Toil & Trouble Read online

  I swipe at my lower eyelids with my ring fingers. Some of these girls are into that raccoon-rings, mascara-tracks, nervous-breakdown-chic look, but I have a reputation to uphold. My hand is only trembling slightly when I snap a selfie, making sure to get my latest chart in the background:

  @delasEstrellas: when mamí says it’s bedtime pero like, you’re communing with diosas

  The first comments start before I even close the app. Normally I don’t read them. What’s the point? It’s not like I’m gonna reply. Talk. Make friends. I can’t, or I’ll end up back on my back in the desert, right? Or worse—on the side of the road in the wreckage.

  But I haven’t closed the window yet, and the next comment pops up before I can:

  @futureNASAqueen: Your art is dope, but please tell me you don’t actually believe this stuff! You look smarter than that.

  I’m clicking through before I can rein it in. I’m angry at Mamí and my dead tía, and fifteen-year-old me. I’m so sick of the tiny life I’ve been living in all of their shadows. And now this?

  This hater’s avi shows a heart-shaped face, freckles scattered across skin the color of my favorite sun stone. She wears these square glasses that could be awful but are actually cute. Ugh, why does she have to be pretty? This flip-flopping in my stomach is distracting from my rage.

  What am I doing? I shake myself when the hat reminds me. It’s pink, but there’s a super official-looking NASA logo across the front. This girl is not interested in me or anything I have to say, so why am I still reading her bio?

  “Future stellar astronomer of your dreams. Flat-Earthers need not apply.”

  She’s local. “Location: City of Angels.” But something small and sad is already closing in my chest.

  @delasEstrellas: @futureNASAqueen you look smart, too, but life’s too short for debates with closed-minded folks. She doesn’t deserve the peace sign emoji, but I add it anyway, followed by the nail-painting one that reminds me I’m too good to let people make me small.

  The reply is almost instant:

  @futureNASAqueen: Am I though? DMs are open if you’re brave enough.

  My heart kicks into nervous rhythm, the amethyst cluster on my necklace twitching along with it. I shouldn’t. What good can it possibly do? A good night’s sleep is the frontline of skin care, and I’ve had these debates before. Science vs. Magic. No one ever wins.

  But my mamí’s accusations are still ringing in my ears, fresh again after tonight’s latest throw down. I’m wild, right? I’m reckless. I’ll never be anything but a stupid sophomore who said “yes” too many times.

  And compared to tour busses and parties in the hills, a debate between haters feels almost tame—even after all the shutting-myself-in I’ve done this year.

  Plus, this girl is cute.

  The devotion candle I lit to Tía Jasmin is burning high, flame nearly clearing its glass cylinder, dancing, jumping for attention. She’s egging me on, and it feels good. Plus, it’s not like I’m going anywhere, right? Just a friendly chat.

  I roll my eyes. If this chat is friendly I’ll say yes to the next nervous dude that asks me out at school. That’s how sure I am that this is gonna end in a mess of blocks and hurt feelings.

  So why am I clicking that little message icon? And what’s up with these sparks?

  @delasEstrellas: I’m doing this against my better judgment, but hey

  Almost at once, the message switches from “sent” to “seen,” but she doesn’t reply. A minute passes, then two, then three. This girl is not about to leave me on read. Five minutes. I’m legit about to start chewing on my hundred-dollar manicure when that ellipsis finally starts blinking.

  @futureNASAqueen: Ha! Hey, didn’t think I’d hear from you. Cool.

  @delasEstrellas: what can I say? I don’t intimidate easy

  @futureNASAqueen: See? We already have something in common.

  She ends it with a wink. My heart dips. I’m biting my lip. It’s ridiculous. Not that you’d know it from the comments on my photos, but I’ve never been on a date. Never so much as held hands, let alone kissed someone. Mamí says love and magic get mixed up, that they make it harder to trust your instincts, easier to get lost.

  So even when I was partying, it was never about that. It was about glowing up and getting high with my girls and being seen in all the right places.

