The augur taught the girl to read letters and numbers but not the signs of the flesh. One day, when she was as tall as a fencepost, he came back from the tea fields to see her with his augury book. The anatomical sketches spread out upon the splintered table, the pages yellow and thin as butterfly’s wings. The augur lashed out with such haste it was as though his body had forgotten its age. “This is not for you,” he said, snatching the heavy book. “There is no happiness in some knowledges.”