{"product_id":"the-starless-sea-isbn-9780385541213","title":"The Starless Sea","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER \u003c\/b\u003e• From the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus, \u003c\/i\u003ea timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] gorgeously written epic love story, filled with magic and mystery.\" \u003ci\u003e⁠—Popsugar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eZachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTogether with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eA best book of the year: \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGood Housekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eReal Simple\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Anyone who’s read Erin Morgenstern’s wildly successful fiction debut, \u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus,\u003c\/i\u003e knows how meticulously she crafts her imaginary worlds... the reader [is] immersed in a multitude of stories, the threads of which gradually weave together to a haunting conclusion.\"—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A mythical tale…a story about stories, all essentially relating to Fate and Time. Morgenstern nests a glittering trove of meta-narratives, myths, folkloric fables within a main storyline about a hero’s quest. \u003ci\u003eThe Starless Sea\u003c\/i\u003e is the kind of book that could spawn a Harry Potter-esque cult. I can imagine fan sites devoted to mapping, analyzing and connecting the dots among its fantastical intricacies. I predict readers for whom it will become a holy of holies, one of their most treasured books of all time. It’s that kind of book. ”—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNewsday\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A richly imaginative ode to books and storytelling...this fantasy-filled novel entwines a mysterious underground world with the story of a grad student on a quest to understand his past.”  \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"From the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus\u003c\/i\u003e comes a wildly fanciful lark that has all the hits: mystery, love, libraries, \u003ci\u003eHarry Potter\u003c\/i\u003e references, and pirates. It's a complex, darkly beautiful story with some of the most inventive storytelling we've read all year.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eGood Housekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e, Best Book of 2019\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The most joyous reading experience I’ve had in recent memory... It is, not to put too fine a point on it, wonderful...  a master-class in plotting and prestidigitation... unabashedly romantic... a warm, honeyed bath of words and ideas.\"\u003cb\u003e—\u003cb\u003eRobert Wiersema\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Toronto Star\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Assuredly beautiful... The novel reads like panel after panel of mythic illustrations... It demands that its readers interpret it in an older way; the way we read \u003ci\u003eThe Faerie Queene\u003c\/i\u003e... Well-written... The novel’s scope and ambition are undeniable.\"\u003cb\u003e—Natasha Pulley, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A mystical adventure in an enchanted universe... The novel is not simply a quest narrative–it’s also a meta-examination of stories that demands the reader’s patience–and then rewards it... Morgenstern’s elegant, poetic prose keeps the pages turning as she begins to draw connections within a web of tales that reads like an ode to stories, themselves, and celebrates the distinct pleasure that comes from engaging with a text. For Zachary, that pleasure outweighs any temptation he might have to return to school and his regular life. It leads, instead, to a journey of sacrifice and self-discovery as he unearths his own place in the puzzling book’s narrative. For everyone else, the thrill comes from watching him on the ride.\"\u003cb\u003e —Annabel Gutterman, \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Erin Morgenstern has magic to make... the author returns with a new fantastical fairy-tale for grown-ups... Comparisons to the likes of Tolkien, Carroll, and C.S. Lewis abound. \u003ci\u003eThe Starless Sea\u003c\/i\u003e poses big questions about stories — the ones we read, the ones we live, and the ones we tell ourselves. And at the heart of her work lies the themes that have provoked those comparisons: redemption, sacrifice, fate, time, reincarnation.... We’re willing to bet the embrace of this deeper, darker, more complex follow-up novel might be close to a sure thing. As Morgenstern posits\u003ci\u003e, The Starless Sea \u003c\/i\u003eis a door to another world — one just waiting for readers to open it.\"\u003cb\u003e—Maureen Lee Lenker,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Extravagantly imaginative... Her new book arrives eight years after her high-wire fantasy of a first novel \u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus\u003c\/i\u003e, and it's just as magical but even more daring... The stuff of a bibliophile's dreams... There are nods to Tolkien and Sendak, Susanna Clarke and Lev Grossman.\" \u003cb\u003e—Nancy Pate, \u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A timeless love story\"\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Nerd Daily\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A magnificent quest, a sense of unfolding adventure and danger, gold-wrought fantasy, and endless provocation on what storytelling really means.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A high-wire feat of metatextual derring-do [and] a stunning array of linked fables, myths and origin stories. . . . It is exquisitely pleasurable to watch the gears of this epic fantasy turn once they're set in motion. As in \u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus\u003c\/i\u003e, Morgenstern is at her best when she imagines worlds and rooms and parties in vivid detail. . . . This novel is a love letter to readers as much as an invitation: Come and see how much magic is left in the world.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Morgenstern's new fantasy epic is a puzzlebox of a book, full of meta-narratives and small folkloric tales that will delight readers. . . . Morgenstern uses poetic, honey-like prose to tell a story that plays with the very concept of what we expect and want from our stories. . . . She trusts her readers to follow along and speculate, wonder and make leaps themselves . . . giving the book a mythic quality that will stick with readers long after they put it down. The massive legion of readers who loved Morgenstern's debut will be clamoring to recapture the magic of that reading experience.