  Even with all that baggage, though, I have to admit, this heat in my cheeks isn’t half bad. Plus, I confirm with a glance at my selfie camera, it looks good with this contour.

  @delasEstrellas: so, isn’t this the part where you tell me everything I believe is wrong?

  The reply doesn’t take so long this time.

  @futureNASAqueen: Isn’t this the part where you ask me my birthday and tell me all about myself? A cry-laughing emoji. The nerve.

  I force myself to wait sixty seconds. I start fidgeting around eight.

  @delasEstrellas: if you want a chart done you can pay like everyone else. The brown-girl-shrugging emoji completes it. I won’t be so easily ruffled, it says. I do this all the time.

  @futureNASAqueen: Ha! Ice cold, I like it. Look, I don’t doubt you’d say some shit that resonates, that’s how this stuff works! I’m not here to call you stupid, I’ve just done a lot of research.

  @delasEstrellas: and I haven’t, right? can you tell because I don’t wear geek glasses? Simmer, I tell that lunar Aries flash. Don’t be defensive. You have nothing to prove.

  @futureNASAqueen: Haha, hey, that’s not what I said. The science just disproves your theory. The stars don’t know anything about us, and that’s the way it should be.

  The wind chime of starsong is answer enough to that one; the answer I discovered that night when I got too close to the edge of nothingness and something bigger kept me from falling.

  I wish I could record it for her, send her the file. That song is filled with knowledge, with care, with the distant but benevolent spirit of a universe that knows every heart beating and flower blooming within its boundaries. I was chosen to hear that song, and to interpret it for people who can’t.

  But I interpret through art, not words, and I can hardly answer in watercolor now.

  I start typing as I cross to my bed, not looking up, almost wiping out on the corner of my shag rug and laughing at myself. The exchange picks up speed, but it doesn’t get ugly like I predicted. She’s drawing the cold, clear lines of logic. Math. Science. This is where she lives, and there’s beauty in the order of it all. In her passion for it. But between those inexorable lines, I’m filling in the color. The blues and greens of nebulae. Solar flares refracting against frozen metals we can’t name.

  It feels like dancing. It feels like painting.

  It feels like magic.

  An hour passes like a few heartbeats, then another. I barely notice the time until we’ve been through Mercury retrograde and string theory and are just getting started on the phrase pseudoscience.

  The sky is turning periwinkle along the horizon when I finally get her:

  @delasEstrellas: the place y’all get tripped up is thinking about it as a competition. like we made up another science to cancel yours out

  @futureNASAqueen: Okay, so what’s astrology then?

  I actually do it. I chew on a nail. Barb is gonna roll her eyes when I come in a week early for my fill. For a minute, I set the phone down, closing my eyes, letting the song fill my head and the fading constellations dance behind my lids.

  @delasEstrellas: art. faith. something between the two

  She’s quiet for a long time, almost six minutes, but this time I know she’s there and it makes me smile.

  @futureNASAqueen: Tell me more.

  The smile widens. I run a hand through my hair without thinking of my curls.

  @delasEstrellas: it’s like...say someone writes a poem about you, okay? is it a list
of your height and weight and address and birth date and social security number?

  @futureNASAqueen: Haha, I hope not. Wouldn’t be a very interesting poem.

  I’m up off my bed again, pacing. The starsong is louder now, swelling in a way that says something’s coming. Something bigger than just tonight. But maybe something steady. Something that doesn’t have to make me feel afraid.

  @delasEstrellas: exactly. but does that mean it’s not true? someone paints a picture of you. it’s not a photo. your hair is more blue than black, your eyes more gold, but does that mean it can’t tell you anything about yourself?

  Another long pause. Four minutes this time.

  @futureNASAqueen: Wow.

  @delasEstrellas: ‘wow’ I’m so uneducated you’re gonna have to spend an extra hour with your telescope tomorrow just to cleanse the memory of this conversation from your neat and tidy brain? A smirk emoji. Is this flirting? I think it’s flirting. I don’t wait for her reply, instead clicking back to her profile and scrolling down.

  I tell myself I’m not looking for what I’m looking for.

