BooksBarbecue
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?

“What do you make of her?” I realize I have no idea what he’s going to say.

He shrugs. “When the family moved here four years ago, I thought it would be so cool to have a movie star walking the streets, but they’ve really kept to themselves. I can’t think of a single conversation I’ve had with either Emily or Troy, even in passing. And Cameron’s just a face to me. It shouldn’t be that way.”

“It shouldn’t.” I have to agree.

“Listen.” Will clears his throat. “Those things you said to the Curtises about being adopted, the identity stuff and the acting out, was any of that true for you?” He pauses, clearly uncomfortable. “I remember you as a pretty happy kid, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention.”

For a long moment I don’t know how to answer him. Frankly, I’m startled he’d have the nerve to ask.

“You can tell me it’s none of my business,” he rushes to add, reading my face.

I fix my gaze on the horizon. “It’s not,” I say gently but firmly.

“Sorry.” He clears his throat again.

We round the bluff, and the village flickers into view, sharp white rooftops, white fences, white spires. The storm clouds have begun to move off. In one place along the headlands, a blade of light breaks over dry grass and turns it deep gold. All my life this has been my favorite color. When I first came here, guarded and cynical, always on the alert for trouble, I felt sure that nothing would ever get better. But it had.

“It wasn’t an act,” I finally say.

“Good. I’m glad.”

The gold grass ripples, bends. “Everyone deserves to belong somewhere.”

(twenty)

My mother died on Christmas, though it was a long time before I was able to put together the details. Everyone wanted to shield me, as if that wasn’t making it all harder. The silence and the guessing, trying to read looks and faces, and eyes that never met mine. I eventually learned that she’d gone out on Christmas Eve after the kids and I were in bed, borrowing fifty dollars from a friend to get us presents. Instead she’d bought heroin and overdosed. They found her in her car in a parking lot of Long John Silver’s on Christmas night and had come looking for us then, but we must have been asleep already. They might not have found us at all, I kept thinking for years after, in the magical way children think, if I hadn’t burned the eggs.