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Back When the Stars Go Dark Save as PDF
Chapters (83)
  1. Epigraph
  2. Maps
  3. (prologue)
  4. Part 1: Signs and Vapors
  5. (one)
  6. (two)
  7. (three)
  8. (four)
  9. (five)
  10. (six)
  11. (seven)
  12. (eight)
  13. (nine)
  14. (ten)
  15. (eleven)
  16. (twelve)
  17. Part 2: Secret Things
  18. (thirteen)
  19. (fourteen)
  20. (fifteen)
  21. (sixteen)
  22. (seventeen)
  23. (eighteen)
  24. (nineteen)
  25. (twenty)
  26. (twenty-one)
  27. (twenty-two)
  28. (twenty-three)
  29. (twenty-four)
  30. (twenty-five)
  31. (twenty-six)
  32. (twenty-seven)
  33. (twenty-eight)
  34. (twenty-nine)
  35. (thirty)
  36. (thirty-one)
  37. (thirty-two)
  38. (thirty-three)
  39. (thirty-four)
  40. (thirty-five)
  41. (thirty-six)
  42. (thirty-seven)
  43. (thirty-eight)
  44. (thirty-nine)
  45. Part 3: Time and the Maiden
  46. (forty)
  47. (forty-one)
  48. (forty-two)
  49. (forty-three)
  50. (forty-four)
  51. (forty-five)
  52. (forty-six)
  53. (forty-seven)
  54. (forty-eight)
  55. (forty-nine)
  56. (fifty)
  57. (fifty-one)
  58. (fifty-two)
  59. (fifty-three)
  60. Part 4: The Bent Grove
  61. (fifty-four)
  62. (fifty-five)
  63. (fifty-six)
  64. (fifty-seven)
  65. (fifty-eight)
  66. (fifty-nine)
  67. (sixty)
  68. (sixty-one)
  69. (sixty-two)
  70. (sixty-three)
  71. (sixty-four)
  72. (sixty-five)
  73. (sixty-six)
  74. (sixty-seven)
  75. (sixty-eight)
  76. (sixty-nine)
  77. (seventy)
  78. Dedication
  79. (acknowledgments)
  80. (author’s note)
  81. BY PAULA MCLAIN
  82. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  83. What’s next onyour reading list?

My guess about their split might be right, I realize, and feel terribly sad for all of them. Will’s daughter with her bleached jeans, ripped at the knee, his son with his same thick auburn hair, the same strong chin and gray eyes. And his wife, whom I don’t know, but feel close to anyway. In a time like this, they need to be together. People in crises always do.

—

When it’s time for Will to speak, only two reporters have shown up, and neither of them has brought a camera crew. Will guessed right to think every news station from here to San Francisco would be covering Winona Ryder’s visit to Petaluma instead of us. A rumor had flown through Will’s office all day about the actress going out into the fields with a search party, calling Polly’s name with a megaphone for hours.

But I’m not going to let myself feel disappointed. Whatever is happening down there for Polly, something else is happening right here, right now. The town has shown up. Twice as many bodies as I had let myself hope for. Tally is here, and beside her sitting in a motorized wheelchair is a dark-skinned man I don’t recognize. Patterson’s has closed and all the employees have come, many still in uniform. Clerks I see all the time from Mendosa’s Market, the guy who pumps my gas at the station in Little River, the woman who runs the post office and has for twenty-five years. And Cherilynn Leavitt, who answers the phones in the sheriff’s office, with her shaggy musician boyfriend, Stewart, who plays folk sets at a few of the better hotels. And Gray and his mom, and Caitlyn Muncy and her father, Bill, who runs the Beacon, and even Caleb, I see, and almost want to cry, because I know how much it has cost him, what memories might be dredged up, already too close to the surface.

—

When the room is quiet, Will moves in front of Cameron’s bulletin board where the microphone is waiting and holds up the new missing poster with the word FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED blazing out in red like a slap.