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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?

I think of the girl’s family, losing their minds with worry and dread. I think of how lonely and lost Cameron might have felt for years, desperate even—disconnected. How sadness and shame are more than feelings; they’re an illness, a terrible cancer that spins through the world taking lives in a hidden cyclical way that might never end.

When the yipping comes again, I flinch. It’s definitely a coyote. More than any other animal in these woods, they sound almost human—cold and lonely and hungry. Scared, even. Crying on and on.

(five)

That night I float bodiless above a white crescent of beach as someone stumbles, running through tangled kelp and shadows. But there’s nowhere to go. It’s a girl, of course. She trips and falls to her knees, stands and falls again, scrambling backward on her hands, screaming and shaking. And then she quiets suddenly. Quiets the way an animal finally does, when it knows the chase is over.

I wake with a start, my heart thudding, and my skin slick with sweat. My fever must be back, I think, throwing off the scratchy blankets. Under my thick sweater my breasts are still bound in their tourniquet, but the swelling hasn’t gone down at all. My pain is dull but constant, a throbbing anchor point.

All around me, the dark is ice cold and seems to pool. I’ve forgotten how it feels to sleep in the woods, utterly isolated without street noise or neighbors, or light. Shoving my feet into a second pair of socks, I step out into the main room, where the blinking microwave tells me it’s not quite 4:00 a.m. I’ve slept for five hours, maybe. Passed out is more like it.

I find some ibuprofen and another sleeping pill, and swallow them down with whiskey, hoping to clear my head of the nightmare. I can only assume the girl was Cameron Curtis, my subconscious fabricating a version of her disappearance, caught up in the drama that’s always preoccupied me, long before I became a detective, even. As if cries for help that are forever ringing through the atmosphere get amplified as they cross my path, and sticky. As though they belong to me somehow, and I have no say in the matter, no choice at all but to try and answer them.

—