- 47 -

Vagary
Lauren Welter

 From her desk close to the window, Emili could see the 
edge of  the world.
 Not actually the edge of  the entire world —there were 
too many of  those to count. No, from her vantage point 
inside the classroom she could see one edge of  the world 
that bordered her small village. The teacher was drawing 
a diagram of  their planet in sand in the center of  the 
classroom, fingers swirling the silt across the molding 
floorboards. She had been teaching geography for twenty 
minutes now, but Emili’s mind had drifted.
 She knew what she needed to know about the geography 
of  her planet: it was built like a cake with four tiers. The 
bottom tier where Emili’s village squatted was home to the 
lowest class of  individuals. Those who sold their wares or 
service or bodies for meager coin, living dangerously close 
to the edge of  the world. The tier above was a bit more 
dignified, Emili had heard. Her mother was from that tier. 
It was home to respectable merchants and traders, those 
with enough money for bread every week and shoes made 
of  leather or cloth. The tier above was even more affluent. 
They boasted governors and congressmen, families of  high 
esteem that owned buggies that moved across the planet like 
magic. 
 The upper-most tier was the stuff of  daydreams. Emili 
had heard whispers about their lives, though she didn’t 
know what was true and what was false. She had heard that 
there were only six families that resided there. Each had a 
handsome family crest embossed on their doorways. They 
had spigots of  water that shot hundreds of  feet in the air 
in their gardens, though their gardens grew all manner of  



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Vagary

flowers and not tomatoes or zucchini or anything else worth 
eating or selling. She had heard that they enjoyed the most 
amount of  sunlight on the planet, reveling in their long 
hours and throwing parties that lasted days, only ceasing 
to nap in their homes the size of  ten of  Emili’s huts. They 
didn’t have to worry about money or food, didn’t have to 
scrub their faces clean every night from dust that settled 
thick like a second skin. 
 Emili would make it there someday. She wasn’t sure how 
or when, but someday she would leave the perpetual stars 
that dotted her sky for the light of  the sun. 
 The class ended and Emili found herself  outside the 
school, staring once more at the edge of  the world. She 
should be hurrying home to help her father sew vests and 
trousers for his cart at the market, but she hesitated. 
 Craggily bushes clawed their way from the cracked soil. 
The ground near the edge was more split the closer Emili 
walked to the lip, and soon she was avoiding cracks the 
length of  her forearm, staying on the balls of  her feet to 
avoid stumbling. One thick braid sat heavy on her shoulder, 
feeling like a stern hand summoning her away from the edge. 
She tossed her hair over onto the small of  her back and lay 
on her belly, crawling towards the edge of  the world. 
 Stars met her. Not the stars that hung dim and sickly 
above her, drowned from the light of  suns she could 
gather warmth from. No, these stars were unperturbed, 
untarnished, untouched. They burst from the fabric of  the 
universe like pinpricks of  diamond. Emili’s eyes sparkled 
from their brilliance, and though her eyes began to burn 
from their heat she could not look away. 
 This was not what she had expected. She had expected 
more of  the same, a faded universe surrounding her faded 
world. A universe that moved sluggishly, greenish like a film 
of  mildew over its surface. 



