* * *
—
I went outside and sat on the hood of my car and watched the moon rise. There are so many stars. I found Orion.
I put my Moon tarot card in my pocket and I have my feather key. It still has the tag on it. The handwriting is the same as the note that was on my car.
For Kat when the Time comes
Come and See
I’m leaving this notebook here in my car just in case. I don’t know why. So someone knows. So there’s a record, if something happens. If I don’t come back.
So someone maybe somewhere sometime will read it and know.
Hi, person reading this.
Katrina Hawkins was here.
These things happened.
Sometimes it might sound weird but sometimes life is like that.
Sometimes life gets weird.
You can try to ignore it or you can see where weird takes you.
* * *
—
You open a door.
What happens next?
* * *
—
I’m going to find out.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins wakes, gasping, his new heart hammering in his chest.
The last thing he remembers is honey, so much honey filling his lungs and pulling him down to the bottom of the Starless Sea.
But he is not at the bottom of the Starless Sea.
He’s alive. He’s here.
Wherever here is.
Here seems to be moving. The surface he is on is hard but everything around him is oscillating. There are pieces of paper and bits of ribbon and something sticky that isn’t honey beneath his fingers.
The light is dim but there are candles, maybe. He doesn’t know where he is.
He tries to stand and instead he falls but someone catches him.
Zachary and Dorian stare at each other in bewildered disbelief.
Neither of them has the words for this moment in this story, not in any language.
Zachary starts to laugh and Dorian leans in and takes the laugh from his lips with his own and there is nothing left between them now: no distance, no words, not even fate or time to complicate matters.
This is where we leave them, in a long-awaited kiss upon the Starless Sea, tangled in salvation and desire and obsolete cartography.
But this is not where their story ends.
Their story is only just beginning.
And no story ever truly ends as long as it is told.
Outside what was once a library there is a recently abandoned blue car.
A ginger cat sleeps on the still-warm hood.
A man in a tweed suit leans against the car, leafing through a teal notebook though there is only moonlight to read by.
By the side of the brick building a young woman in an outgrown school uniform stands on tiptoes, peering in a window.
Neither of them notices the woman walking toward them through the trees but the stars do, their light shining brightly on her crown.
She has always known this night would come.
Through centuries and lifetimes, she has always known.
The only question was how to get here.
The woman in the crown pauses in the quiet darkness, watching the man as he reads.
Then she turns her attention skyward.
She reaches her hand up toward the stars. Resting on her palm is a single card. She holds it out at the night sky, displaying it to the moon and the stars with a considerable amount of showmanship.
Upon the card there is an empty void. The Ending.
She flips the card over. A bright expanse. The Beginning.
She flips it again and it turns to golden dust in her fingers.
She takes a bow. The crown does not fall from her head but it slips and she straightens it and turns her attention back to the ground, back to her own story.
When she reaches the car she is shivering in her sleeveless gown.
“I didn’t change,” Mirabel tells the Keeper. “I didn’t think it would be this cold. Have you been waiting long?”
The Keeper takes off his tweed jacket and drapes it over her shoulders.
“Not long,” he assures her, for a few hours are nothing compared to the time they have both waited for this moment.
“She hasn’t opened it yet, has she?” Mirabel asks, looking toward the brick building.
“No, but she will soon. She’s already decided. She left this.” He holds up the bright teal notebook. He presses a red button on the cover and tiny lights flicker around a smiling face. “How is our Mister Rawlins faring?”
“Better now. He didn’t think I’d let him have a happy ending. I’m kind of offended.”
“Perhaps he did not believe that he deserved one.”
“Is that what you thought?” Mirabel asks but the Keeper does not reply. “You don’t have to be there, you know,” she adds. “Not anymore.”
“Neither do you, and yet here we are.”
Mirabel smiles.
The Keeper lifts a hand and tucks a stray lock of pink hair behind her ear.
He pulls her closer to keep her warm, catching her lips with his.
Inside the brick building a door opens into a new Harbor upon the Starless Sea.
Far above the stars are watching, delighted.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many thanks to those who sailed the Starless Sea with me.
To Richard Pine, who I still believe is a wizard, and to InkWell Management.
To Jenny Jackson, Bill Thomas, Todd Doughty, Suzanne Herz, Lauren Weber, and everyone on my amazing team at Doubleday (including Cameron Ackroyd, for all the cocktails).
To Elizabeth Foley, Richard Cable, and company across the star-covered sea at Harvill Secker.
To Kim Liggett for the writing dates, both virtual and in person, at the Ace Hotel or in forgotten corners of the New York Public Library and for the many, many glasses of sparkling wine.
To Adam Scott for everything, always.
To Chris Baty, creator of National Novel Writing Month, who really should have been in the acknowledgments for The Night Circus as well. Sorry about that, Chris.
To Lev Grossman for letting me steal the Brakebills bees and keys.
To J. L. Schnabel. Several pieces of the jewelry described in this book, including the silver sword necklace, are inspired by her exquisite bloodmilk creations.
To Elizabeth Barrial and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, who truly put stories in bottles. Because of them I always consider what everything smells like when I write.
To BioWare because this book only found its footing once I fell deeply in love with Dragon Age: Inquisition.
A note on the naming of things: I borrowed the name Madame Love Rawlins from a tomb in Salem, Massachusetts. Any resemblance to the actual person is coincidental. Kat and Simon are named after Kat Howard and Simon Toyne because each of them happened to e-mail me while I was hunting for character names. (Kat’s friend Preeti found her name in similar fashion from Preeti Chhibber.) As noted in the text, Eleanor is named for the character from The Haunting of Hill House. Zachary and Dorian were always Zachary and Dorian, even though I almost changed Dorian’s name multiple times. Mirabel was, of course, named by the bees.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erin Morgenstern is the author of The Night Circus, a number-one national bestseller that has been sold around the world and translated into thirty-seven languages. She has a degree in theatre from Smith College and lives in Massachusetts.
erinmorgenstern.com
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
>
The Starless Sea Page 48
