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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?

We had one more year together, just the two of us on our own, then I went away to college at SFU. Hap drove me down himself, the back of his Suburban crammed with boxes and bedding. I should have been excited to start this new adventure, but I was already homesick. And I hadn’t even gotten out of the car.

“I’ll see you at Thanksgiving,” I said later, when we’d unpacked everything and it was time for him to go. I was trying and failing to keep my voice even, to be strong when I felt the opposite.

“Take care of yourself, sweetheart,” he said, closing his car door. His hand lingered for a moment on the open window gasket. “Be good.”

Two months later, in the early hours of November 12, 1976, one of Hap’s junior rangers found his pack seven miles beyond the trailhead in Russian Gulch State Park, but no sign of Hap himself. No one had seen him since the previous afternoon, when he’d gone off on a recreational hike alone. An extensive search turned up nothing, even with K-9 units. He’d vanished into thin air.

When Ellis Flood called, he reached me at my dorm, through my RA. I sat on a hard chair in her room, looking at a painted cinder-block wall, a laminated poster about teens and stress. As Ellis Flood talked, I could barely take it in, plunged into confusion and disbelief. What would have caused Hap to leave the trail without his provisions or even water? He was a consummate professional in the field, intimate with the challenges and dangers of any wilderness area. It didn’t make sense to me that something terrible could have happened to him. Not with his skill and experience.

“Obviously we’re going to keep searching,” Ellis reassured me, “but, Anna, it’s possible that grief could have caused him to lose focus. You and I both know he hasn’t really been the same since Eden died.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to admit it. Instead, I began to cry as the sheriff went on gently, trying to explain his thinking. Hap could have made some critical error and gotten lost, or contracted hypothermia. He could have miscalculated his footing and fallen into a ravine. He could have become disoriented and drowned, or been attacked by a bear. These things happened all the time, even to those who knew what they were doing. As for the body, it must still be out in the woods somewhere, too well camouflaged for the searchers and dogs to find, or dragged off by a bear or mountain lion. Ellis wasn’t giving up hope, just wanting me to at least begin considering that we might not find him.