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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?

Hap’s team had gone out before dark that same day, but came back empty-handed. The next morning, he pulled more men and went back in. The park was eighteen hundred acres, with ten miles of maintained trail along the Little River. The boys’ mother had insisted they wouldn’t have any reason to go wandering, but they didn’t turn up along any part of the trail. Not in the pygmy forest, where the soil was spongy with fresh rain. Not in the groves of stunted cypress and rhododendron and dwarf pine.

It wasn’t until late afternoon the second day when one of Hap’s rangers spotted a bright blue shirt inside the camouflaging hollow of a redwood trunk, a small cave where the root system had opened like a secret door. Inside, crouched in that narrow space, Sam Douglas was found mute and dumb and completely disoriented. Beneath him, his brother Jake was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the thigh that had nearly ripped off his leg. The two boys had apparently been target shooting with their grandfather’s contraband pistol. The gun had gone off in Sam’s hand. Ashamed, he’d dragged the body into the cave of the tree, hiding there all day and night, unable to face what he’d done.

“Did he die?” I asked Hap by the river, feeling sure the answer was yes. Someone always died in his stories.

“Actually, it was the damnedest thing. Jake had lost consciousness and probably would have bled out if Sam had gone for help. The weight of his body made a tourniquet.”

“Wait,” I said. “He didn’t know his brother was still alive?”

“That’s the most interesting bit as I see it. He thought he’d passed beyond forgiveness, but that was just a story. A terrible story, but believing it saved his brother’s life.” He looked at me to make sure I was with him. This was the important part. “You know, we don’t always understand what we’re living inside of, or how it will matter. We can guess all we want and prepare, too, but we never know how it’s going to turn out.”

I struggled to take in his meaning. Was he still talking about the boys, or was he trying to tell me something more, about us and now, about Eden and how we could possibly go on without her? I wanted time enough to ask him and hear his answer, wanted years, decades—an eternity. But he’d rested enough and was ready to hike again. The lesson was over.