Nora had fielded this question a hundred times before, but today she was tired, tired of fighting the unnamed thing that threatened to tear her apart. She had kept it at bay for now, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it emerged again: her demon, the thing that made her special.

Before she knew what was happening, tears were streaming down her face.

Moments later, Finn had her arms around her mother and was patting her back the same way Nora would when her daughter was upset. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.”

Nora clung fiercely to her child, afraid that if she let go, Finn would vanish.

TWELVE EVERY STAR HAS A SONG

“Do you think Ursula found anything?” Finn asked her sister for what had to be the tenth time that day. It was all she could think about while she ate her breakfast banana and oatmeal; all she could think about during her morning hike and the hour she spent helping Chuck change a tire on his Oldsmobile. Now, as they walked up the aluminum steps to Ursula and Nic’s double-wide, she realized she was nervous to hear the answer.

“Well, getting stressed about it definitely isn’t going to help.” Zadie had been more sympathetic the first nine times her sister had posed this question. “Let’s just go in and see what she says.” Then she knocked.

A voice from inside called, “It’s open!” and they let themselves in. The trailer was cozy in the most non-patronizing sense of the word. Terra-cotta-colored walls peeked out from behind colorful artwork. The floors were a patchwork of Turkish rugs, and a beaded curtain separated the living area from a hallway on the other side. Trailing jade and philodendron spilled over the sides of baskets that hung from the ceiling, along with bundles of dried herbs and copper pots and pans.

“Leo and Virgo!” Nic rushed at the girls, her arms in a wide V like an inverted cowcatcher. Before either of them knew what was happening, they were being hugged. Ursula stood at a more respectful distance, as though she were waiting in line at an ATM. “Their names are Zadie and Finn,” she corrected her wife, then addressed the girls. “If you couldn’t tell, Nic’s really into astrology.” Then in a loud whisper, “I think it’s all bullshit.”

“You only think it’s bullshit because you’re a Taurus. It’s in your nature,” Nic said with a wink.

Ursula rolled her eyes dramatically. “Since Nic takes the day shift, I only have to put up with this a few hours a day.”

“That must be weird being on different schedules like that,” Zadie commented.