  There are no pictures of parties. Of red cups or powder or pills, of slitted eyes or lazy whiskey smiles. She’s selfie-ing on a college visit to MIT. And here’s a picture with her brothers, one of them in a white doctor’s coat. There are a few pictures of food, which I’ll overlook because her freckles are so cute, and then, fifty-three pictures in, a photo dated two years ago. Another selfie, this time cheek-to-cheek with a redheaded girl. Her eyes are closed. They’re both smiling.

  There’s no caption, because the universe is cruel, but it looks like something different than friends.

  @futureNASAqueen: More like “wow” you just blew my mind. That doesn’t happen very often, girl. I’m reeling a little over here. That laugh-cry emoji again. Adorable.

  @delasEstrellas: I’m putting that in the testimonials on my website, jsyk. Another smirk.

  The pause now is comfortable; I don’t mind it. The sky outside my window is going slowly pink, a sight I remember from a dozen parties past. It never looked like it does tonight, though. Never once.

  @futureNASAqueen: What’s your real name?

  For the first time all night, my blood’s warning is back, siren-loud. This girl is local. And beautiful. And smart and interesting and cool. And look, my Mars is in Scorpio like I said—when I find something I want, it can get a little intense.

  Intense is the opposite of what I’ve been chasing since I walked out those hospital doors. And love? Even like? Forget about it.

  I never really understood how Tía Jasmin could get on that bus. Follow some guy she just met backstage even though it was dangerous as hell.

  But tonight, I’m getting a first taste of how it might have felt.

  @delasEstrellas: you first

  @futureNASAqueen: My name’s Mari.

  @delasEstrellas: Luna

  @futureNASAqueen: Four-letter names. Something else we have in common I guess. The wide, smug-smile emoji makes me wonder what her actual smile looks like. Not just in a selfie where she’s trying to look cute, but for real, when it stretches her cheeks out and makes her eyes go slitty.

  @delasEstrellas: so, when’s your birthday? I send the same smile back. It’s the one on my goofy face anyway, might as well be honest.

  Eight minutes before her reply. Eight. The ellipsis comes and goes a dozen times as she types and deletes. Types and deletes.

  @futureNASAqueen: Look, this is ridiculous and I would normally NEVER but like, you’re beautiful and I swear I’m not a serial killer and I’d really like to tell you my birthday in person. Somewhere public and well-lit. With plenty of people aware of where we’ll be just in case.

  The starsong has never been so loud, swelling and changing, growing more and less complex. She treats me like a girl who hasn’t ever taken a risk worse than this one. Like a girl who needs to be reassured that something is safe before she leaps.

  She treats me like the girl I’ve been trying to be.

  I close my eyes again, surrendering to this feeling, the influence of a new constellation pulling at me. Every one of my candle flames is blazing, casting warbling gemstone lights and streaky glass-shadows on the wall.

  In her photo on the mantel, Tía Jasmin seems to be smiling brighter than usual.

  When I open my eyes there’s another message:

  @futureNASAqueen: The suspense is killing me, girl, I gotta log off. But here’s the link to my Facebook. I have parents and I go to school and I have a couple ex-girlfriends and you can learn all about them before 2pm when I’ll be at Dinosaur Coffee on Sunset really, really hoping you show up. The peace sign emoji. The nervous sweating emoji.

  I’m nervous. I might float right off my bed.

  Am I gonna go?

  The stars are trying to answer for me, but isn’t this what got Tía Jasmin in so much trouble? Is it new-crush bliss? Is it magic? Is it both?

  I set my alarm for ten. I can’t believe I’m about to fall asleep without taking my makeup off. Moisturizing. Braiding my hair. But I do, the past and present playing tug-of-war in my head, dreaming of buses and dinosaurs and rocket ships blasting off, the stars’ symphony guiding me like a promise.

  * * *

  It turns out I don’t need that alarm after all. When I wake up a few minutes before it, there’s something peaceful in my chest, settled like a purring cat. All the candles on my altar have gone out except my Tía Jasmin’s, which is burning steady and clear.

