BooksBarbecue
Back The Passage Save as PDF
Chapters (92)
  1. Other Books by this Author
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. The Worst Dream in the World
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. The Year of Zero
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. The Last City
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. All Eyes
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Girl from Nowhere
  32. Chapter Twenty-Four
  33. Chapter Twenty-Five
  34. Chapter Twenty-Six
  35. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-One
  40. Chapter Thirty-Two
  41. Chapter Thirty-Three
  42. Chapter Thirty-Four
  43. The Night of Blades and Stars
  44. Chapter Thirty-Five
  45. Chapter Thirty-Six
  46. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  47. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  48. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  49. Chapter Forty
  50. Chapter Forty-One
  51. The Darklands
  52. Chapter Forty-Two
  53. Chapter Forty-Three
  54. Chapter Forty-Four
  55. Chapter Forty-Five
  56. Chapter Forty-Six
  57. The Haven
  58. Chapter Forty-Seven
  59. Chapter Forty-Eight
  60. Chapter Forty-Nine
  61. Chapter Fifty
  62. Chapter Fifty-One
  63. Chapter Fifty-Two
  64. Chapter Fifty-Three
  65. Chapter Fifty-Four
  66. Chapter Fifty-Five
  67. The Last Expeditionary
  68. Chapter Fifty-Six
  69. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  70. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  71. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  72. Chapter Sixty
  73. Chapter Sixty-One
  74. The Angel of the Mountain
  75. Chapter Sixty-Two
  76. Chapter Sixty-Three
  77. Chapter Sixty-Four
  78. Chapter Sixty-Five
  79. Chapter Sixty-Six
  80. Chapter Sixty-Seven
  81. Chapter Sixty-Eight
  82. Chapter Sixty-Nine
  83. Chapter Seventy
  84. The New Thing
  85. Chapter Seventy-One
  86. Chapter Seventy-Two
  87. Chapter Seventy-Three
  88. Chapter Seventy-Four
  89. Postscript - Roswell Road
  90. Acknowledgments
  91. About the Author
  92. Copyright

“Because you’re going to the station, Galen. Isn’t that what you said?”

A glimmer of recognition came into his face. “Yeah, I’m going down there tomorrow.”

“So take care of yourself, okay? I mean it. All eyes.”

“Right. All eyes.”

She listened to his footsteps receding down the hall, the sound abruptly muffled as the door to the Big Room sealed in his wake. Only then did Mausami realize that she had slid one of her knitting needles free and was clutching it in her fist. She looked around the room, which suddenly seemed too large, a place abandoned, empty of its cribs and cots. All the Littles gone.

The feeling touched her then, a cold shiver from within: something was about to happen.

The Night of Blades and Stars

VI

THE NIGHT
OF BLADES
AND STARS

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!”
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.

—SHAKESPEARE,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Chapter Thirty-Five


THIRTY-FIVE

For ninety-two years, eight months, and twenty-six days, since the last bus had driven up the mountain, the souls of First Colony had lived in this manner:

Under the lights.

Under the One Law.

According to custom.

According to instinct.

In the day-to-day.

With only themselves, and those they had made, for company.

Under the protection of the Watch.

Under the authority of the Household.

Without the Army.

Without memory.

Without the world.

Without the stars.

For Auntie, alone in her house in the glade, the night—the Night of Blades and Stars—commenced like so many nights before it: she was sitting at the table in her steam-fogged kitchen, writing in her book. That afternoon she had taken a batch of pages off the line, stiff with the sun—they always felt to her like squares of captured sunlight—and had passed the remainder of the daylight hours preparing them: trimming the edge on her cutting board, opening the binding and its covers of stretched lambskin, carefully undoing the stitching that held the pages in place, taking up her needle and thread to sew the new ones in. It was slow work, satisfying in the way of all things that required time and concentration, and by the time she was finished, the lights were coming on.

Funny how everyone thought she had just the one book.