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This love letter to bibliophiles is dreamlike and uncanny, grounded in deeply felt emotion, and absolutely thrilling.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A page-turner. . . . It's unlikely [\u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus\u003c\/i\u003e fans] will be disappointed by this sweeping follow-up, which unfolds an epic romance within a secret underground world of lost cities, handsome pirates and endless puzzles to be solved.\" \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"[A] gorgeously written epic love story, filled with magic and mystery.\" \u003ci\u003e⁠\u003cb\u003e—Popsugar\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A spellbinding novel. . . . I could not put it down, and when I finished, I turned immediately back to the first page so I wouldn't have to leave this magical world. If you believe in the power of stories to transcend time and space, to marry love and fate, read this book!\" \u003cb\u003e—Angie Kim, author of \u003ci\u003eMiracle Creek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eERIN MORGENSTERN is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Night Circus\u003c\/i\u003e, a number-one national bestseller that has been sold around the world and translated into thirty-seven languages. She has a degree in theater from Smith College and lives in Massachusetts.BOOK I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSWEET SORROWS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eOnce, very long ago . . .\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is a pirate in the basement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(The pirate is a metaphor but also still a person.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(The basement could rightly be considered a dungeon.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pirate was placed here for numerous acts of a piratey nature considered criminal enough for punishment by those non-pirates who decide such things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomeone said to throw away the key, but the key rests on a tarnished ring on a hook that hangs on the wall nearby.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Close enough to see from behind the bars. Freedom kept in sight but out of reach, left as a reminder to the prisoner. No one remembers that now on the key side of the bars. The careful psychological design forgotten, distilled into habit and convenience.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(The pirate realizes this but withholds comment.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe guard sits in a chair by the door and reads crime serials on faded paper, wishing he were an idealized, fictional version of himself. Wondering if the difference between pirates and thieves is a matter of boats and hats.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter a time he is replaced by another guard. The pirate cannot discern the precise schedule, as the basement-dungeon has no clocks to mark the time and the sound of the waves on the shore beyond the stone walls muffles the morning chimes, the evening merriment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis guard is shorter and does not read. He wishes to be no one but himself, he lacks the imagination to conjure alter egos, even the imagination to empathize with the man behind the bars, the only other soul in the room beyond the mice. He pays elaborate amounts of attention to his shoes when he is not asleep. (He is usually asleep.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eApproximately three hours after the short guard replaces the reading guard, a girl comes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe girl brings a plate of bread and a bowl of water and sets them outside the pirate’s cell with hands shaking so badly that half the water spills. Then she turns and scampers up the stairs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second night (the pirate guesses it is night) the pirate stands as close to the bars as he can and stares and the girl drops the bread nearly out of reach and spills the bowl of water almost entirely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe third night the pirate stays in the shadows of the back corner and manages to keep most of his water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fourth night a different girl comes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis girl does not wake the guard. Her feet fall more softly on the stones and any sound they make is stolen away by the waves or by the mice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis girl stares into the shadows at the barely visible pirate, gives a little disappointed sigh, and places the bread and bowl by the bars. Then she waits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pirate remains in the shadows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter several minutes of silence punctuated by the guard’s snoring, the girl turns away and leaves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the pirate retrieves his meal he finds the water has been mixed with wine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next night, the fifth night if it is night at all, the pirate waits by the bars for the girl to descend on her silent feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer steps halt only briefly when she sees him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pirate stares and the girl stares back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe holds out a hand for his bowl and his bread but the girl places them on the ground instead, her eyes never leaving his, not allowing so much as the hem of her gown to drift into his reach. Bold yet coy. She gives him a hint of a bow as she returns to her feet, a gentle nod of her head, a movement that reminds him of the beginning of the dance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Even a pirate can recognize the beginning of a dance.