Anyway, I lay the blame squarely at my roommate's feet. If Crys hadn't cast that silly horoscope--the one that said my love life would change drastically--none of this would have happened. She's the one who told me Sagittarius would figure prominently in it.

You see, my fiance Ken was a Virgo.

"No, it's true, Stacey," Crys said earnestly when I laughed at her. "The stars don't lie. And you've got an aura of power around you. You always have. It's because you're a twin and your sign is Gemini."

I'd heard that all before. But I figured I had about the same amount of magic around me as the average cast-iron frypan.

"But I don't even know anyone who's a Sagittarius," I said. "At least, I don't think I do."

"You will," she promised with absolute certainty. "You will. This next week or so is going to be a very exciting and interesting time for you."

Exciting and interesting ... Well, this time, she was right. But it was the interesting from that old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

I caught Ken making out with a mousey-haired bimbo from the mail room. He had the chutzpah to get mad at me for making her cry. And the worst thing was, he didn't have a clue about why I was so upset about him boffing her when he was supposed to marry me next month. So I did what I always do when confronted with an ugly situation: I ran like a rabbit.

I ran straight out to the lake, and my parents' little cabin. I've always been able to think out there. I wasn't able to sleep, so around midnight I got up and built a little fire out on the beach. I sat beside it, listening to the lake making hushing sounds to my left, and the trees whispering to my right. I picked up a small handful of the fine sand and let it sift through my fingers and drift on the slight breeze.

It seemed obvious that Ken and I were through for good. Oh, we'd broken up before over one thing or another, but I'd always given in to his demands and forgiven him and taken him back. It was hard to resist a man who declared he couldn't live without you, even if that declaration was shouting and angry. But this time I didn't care how much he raged and pleaded, I wasn't about to forgive and forget.

Well, for once, the horoscope Crys cast for me was right. This was one helluva change in my love life.

I tilted my head back, looking up at the sky. The full moon, already sinking in the west, was bright enough to cast shadows along the pale sand and the stars looked close enough to pluck out of the black sky and use as candles.

During my first year of college, I'd dated a guy who was interested in amateur astronomy. We used to lie on a blanket on the top of a hill and look at the sky. Among other things, he taught me all the constellations.

I picked out the Big Dipper and followed the pointer stars to Polaris in the tail of the Little Dipper. Ursa Minor, really, with Draco curled around it. Below them, closer to the horizon the four stars of Cassiopeia flared brightly. In the west across the lake, my own constellation, Gemini, glimmered faintly near the horizon.

Crys had told me that Sagittarius was rising, heralding the change in my love life. Idly, I looked east. I found Hercules, then Libra and half of Scorpio. That meant those two small stars just to the other side of where Scorpio's tail would be if it were visible had to be the tip of Sagittarius. It was only the last day of April. The whole constellation wouldn't be visible for another month. June. When Ken and I should have been married.

I felt as if I should cry, but I was still too angry. I picked up another handful of sand and spilled it out by my knees.

The breeze freshened, spattering the drifting sand into the fire. Sudden sparks danced in the air above the fire, bright enough to dazzle my eyes. I looked up to see Sagittarius blazing in the sky directly overhead where the Dipper should be. I blinked, and it was gone. Then my ears popped as if I'd just dropped thirty stories in a high speed elevator. I shook my head, feeling a bit dizzy, but the odd sensation stopped as quickly as it had come, and when I looked up again, the Dipper was back where it should be and Sagittarius was gone.