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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?

In thirty-five years, I’ve never left the state or lived anywhere south of Oakland, and yet the beauty still guts me. Stupid, effortless, ridiculous beauty that goes on and on and on—the roller coaster of the Pacific Coast Highway, the sea like a slap of wild color.

I pull over and park on a hard little oval of dirt just off the side of the highway, crossing both lanes to stand on a bald place above snarled brush and black saw-toothed rocks and bursts of spiky foam. The plunge is dramatic. Dizzying. The wind comes at me, clawing under every layer of clothing so that I have to hug myself, shaking. Then my face is wet, suddenly, tears coming for the first time in weeks. Not about what I’ve done or not done. Not about what I’ve lost and can never get back, but because there’s only one place I can go from here, I realize, one road on the map that means anything to me now. The way back home.

For seventeen years, I’ve stayed away from Mendocino, locking up the place inside myself like something too precious to even look at. Right now, though, on the edge of this cliff, it feels like the only thing keeping me alive, the only thing that’s ever been mine.

If you think about it, most of us have very little choice about what we’re going to become or who we’re going to love, or what place on earth chooses us, becoming home.

All we can do is go when we’re called, and pray we’ll still be taken in.

—

By the time I reach Albion a few hours later, coastal fog has blotted out the sun. It swirls ahead of my low beams, making everything vanish and reappear, the twisting coast road and clustered fir trees, and then the village, finally, like something out of a dark fable—Victorian houses floating white and anchorless over the headlands, the mist all around shuddering and releasing, seeming to breathe.

I feel a clamping sensation as each winding turn brings me closer to the past. The shapes of the trees seem to echo. The road signs too, and the long damp bridge. I’m almost on top of the stoplight by the time I register it and have to gun my way through, racing the yellow onto Little Lake Road. Then I’m out on the bluff, going on pure muscle memory.