as my reason for the visit. Then I waited alone until an officer called my name. As he led me through the maze of cubicles, the other officers—all men except for a lone woman—glanced curiously at me. As if I were a lost child in their midst.

I was seated at a table near the back of the room and left to wait again. The table was piled high with various documents: financial forms, school registrations, tax booklets, and both federal and nongovernmental employment applications. I sifted through that last stack until I found an application for the position of humanitarian ambassador.

It was a simple application, front and back of a single sheet of paper. Any woman over the age of eighteen could apply, even those who’d once been abducted. The Humanitarian Global Alliance always needed more women willing to give up their personal lives to contribute to this cause, and it was an open secret that ruined women might be naturally inclined to help vulnerable girls.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” Mrs. Ellis once told my health class, “isn’t it a relief that women in this country aren’t subjected to mandatory police inspections, and that they in fact have this choice to work for a global organization? We have truly come far.”

At the bottom of the application, the annual salary was printed in tiny type. I stared at the figure, which seemed astronomical to me, and then