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Lauren Welter

 This was a universe of  possibility, of  dreams and 
promises. Why would anyone sacrifice this view for the sun? 
Did those at the top know what they missed out on, sitting 
atop the planet on their gilded pedestal? 
 Emili reached into the pocket of  her trousers and pulled 
out the small nub of  charcoal she used to write her times 
tables on her desk. She reached her hand over the lip, hand 
suspended out into empty space. 
 She released the charcoal. 
 It dropped like a fallen star, disappearing quickly down 
the length of  the planet. Emili held her breath, straining to 
hear when it hit the bottom. She listened intently for thirty 
seconds, one minute, two. At five minutes she was convinced 
she had missed the sound of  impact and looked around 
for something else to drop. There was cracked slab of  dirt 
nearly separated from the dry ground, and Emily pried it the 
rest of  the way free. She dropped it into the void, this time 
wriggling forward so her ear was not pressed to the dirt but 
instead hanging over the planet and into space. She felt a 
sudden sense of  vertigo, of  slipping from the ground, but she 
dug her fingers into the dirt and held steady. 
 Thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes. Five minutes. 
Seven. 
 Finally, Emili scooted back so that her eyes were peering 
once more over the edge. She could see nothing but the 
fabric of  space and the blooming of  stars. Her heart 
thudding, she shakily scooted away from the edge and sat up. 
 She hadn’t heard a thud because there was no bottom. 
You could fall forever through space, accompanied by the 
stars, living in possibility. 
 Emili ran home on legs renewed of  a strength she hadn’t 
known she had. Her dreams of  reaching the top of  her 
planet streamed behind her, torn from her shoulders like an 
old, tattered cape she had no more use of. 



- 50 -

Vagary

 She was going to live among the stars. She just had to 
figure out how.

*
 Emili had decided on one thing: she was not a piece of  
charcoal or rock. She could not simply hurl herself  over 
the edge and hope for the best. The thought of  it made her 
muscles lock, her stomach clench in fear. She didn’t have the 
courage to throw herself  into oblivion. 
 She had to do it against her will, in a way that when fear 
gripped her at the final second she couldn’t stop herself. 
 Her village was perpetually cold, covered in frost that 
never seemed to thaw or harden into ice. She had grown up 
swaddled in layers of  cloth and fur, wrapping her feet in it 
many times to keep her toes from breaking off like those who 
couldn’t afford extra for shoes. She had always considered 
this a disadvantage, fueled her longing to see the top of  her 
planet and feel the warmth of  the sun on her face. 
 Now, she saw it as an ally. There was a small body of  
water that was always slick and frozen over on the edges. 
Children a few years younger than her, those who were too 
young to be much help at home and were better out of  the 
house and out from underfoot, would gather there with 
sanded down boards of  wood slicked with grease or oil on 
the underside. They would get a running start and throw 
themselves atop the plank and go skittering across the ice, 
whooping and hollering all the way. 
 Of  course, a few of  them ended up skittering towards 
the center of  the ice and were lost to the bottom of  the lake. 
While the thought made Emili shiver, that wasn’t the part 
she was fixated on. The fact was that once they flopped onto 
the board, they were at the mercy of  their own momentum. 
They couldn’t stop themselves if  they stayed near the edge to 
safety or if  they flung wildly to drown. 



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Lauren Welter

 That’s what Emili needed. A device that would propel her 
into the stars, her own momentum carrying her past her own 
fear. 
 The day after her discovery, she dug up the jar she had 
buried in her backyard. 
 The jar was years old, the label on it so faded she had 
forgotten what pickled vegetable or syrupy fruit it had once 
held. When she pulled it from its bed, the clinking made her 
fingers tingle. 
 She had been saving money for years in order to buy 
passage to the tier above her own. The plan had been to 
wait until she was done with her schooling, spend a few years 
learning a trade or some sort of  profitable skill, and then 
steal away into the middle of  night, unable to fathom the 
look of  good-bye in her parents’ faces. There were other jars 
buried in the same vicinity, within them more clinking coin 
that had been intended to buy her way upward. 
 A few coins from this jar would buy her a large board 
of  wood from the market and a small tub of  grease. She 
thought of  all the extra jobs she had taken, sewing until her 
thumb bled from the needle and butchering any furry animal 
that wandered too close to their hut in order to sew rough 
pairs of  slippers or hats or gloves for those who could afford 
them.
 For a moment, she hesitated. But the momentum from 
her discovery still hurtled through her bones and she 
untwisted the lid, pulled out a handful of  coins, and shoved 
them in her trouser pocket. 
 She left the jar beside her parent’s cot with a note written 
in the dirt, letting them know where the other jars were. 
Maybe her father could take a few days off work to rest his 
sore hands. Maybe her mother could come home for more 
than a few weeks at a time, leaving her hunting group for the 
embrace of  her aging husband. 