  Saturday morning, I think. No school. Nowhere I have to be.

  But the fear-shadows that have darkened the doorways of Bruce’s massive mansion since Mamí brought me home from the hospital are gone, and outside, that honey-drop sunshine beckons instead of warning. It’s a gorgeous day, and even though I was up till sunrise I find myself bouncing out of bed with a cheesy catalogue smile on my face.

  That is, until I see my hair. The smudged eyeliner. The contour gone horribly wrong against the creases of my pillow. After a seriously less-than-chill shrieking sound, I’m locked in my bathroom, hoping there’s enough time.

  I have a date today, after all.

  By twelve-thirty I’m descending, miracles performed. I’ve changed my clothes four times, finally settling on black skinnies and my ironic Ouija Board tank, bright red Converse for a color pop. My hair is natural, all mismatched waves and curls.

  My nail still has a bite mark in it, and there’s no time to get it filled. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m wearing two different shoes.

  But I’m not. Please, even nervous I’m still on my game. Even first-date, palm-sweating, butterflies nervous. Even almost-unable-to-put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other nervous.

  Those freckles, I remind myself. In person. The resulting blush gets me the rest of the way.

  In the kitchen, Mamí and Bruce are cooking something time-consuming. He’s chopping onions and looking at her like the sun rises and sets behind her eyes. It’s cute. I never noticed before.

  When she sees me with my purse on a Saturday, Mamí’s eyes widen, then settle.

  My smile is an unnatural thing, the shadows of last night’s fight in its creases, layering over the darker ones I put there when I let myself get lost.

  “Where are we off to?” she asks, and I take a deep breath.

  “To meet a...friend.”

  I feel it in the air between us. The earthy skepticism of her Virgo giving way to the nervous eddies and swirls of an Aquarius letting down their guard.

  “Be careful,” she says, her eyes saying more than her words.

  “I will.” An automatic response. But there’s something cold and sharp pulling from the other direction, like the breeze off the ocean in December, and I’m not sure careful is in the stars.

  Whatever’s out there, though, it’ll be me going to meet it, not my ghosts. />
  And I have a feeling it’s gonna be out of this world.

  * * * * *

  AFTERBIRTH

  by Andrea Cremer

  “And see how the wisdome of God fitted this judgment to her sinne every way, for looke as she had vented misshapen opinions, so she must bring forth deformed monsters.”

  —Thomas Weld on Anne Hutchinson in the preface to A Short Story of the Rise, Reign and Ruine of the Antinomians Familists and Libertines, 1644

  New England, 1650

  * * *

  DESPITE THE PAIN, Sarah Cooke can no longer scream. Her voice is used up. Sounds spill from her throat, but they are rasping and raw. Whispers of agony. The cries of a ghost.

  “Change the cloths, Deliverance. And bring more water,” Midwife Ley orders.

  I gather the sodden linens I tucked around Sarah’s body no more than an hour ago. They were clean when I placed them between her thighs. Now they are heavy with blood and mucus. The odors of impending birth seep from the cloths into the air. It is a perfume I have come to know well: a scent that is life and death mixed together. Alpha and Omega. Creation itself.

  Midwife Ley measures herbs into a mortar, then sets to crushing them with a pestle, murmuring under her breath all the while.

  Goodwife Prower, who cradles the whimpering Sarah’s head and shoulders in her lap, shifts her gaze to Midwife Ley and purses her lips. I do not like the way Goodwife Prower’s eyes have narrowed or how her face has pinched with judgment, sour as curdling milk.

  But it is not my place to object. Goodwife Prower is the mistress of this house, and Sarah is her servant. A new mother couldn’t want for a better place to birth a child. The village came together to build this home for Judge Prower and his wife. A house of stout timbers and windows with glass and a wide stone fireplace, large enough for a spit and a copper kettle. There are even walls to separate two bedrooms from the main living space. I am certain it must be the finest house in the colony.

  “Now is the time, Sarah,” Goodwife Prower urges. “Speak the name. Give us the name of the father.”