PART I

We have calcium in our bones,
iron in our veins,
carbon in our souls,
and nitrogen in our brains.

93 percent stardust,
with souls made of flames,
we are all just stars
that have people names.

– 93 Percent Stardust, Nikita Gill

Santiago, Chile – September 1999

The cosmos rushed past her in a blur of darkness and multi-coloured stellar dust. Clouds of red, orange and green were speckled with orbs of burning gases, sparkling and lighting the path to distant civilisations all across the milky way galaxy. Lita's consciousness that tied to the cosmos in ways that she could only understand when dreaming. Her soul was joined to the infinite as an angel-like warrior, patrolling the galaxy's far reaches in search of threats to what she called home, giving all that she could, kneeling in a beautiful kind of surrender to the vastness that was beyond her conscious comprehension. Lita felt it though, when she dreamed, that she was connected to the universal laws of the cosmos in a way that just felt right.

Lita woke the way kings woke, as if blessed by the gods, given permission to live another day. She experienced existence differently than others, even her family, and her mother knew that Lita was permitted a special relationship with the cosmos that the rest of the world didn't have. Lita's hazel eyes greeted the day's shining rays as if they were the very thing keeping her alive. The warmth travelled through her body and her lungs and heart expanded with her first deep breath of the day.

"You owe me a billion pesos!"

Lita was lucky her unique relationship with existence was a subconscious one, as she was still bound to Earth by her mother, step-father and brother.

"¿Por qué?" Lita said, voice muffled by her pillow.
"English, Lita! Today is an English day!" Mateo announced.
"Filo..."
"And you owe me a billion pesos because we bet that I would wake up before you."
"¿Mil millones de pesos?" Lita exclaimed, her head rising from her pillow. "Weón, none of us has a billion pesos—combined!"

Lita pulled one of her pillows out from beneath her and threw it at her brother. He caught it and threw it back, earning himself a groan as Lita slammed the pillow over her head.

"Mamá, Lita called me a jerk!"

A loud sigh escaped Lita's lips. She pulled her sand coloured linens off her petite frame and swung herself up into a sitting position. For a moment, Lita enjoyed the silence following her brother's footsteps running down the hall. The memory of her dreams was shed from her mind, but the feeling of lightness from travelling through the cosmos remained for a little while. Lita breathed in the dust that had been kicked up from the unswept floor and closed her eyes, basking in the warmth of the sunshine reaching through the gauzy fabric of the curtains.

"¿Llamaste wéon a tu hermano?"

Lita sighed again as her mother broke her moment of peace. She swung her legs off the edge of the bed and stood, letting the hem of her nightdress fall below her knees. Lita gave an annoyed glance at her mother. She was rubbing gentle circles over her very large stomach.

"It's English day, mamá," she grumbled, rubbing the corners of her eyes. "But yes, I did. He said I owe him a billion pesos for waking up later than him."
"¿Mil millones?" The woman made a noise that expressed her amused disappointment. "Pendejo."
"English, mamá."

Isabél, Lita's mother, waved her arm half-heartedly and left the room. In the distance, as Lita was haphazardly making her bed, heard Isabél call out several unsavoury names strung together into a poetic-like sentence only she could make. Lita shook her head and snorted, amused, and listened to Mateo's laughter ring out through the house, then several shouts pleading his innocence.

Lita lazily walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open. She narrowed her eyes a little, the sunshine momentarily stinging, and opened the window to take a deep breath of Chilean air. It smelled like fry oil and the sweet scent of chancaca that usually wafted from one of the busier streets nearby and, down below, one of the neighbours was beating the dust and dirt out of their carpets. Lita sneezed and snuck her head back inside, then closed the window before heading over to grab clean clothes and shower in the bathroom across the hall. When she emerged, Lita was fully clothed and roughly passing her damp hair through a towel.

"Hurry, Lita! If you want breakfast, you are going to be late!" Isabél called from the kitchen.
"I'll just get sopaipillas around the corner," Lita said, walking into the room, hands trying and failing to fix her uniform's tie. Isabél beckoned her daughter over and rearranged it.
"Again?" Mateo chuckled, taking a last sip of tea. "If you keep eating those you're going to get fat."
"Then I'll be fat and happy."
"Good," Isabél announced proudly. "Men do not deserve you if they think less of you when there is more of you."

Lita sent a pointed look toward her brother, who rolled his eyes, but the moment was only momentarily savoured as Isabél thrust her kids' backpacks into their arms and pushed them out the door.

"Juan will walk you to school," Isabél said quickly. She seemed out of breath.
"Sí, sí, mamá," Lita sighed. "Go sit down."

Isabél scoffed and shook her head, indicating her annoyance, but her husband, Juan, put a hand on her shoulder and steered her towards the nearest seat.

"Listen to Lita, Isabél," Juan said calmly. "Little Joaquín is making you hiperventilar."
"Hyperventilate," Lita corrected.
"Show off," Mateo said condescendingly.
"Come on, there is no time for competition this morning, you two."

Lita squinted as she stepped out into the sun and the ever-growing cloud of dust that the neighbour had been beating out of her carpet. Mateo waved happily in her direction and she waved back at him and Juan, while Lita was already several feet away. Her nose was following the scent of syrup and her ears the sounds of cars on the main street.

Santiago was a city of both narrow and wide avenues lined and shaded by vibrant beech trees and buildings with coloured paint peeling off the old brick. There were food carts on street corners run by the time-worn hands of old women and small places to sit and eat with old music playing from the open windows. Sky-high towers in the centre of the city were surrounded by barrios housing millions of people and, in between, parks and wild spaces for a chance to walk in nature, enjoy the trails on a bicycle or, on rare occasions, on horseback. Yet, Lita's favourite thing about the city were the mountains that surrounded it and she stopped to stare at them, every morning, in between the buildings. Lita thought that, if the earth had a pulse, it would rise through the mountains, creating their silhouette against the clear blue sky. In the sunlight, the mountain peaks were a celebration of greens and greys, from beryl to silver-white, home to so much life.

"Are the mountains speaking to you, yet?"
"Don't make fun of me," Lita said, smacking her brother on the arm.

She looked away from the mountains and turned to the nearest food cart. The woman greeted her warmly by name. Lita was, of course, a regular customer.

"You stare at them every morning like you're waiting for something," Mateo said, sceptically.
"Mateo," Juan warned, absent-minded. He seemed to be staring at something down the road.
"Yeah, is it a crime to like mountains?" Lita replied, annoyed. "'The Andes have kept the soul of this land safe for time immeasured and tell of it in words unspoken.'"
"You sound like a travel guide."

Lita pulled a face at Mateo and grumbled.

"I did read it in a travel guide."