The Starless Sea

by Erin Morgenstern

“Spiritual but not religious,” Zachary clarifies. He doesn’t say what he is thinking, which is that his church is held-breath story listening and late-night-concert ear-ringing rapture and perfect-boss fight-button pressing. That his religion is buried in the silence of freshly fallen snow, in a carefully crafted cocktail, in between the pages of a book somewhere after the beginning but before the ending.

For no mortal can love the moon. Not for long.

sings to herself when she thinks no one is listening reads the same books over and over again until each page is intimately familiar walks barefoot through the halls, quiet as a cat laughs so easy and so often as though the whole universe delights him

“We are the stars,” he answers, as though it is the most obvious of facts afloat in a sea of metaphors and misdirections. “We are all stardust and stories.”