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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?

Her eyes flicked over my face. “If you don’t want to talk, we could explore other ways to help you process. Some of my clients do yoga or tai chi, or journaling. I’m just trying to offer you tools.” She put down her notebook and then took off her glasses, balancing them between her hands. “When in your life were you the most at peace, the most yourself?”

“What?”

“Your happiest place?”

I had no idea where she was going with these questions, but Mendocino was the only possible answer. “My memories aren’t all good,” I clarified, “but it’s home.”

“Okay.” Squeezing the frames of her glasses in her hands, she looked out at the city’s grid, the sky. Then she closed her eyes. “Every day, I want you to picture Mendocino, to go there in your mind. Visualize it until it’s complete, the whole place, just as you remember it. Then, when you have it all clearly, just as you want it, I want you to start building a house very slowly, board by board. A house big enough for everyone you’ve lost, everyone you haven’t been able to save.”

A chill sped through me. I stared at her. What kind of person talked like this? What kind of life had Corolla lived that let her sit in a room with a stranger and feel safe enough to close her eyes?

“How will this exercise help?”

“It’s a way of integrating what’s happened to you. A healing story.”

Healing story? Had she read that in some therapist’s manual? “There isn’t a house big enough,” I finally said.

“It’s your house, your mind.” The muscles in her face had softened. “It can be as big as it needs to be. Paint the rooms with bright colors. Let the light in. And when you have everything just right, picture them coming in together, Anna, together and happy and whole. All those children, the ones who deserved better.”

Inside my chest, I felt something shudder and drop. If she would only stop talking, I could reset. But she wouldn’t.

“It’s not what you carry, but how you can learn to carry it. You need to heal yourself. Your child self too, Anna. Make room for her. Find a way to let her in.”

(twelve)

Back at the cabin after leaving Caleb, I heat up a can of stew and eat it over the sink, then pour two fingers of Maker’s Mark into a glass, catching a glimpse of myself in the window glass. Haphazard ponytail and rumpled thermal undershirt, the jeans I haven’t washed in weeks. Caleb was polite enough not to remark on it when we were together earlier, but clearly I’m having a Call of the Wild moment.