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next night the pirate stays back from the bars, a polite distance that could be closed in a single step, and the girl comes a breath closer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother night and the dance continues. A step closer. A step back. A movement to the side. The next night he holds out his hand again to accept what she offers and this time she responds and his fingers brush against the back of her hand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe girl begins to linger, staying longer each night, though if the guard stirs to the point of waking she departs without a backward glance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe brings two bowls of wine and they drink together in companionable silence. The guard has stopped snoring, his sleep deep and restful. The pirate suspects the girl has something to do with that. Bold and coy and clever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome nights she brings more than bread. Oranges and plums secreted in the pockets of her gown. Pieces of candied ginger wrapped in paper laced with stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome nights she stays until moments before the changing of the guards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(The daytime guard has begun leaving his crime serials within reach of the cell’s walls, ostensibly by accident.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe shorter guard paces tonight. He clears his throat as though he might say something but says nothing. He settles himself in his chair and falls into an anxious sleep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pirate waits for the girl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe arrives empty-handed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTonight is the last night. The night before the gallows. (The gallows are also a metaphor, albeit an obvious one.) The pirate knows that there will not be another night, will not be another changing of the guard after the next one. The girl knows the exact number of hours.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey do not speak of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey have never spoken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pirate twists a lock of the girl’s hair between his fingers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe girl leans into the bars, her cheek resting on cold iron, as close as she can be while she remains a world away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClose enough to kiss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Tell me a story,” she says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pirate obliges her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThere are three paths. This is one of them.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFar beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the Starless Sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories. Stories written in books and sealed in jars and painted on walls. Odes inscribed onto skin and pressed into rose petals. Tales laid in tiles upon the floors, bits of plot worn away by passing feet. Legends carved in crystal and hung from chandeliers. Stories catalogued and cared for and revered. Old stories preserved while new stories spring up around them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe place is sprawling yet intimate. It is difficult to measure its breadth. Halls fold into rooms or galleries and stairs twist downward or upward to alcoves or arcades. Everywhere there are doors leading to new spaces and new stories and new secrets to be discovered and everywhere there are books.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a sanctuary for storytellers and storykeepers and storylovers. They eat and sleep and dream surrounded by chronicles and histories and myths. Some stay for hours or days before returning to the world above but others remain for weeks or years, living in shared or private chambers and spending their hours reading or studying or writing, discussing and creating with their fellow residents or working in solitude.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf those who remain, a few choose to devote themselves to this space, to this temple of stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are three paths. This is one of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is the path of the acolytes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose who wish to choose this path must spend a full cycle of the moon in isolated contemplation before they commit. The contemplation is thought to be silent, but of those who allow themselves to be locked away in the stone-walled room, some will realize that no one can hear them. They can talk or yell or scream and it violates no rules. The contemplation is only thought to be silent by those who have never been inside the room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce the contemplation has ended they have the opportunity to leave their path. To choose another path or no path at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose who spend their time in silence often choose to leave both the path and the space. They return to the surface. They squint at the sun. Sometimes they remember a world below that they once intended to devote themselves to but the memory is hazy, like a place from a dream.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore often it is those who scream and cry and wail, those who talk to themselves for hours, who are ready when the time comes to proceed with their initiation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTonight, as the moon is new and the door is unlocked, it reveals a young woman who has spent most of her time singing. She is shy and not in the habit of singing, but on her first night of contemplation she realized almost by accident that no one could hear her. She laughed, partly at herself and partly at the oddity of having voluntarily jailed herself in the most luxurious of cells with its feather bed and silken sheets. The laugh echoed around the stone room like ripples of water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe clasped her hand over her mouth and waited for someone to come but no one did. She tried to recall if anyone had told her explicitly not to speak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said “Hello?” and only the echoes returned her greeting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt took a few days before she was brave enough to sing. She had never liked her singing voice but in her captivity free of embarrassment and expectation she sang, softly at first but then brightly and boldly. The voice that