(The Keeper of Stars - Book 3)

Prologue

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

—Vivian Greene

Part I

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Chapter 1

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March 1996

“Maybe today is the day,” I tell myself as I stare at my laptop and the glowing screen. My fingers hover just above the keyboard, suspended between intent and paralysis. On the monitor, my manuscript yawns back at me, its blank page akin to the emptiness I feel inside.

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A gust of wind whips through the open window, and every so often, a stray grain of sand stings my ankle as the breeze flicks it off the warped floorboards. The ocean is less than a hundred yards away, but today’s wind muffles the sound of the surf beneath a ceaseless flutter of windblown grass and gull cries. 

In the distance, Cassie sprints along the shore, trailing a ribbon of laughter behind her. Our little dog, Rolo, darts around her in playful loops, kicking up the sand with his quick, eager paws. Cassie’s yellow T-shirt—the one with the faded sea turtles—whips around her skinny frame as she races from one clump of seaweed to another, stooping every few seconds to inspect whatever treasure has surfaced overnight. I can just make out the edge of her profile when she turns, head bowed over a shell or crab, as absorbed as any scientist in her research.

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I try to translate the image into words, the way I used to, but every sentence I type unravels into something brittle and obvious. I delete, rewrite, delete again. My novel is a black hole, consuming hours and yielding nothing, while the digital afterimage of my journalistic peak refuses to be ignored. The line of Cassie’s back, curved with intent, her single-minded joy—how would I even begin to pin that to the page without flattening it?

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A gust slams the window, and a loose paper from my notebook cartwheels to the floor. I bend to pick it up, more out of habit than necessity, then run a thumb along the dog-eared edge of the pad. My notebook is a collage of fragments—dialogue overheard at Wink’s grocery store, dreamscapes from late-night insomnia, wishful outlines in blue ink that fade by morning. Each page is another failed experiment, evidence of the thing I can’t yet name.

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I close my eyes and inhale the mixture of old cedar, sea spray, and damp laundry that is our home. The cottage is all threshold: a long, slender porch with flaking paint, battered rockers aimed at the water, windows streaked with salt. There are only a handful of rooms—kitchen, living room, bedrooms, study—but the boundaries between them feel half-hearted, as if the cottage never quite made up its mind to be anything more than a waiting room for the sea.

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Somewhere behind me, the clock on the stove ticks in steady opposition to the pulse of the waves. Time here is both elastic and relentless, stretching as the sun drifts over the water, then snapping back when I realize another morning has slipped by without a single usable paragraph. I rub my temples and glance at the browser tab, where my name—DIANE MONTGOMERY—leans into the masthead in solid, confident type.

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I hate her a little. Or maybe I just miss her. That girl who could spend an entire day lost in a single thought, a single phrase, and come out on the other side with a piece so raw and beautiful it still took my breath away. She was invincible, a word magician with a silver-tongued pen, and she existed in the world she just wrote just as much as the one she lived in. But she seems like a stranger now. That girl had a vigor and fluidity that I can't seem to muster anymore. A sudden pang of nostalgia creeps in as I remember the old office, the smell of newsprint and fresh coffee, the background hum of chattering colleagues and ringing phones. The thought adds another layer to the complex tapestry of my emotions, a dull thread woven through the bright hues of this new life and its wild, undulating surrounding. 

There’s a crash outside, followed by Cassie’s shriek—a high, delighted yelp that is pure mischief and not a hint of alarm. I stand and press my forehead to the window, which is cool and wet. On the beach, Cassie has abandoned her shell hunt in favor of chasing gulls, which scatter in outraged formation, their white wings flashing like handkerchiefs. She’s been in Kitty Hawk for only two summers, and already she moves through the dunes like a native, as comfortable on shifting sand as she had ever been on concrete. Watching her, I remember my own childhood summers on a different stretch of coast: the sweet ache of sunburn, the taste of chlorine and plastic ice pops, the slick, dizzy feeling of being underwater and holding my breath as long as I could stand it.

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I turn back to the desk, bracing my elbows on either side of the laptop. My screen is now blank except for the angry cursor, pulsing with expectation. I force myself to type:

Cassie runs the beach, all knees and elbows, hair in a dark stream behind her. Rolo bounces from one shell to the next. Cassie collecting them as fast as she can in a mesh bag, refusing to settle for the broken or the ordinary. She has learned the names of the birds and can mimic their calls with an accuracy that startles the real thing. She is not afraid of the wind, or the gray water, or the deep, empty sky.

I stop, read, delete. Too clinical. Too precious. I can’t decide if I’m writing for an audience or just trying to convince myself that this exile is a form of progress. Every day I promise to lower my standards, and every day I fail.

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The heat kicks on. The cottage’s ancient ducts vibrate, then settle into a low hum as the space fills with warmth. I take off my reading glasses and rest my chin in my hands, eyes drifting to the notebook. Half-formed ideas crowd its margins, jostling for attention: “write about first love,” “memory as migration,” “Cassie’s spiral shell = recursion.” I remember scribbling these lines at odd hours—on the ferry, at the dentist, waiting for Cassie to finish swimming lessons at the rec center. The process was always messy, but at least there was momentum. Here, every thought splinters on arrival.

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A shadow passes the window, and for a second I imagine it’s Sara, back from her walk. But it’s just a bank of clouds, tumbling out to sea ahead of the next cold front. The horizon goes a little blurry, the sunlight thinning to the consistency of skim milk. I picture Sara out on the wet part of the beach, her gait slow but stubborn, the way she will stop to examine a broken sand dollar or the ribbed exoskeleton of a horseshoe crab. She’s promised to bring back cookies from the bakery if she’s feeling up to the walk, but I don’t expect her for another hour.

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It occurs to me, not for the first time, that the world outside this cottage is both larger and more permanent than anything I might manage to articulate. A single feather floats past the window, and the sight of it fills me with a vague and unfamiliar longing.

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I reach for the notebook, run my fingers over the spiral binding. The top page is half-filled with yesterday’s effort, a paragraph about the sound Cassie’s laughter makes when amplified by wind and water, a simile about kites, a metaphor I immediately regret. I tear it out, crumble it, then flatten the sheet again before placing it face-down on the desk. The act is almost ceremonial. Maybe tomorrow it will feel more true.

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Outside, the rain catcher starts to rattle, an early warning of the impending storm. I imagine Cassie’s feet and Rolo’s paws on the porch soon—sandy, probably wet, trailing bits of beach through the tidy kitchen. I imagine her voice, higher than mine, telling me about the gulls or the shells or the strange jellyfish that washed up near the pier. I try to imagine the future, our future, here, or wherever we land next, but the picture blurs at the edges, a watercolor left out in the rain.

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I glance again at the laptop, the blank screen reflected in the window. For a moment, I allow myself to believe that every blankness is just a prelude, a surface tension waiting to be broken. I watch as the shadow of a gull passes over the sand, and then another, and then nothing but wind and water.

I exhale, long and slow, and rest my hand atop the notebook, hoping to find the rhythm of the story within.