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Vagary

 She tried not to think of  their faces when they realized 
she was gone. It was nearly unprecedented for a family 
on the lowest tier to not have more than eight children to 
help with collecting coin and managing whatever service 
the family provided. Her parents had only had one, and 
she had never asked why and they had never offered. And 
here she was leaving them. It sat like a lump in her throat, 
but it didn’t stall her stride. Wasn’t this what she had been 
planning to do all along? It was only a few years early. This 
had always been her end goal: freedom. 
 That’s what she reminded herself  when she handed over 
the coin for the wood and tucked it under her arm. She 
didn’t look the seller in the eye; she knew her father and was 
prone to chatter. 
 The grease was slightly harder to come by. Many people 
couldn’t afford their own meat and hunting was a thing that 
required months of  time in groups, like what her mother 
did. Their many sources of  food were whatever grew in the 
garden and whatever wild plants could be found on a walk 
to and from wherever you were going. Fire-warmed drink 
flavored with alcohol and cinnamon kept them warm from 
young children to the oldest villagers. Emili had a flask tied 
to her hip and she offered the man who sold her the grease 
a sip. He was old and stooped, fingers cracked and face 
splotchy. His hands shook when he took the flask, and his 
eyes closed as the drink hit his lips. It dribbled down his chin 
and after a long moment, he handed it back. It was nearly 
empty now, but Emili realized it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t 
need it out in the universe, where her own wonder would 
fuel her like it had the day before. 
 Emili set out with the grease slung over her shoulder and 
the plank jammed under her armpit. She was headed for 
the school then thought better of  it, changing her trajectory 
to slightly more south where only a few huts squatted a 



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Lauren Welter

respectable distance from the edge. She didn’t want to risk 
being found out and spotted from the window of  the school. 
She hadn’t gone today, hadn’t seen the point. Now, she 
almost wished she had said farewell to the squat building 
if  only to affirm to herself  that she craved more than what 
those four walls could bring her. 
 The edge came quickly, and she found herself  standing 
near the lip, even closer than she had ventured to stand 
yesterday. She took a deep breath and peered over the edge, 
body tilted forward, heart fluttering in her chest. 
 The stars stole the breath from her lungs as quickly 
and violently as they had spirited it away the day before. 
Somehow, they seemed even more brilliant… and this time 
she heard a voice. 
 It was soft at first but grew steadily until she could make 
out the words. They buried their way into her chest and 
hooked into her heart. 
 “Leap true and jump steady,” they went. “For only those 
with wonder in their veins and restless spirit in their hearts 
can join us.” 
 Emili shakily set down the wood plank a few feet away, 
fingers hastily rubbing the lard across the bottom in broad 
strokes. Suddenly, this all felt very urgent. The stars had 
chosen to speak to her. What if  they changed their mind and 
decided she was not worthy? 
 She had to act quickly. 
 And then she was ready. 
 She set the board down and backed up, sending one last 
glance around her planet. It didn’t call to her, or whisper 
to her longing. It sat like a thing dead around her, and she 
would be happy to be rid of  its weight. 
 She was running faster than she ever had, soles of  her 
feet aching where they slapped the ground and thighs 
burning from exertion. 



- 54 -

 She pushed off the pads of  her feet, leaping onto the 
wooden plank. 
 She fell heavily on her bottom, teeth rattling like pebbles 
in her mouth. 
 The edge of  the world approached her faster, speeding 
towards her, carried to her by her own momentum, brought 
to her by her own choice and pure longing. 
 For a moment, she was suspended between the edge of  
her world and the rest of  the universe, and she could truly 
feel the gaze of  the stars against her cheek. 
 She closed her eyes and was not afraid. 
 She joined the stars.

Vagary