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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 wake to a pounding headache, my tongue coated and thick. I’ve long been a vivid dreamer. All cops are, or eventually become that way. But this dream has left a hangover that has little or nothing to do with the Maker’s Mark.

Starting the shower, I stand under the streaming water for a long time, waiting for the thudding in my head to subside, but it doesn’t. A wave of nausea hits me and I drop to the floor, hugging my knees together while water rushes over me like a curtain of hot rain. I feel a strange dull ache in my lower back and belly, a sensation that confuses me until I smell a faint hint of iron. Notice the blood trickling from between my legs and down the drain, pale pink and diluted. My cycle is back.

As my mastitis has slowly healed and my breasts have begun to return to normal, I’ve tried to forget about my body, but clearly it remembers everything. How I screamed that day, sounding like a stranger. How Brendan kept telling me the ambulance was on its way, as if that made any difference. My neighbor Joan wouldn’t leave my side. Her face was white and bloodless. I’m so sorry, she kept saying. But I couldn’t answer her. Later the paramedics stood over me, my jeans clinging to my legs, wet and cold. I felt dead inside them. It was time for me to let go of the body, but I couldn’t make my arms open. From far away, I heard a baby crying. One of the paramedics kept repeating my name, which sounded absurd suddenly.

Drenched and shaking in the shower, I feel it all with shocking immediacy, the weight of my guilt, the pain I’ve caused Brendan, Frank’s doubt in me, the wreckage of my life in the distance, like a city on fire. I hoped Mendocino could help me heal and forget. Instead it’s full of ghosts and clues, messages that have been waiting impatiently for me. Hap in my dream of the wounded doe. She’s just like you, honey. That’s how you’ll find her. Cameron’s haunted eyes in her missing poster. Her call for help, which I haven’t stopped hearing for a moment, no matter how much I’ve tried.

I stand up, my knees knocking together so hard it feels dangerous to be in my body. I just got here. I’m not near ready for any of this, but it doesn’t matter. In the fog on the bathroom mirror, a small circle has cleared, and my own face is centered inside of it. Every sign is the same sign. I’m supposed to find Cameron Curtis.

Part 2: Secret Things

2 Secret Things

(thirteen)