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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?

“She was a rescue animal. One of her wings didn’t work.” I don’t even know why I’m telling him the story, or why I can still see her scuttling around the house after Eden, begging for raisins and blueberries and pellets of dog food. She could talk, too, but only had one phrase, something she’d pulled from her life before, Don’t you, don’t you. “She scared me to death,” I find myself saying to Clay. “I thought she could read my mind.”

“Of course she could,” he says without faltering. “All birds are telepathic.”

As odd as Clay is, I can’t help but like him a little, this sort of transient hippie outcast, living under a tarp in Rotary Park but thinking of the mountains, or Waterloo, not totally in this world or any other. “Where’s your Lenore tonight?”

“Back at the tent. I should probably go let her know you’re okay. She’s a worrier.”

“The surf isn’t really what’s most dangerous right now, Clay. Whoever took this missing girl might be walking around among us.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if he was. Small town like this one. Anything can be happening right next door and you’d never know.”

It’s the second time in minutes he’s reminded me of Hap. “Who would you look closely at, then? As a suspect?”

A look moves over his face that’s hard to read in the darkness. But then I place it. I’m taking him seriously and he’s flattered. “Everyone, I guess. I don’t think it’s like the movies. Some Friday the Thirteenth thing. I’ll bet he looks like us on the outside. All the really scary stuff’s on the inside, where probably no one’s ever seen it.”

It’s a good insight. “You should have been a detective,” I say.

“Maybe I’m undercover,” he replies, grinning. Then he looks over his shoulder, past the circle of light thrown by the streetlamp overhead, into the length of the dark street. “Here she comes now.”

“Lenore?”

“No, your dog.”

(thirty-three)

I was sixteen when Eden got sick, at the beginning of my sixth year with them. Her symptoms were confusing at first, nausea and dizziness and night sweats. Her doctor told her it was menopause and would pass.

“Menopause my ass!” Hap burst out at dinner one night, while Eden picked at her plate. “You’ve lost forty pounds!”

He rarely raised his voice, because he never had to. Eden became visibly upset, and so did Lenore. “Don’t you, don’t you!” she warned from her chair.