the echo returned to her ears was surprisingly pleasant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe sang all the songs she knew. She made up her own. In moments when she could not think of words to sing she created nonsense languages for lyrics with sounds she found pleasing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt surprised her how quickly the time passed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow the door opens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe acolyte who enters holds a ring of brass keys. He offers his other palm to her. On it sits a small disk of metal with a raised carving of a bee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccepting the bee is the next step in becoming an acolyte. This is her final chance to refuse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe takes the bee from the acolyte’s palm. He bows and gestures for her to follow him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe young woman who is to be an acolyte turns the warm metal disk over in her fingers as they walk through narrow candlelit tunnels lined with bookshelves and open caverns filled with mismatched chairs and tables, stacked high with books and dotted with statues. She pets a statue of a fox as they pass by, a popular habit that has worn its carved fur smooth between its ears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn older man leafing through a volume glances up as they pass and recognizing the procession he places two fingers to his lips and inclines his head at her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt her, not at the acolyte she follows. A gesture of respect for a position she does not yet officially hold. She bows her head to hide her smile. They continue down gilded stairways and through curving tunnels she has never traversed before. She slows to look at the paintings hung between the shelves of books, images of trees and girls and ghosts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe acolyte stops at a door marked with a golden bee. He chooses a key from his ring and unlocks it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere begins the initiation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a secret ceremony. The details are known only to those who undergo it and those who perform it. It has been performed in the same fashion always, as long as anyone can remember.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the door with the golden bee is opened and the threshold crossed the acolyte gives up her name. Whatever name this young woman was called before she will never be addressed by it again, it stays in her past. Someday she may have a new name, but for the moment she is nameless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe room is small and round and high-ceilinged, a miniature version of her contemplation cell. It holds a plain wooden chair on one side and a waist-high pillar of stone topped with a bowl of fire. The fire provides the only light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe elder acolyte gestures for the young woman to sit in the wooden chair. She does. She faces the fire, watching the flames dance until a piece of black silk is tied over her eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ceremony continues unseen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe metal bee is taken from her hand. There is a pause followed by the sound of metal instruments clinking and then the sensation of a finger on her chest, pressing into a spot on her breastbone. The pressure releases and then it is replaced by a sharp, searing pain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(She will realize afterward that the metal bee has been heated in the fire, its winged impression burned into her chest.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe surprise of it unnerves her. She has prepared herself for what she knows of the rest of the ceremony, but this is unexpected. She realizes she has never seen the bare chest of another acolyte.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen moments before she was ready, now she is shaken and unsure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut she does not say Stop. She does not say No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe has made her decision, though she could not have known everything that decision would entail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the darkness, fingers part her lips and a drop of honey is placed on her tongue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is to ensure that the last taste is sweet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn truth the last taste that remains in an acolyte’s mouth is more than honey: the sweetness swept up in blood and metal and burning flesh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWere an acolyte able to describe it, afterward, they might clarify that the last taste they experience is one of honey and smoke.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is not entirely sweet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey recall it each time they extinguish the flame atop a beeswax candle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA reminder of their devotion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut they cannot speak of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey surrender their tongues willingly. They offer up their ability to speak to better serve the voices of others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey take an unspoken vow to no longer tell their own stories in reverence to the ones that came before and to the ones that shall follow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this honey-tinged pain the young woman in the chair thinks she might scream but she does not. In the darkness the fire seems to consume the entire room and she can see shapes in the flames even though her eyes are covered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bee on her chest flutters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce her tongue has been taken and burned and turned to ash, once the ceremony is complete and her servitude as an acolyte officially begins, once her voice has been muted, then her ears awaken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen the stories begin to come.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo deceive the eye.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy is the son of the fortune-teller. He has reached an age that brings an uncertainty as to whether this is something to be proud of, or even a detail to be divulged, but it remains true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe walks home from school toward an apartment situated above a shop strewn with crystal balls and tarot cards, incense and statues of animal-headed deities and dried sage. (The scent of sage permeates everything, from his bedsheets to his shoelaces.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday, as he does every school day, the boy takes a shortcut through an alleyway that loops behind the store, a narrow passage between tall brick walls that are often covered with graffiti and then whitewashed and then graffitied again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday, instead of the creatively spelled tags and bubble-lettered profanities, there is a single piece of artwork on the otherwise white bricks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy stops. He adjusts his spectacles to focus his eyes better, to be certain he is seeing what his sometimes unreliable vision suggests he is seeing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe haziness around the edges sharpens, and it is still a door. Larger and fancier and more impressive than he’d thought at first fuzzy glance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe is uncertain what to make of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIts incongruousness demands his attention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe door is situated far back in the alley, in a shadowed section hidden from the sun, but the colors are still rich, some of the pigments metallic. More delicate than most of the graffiti the boy has seen. Painted in a style he knows has a fancy French name, something about fooling the eye, though he cannot recall the term here and now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe door is carved—no, painted—with sharp-cut geometric patterns that wind around its edges creating depth where there is only flatness. In the center, at the level where a peephole might be and stylized with lines that match the rest of the painted carving, is a bee. Beneath the bee is a key. Beneath the key is a sword.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA golden, seemingly three-dimensional doorknob shimmers despite the lack of light. A keyhole is painted beneath, so dark it looks to be a void awaiting a key rather than a few strokes of black paint.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe door is strange and pretty and something that the boy does not have words for and does not know if there are words for, even fancy French expressions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomewhere in the street an unseen dog barks but it sounds distant and abstract. The sun moves behind a cloud and the alley feels longer and deeper and darker, the door itself brighter.\u003cbr\u003eTentatively, the boy reaches out to touch the door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe part of him that still believes in magic expects it to be warm despite the chill in the air. Expects the image to have fundamentally changed the brick. Makes his heart beat faster even as his hand slows down because the part of him that thinks the other part is being childish prepares for disappointment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis fingertips meet the door below the sword and they come to rest on smooth paint covering cool brick, a slight unevenness to the surface betraying the texture below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is just a wall. Just a wall with a pretty picture on it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut still.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill there is the sensation tugging at him that this is more than what it appears to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe presses his palm against the painted brick. The false wood of the door is a brown barely a shade or two off from his own skin tone, as though it has been mixed to match him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBehind the door is somewhere else. Not the room behind the wall. Something more. He knows this. He feels it in his toes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is what his mother would call a moment with meaning. A moment that changes the moments that follow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe son of the fortune-teller knows only that the door feels important in a way he cannot quite explain, even to himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe traces the painted lines of the key with his fingertips, marveling at how much the key, like the sword and the bee and the doorknob, looks as though it should be three-dimensional.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy wonders who painted it and what it means, if it means anything. If not the door at least the symbols. If it is a sign and not a door, or if it is both at once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this significant moment, if the boy turns the painted knob and opens the impossible door, everything will change.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut he does not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstead, he puts his hands in his pockets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePart of him decides he is being childish and that he is too old to expect real life to be like books. Another part of him decides that if he does not try he cannot be disappointed and he can go on believing that the door could open even if it is just pretend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe stands with his hands in his pockets and considers the door for a moment more before walking away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe following day his curiosity gets the better of him and he returns to find that the door has been painted over. The brick wall whitewashed to the point where he cannot even discern where, precisely, the door had been.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd so the son of the fortune-teller does not find his way to the Starless Sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot yet.","brand":"Doubleday","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304279789797,"sku":"NP9780385541213","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780385541213.jpg?v=1767741647","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-starless-sea-isbn-9780385541213","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}