By the Light of Dead Stars Quotes

“But maybe that’s all adults really were, just big kids with more responsibility and a lot of practice covering it up.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“And that the world always hurt those with good hearts most of all.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Why are you still here?” she whispered. Because I made an impossible promise to your mother the night that she died. Because you’d never believe that I saw her. But he said, “Because you’re worth it, kiddo.” They stood there, in the basement of that parking lot, just an uncle and his niece, two humans, both awkward and broken in their own ways.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Stacey closed the door behind him and gestured to the conference table. “So how’s Zelda doing?” “Oh, she’s a teenager, so she’s always up to something.” He chuckled, perhaps a little too loud. Stacey smiled. The others did not. “But she’s doing well; thanks for asking,” Mark said, adding, “Yep, everything’s fine.” CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR Zelda was not fine.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Panic gripped the crowd as loose shadows sprinted this way and that. Within the distant flames, Mark swore he saw something move behind a shattered window. Something that crawled down the wall of a house. Something that—impossibly—had more than four limbs. No. It was just the darkness playing tricks on his eyes. Just his oxygen-starved mind.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“For a moment, the crawlspace seemed to glisten. Had something just dripped down from the floorboards? Were those teeth protruding from the concrete? No. Don’t be silly, Randy. They’re just shadows. And yet, the harder he stretched, the narrower the crawlspace seemed to get. Like it was compressing and darkening and… moistening. He could see the wine bottle on its side, resting beside what he had thought was a stack of flat cardboard. But now, it almost looked like a tongue.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“And perhaps they had, but Zelda wasn’t buying it because Ali wasn’t selling it. She’d only known him for the summer, but that was long enough to know he was lying.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Zelda studied the old house, fear fluttering inside her ribs like a thousand butterflies. No, she wasn’t sure it was going to work. She had enough doubts to fill a whole notebook. She was operating on momentum.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“And that’s all Lloyd was, he supposed. Just a small spec of flesh on a spinning rock in the infinite chaos of the cosmos.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Because maybe that’s how grief worked, she supposed. Maybe grief was a thing that lived and grew and took form on its own. Maybe it followed its own rhythm and tempo. And maybe Ali was right, that something beneath her conscious thoughts was still wounded and healing.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“In twelve steps, he was at the bottom of the basement, sliding aside folding chairs so he could see Armando’s full splendor. Here it was, twenty-four by thirty-six inches of aged poster behind glass. That floating head, those piercing eyes. Had the painted swirls always held little tentacles and hands at their edges? Had Armando’s face always been so clear you could see every pore?”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Some people get nostalgic and want to preserve things, like the town is some fossil or a bug stuck in amber. What they forget is that things weren’t perfect. We were just more ignorant.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Help…” The pups would have to be patient. He sensed their meal wasn’t ready, not quite. But his lunch was cooling. He studied the plate and the choices before him. A chicken wing, perhaps. Or some of those ribs. He sunk his teeth into a sausage and moaned as he chewed. Yes, it was delicious, more flavorful than he imagined, each bite better than the last.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“In the red reflection, something crawled down the walls. A skittering shadow of claw and tail. A thing of bony spine, inky skin, and six crooked legs. Pups, Lloyd thought.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“His hair was oily, his frame soggy, and he had eyes that made Zelda sad. His name tag read Lloyd.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“A shape and a texture: unctuous black violet lit with iridescent pearl. An eye amidst a halo of dead stars. Crystalline bones unfolding, like the geodes and kaleidoscopes he peered into as a child. Wondrous, yes. Within those black-violet prisms pulsed colors beyond his knowing, skin of twisted roots and dark tumors, and a voice—her voice—that reached across the vast cosmos. Crossed it for him. She pressed herself up against the ice above. Her unblinking eye focused in on him, seeing him, and filled him with warmth. She whispered, “Lloyd, it’s time to wake up.” So that’s what he did. The cold ice at his fingertips became the cool sheets of his bed. The wet pressure inside his body burst as a gasp left his lips. He rose, not through the frozen lake but into the midnight shadows of his bedroom. And the eye. Her eye. It no longer stared through the ice but faded behind the ceiling of his house. He felt a great presence retreating, up through the attic, up into the sky, into the cold reaches above Earth, and into the deepest recesses beyond space and time.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“And then he was under, splashing and thrashing, reaching for anything but finding only pieces of sharp ice. The dark blue abyss tilted him, turned him sideways. He rolled, scratching out desperately. He had never felt such cold. It suffused him. No, this wasn’t how it should end. He was a freshman in college. He had his whole life ahead. He wasn’t supposed to die here, drunk on some February morning, beneath a lake whose name he could hardly pronounce. Some cautionary tale to be spread across campus.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“Search and rescue with the Forest Service. But the park’s got some good areas for skateboarding. Like, stairs and rails and stuff. Ali likes to fly his drone there.” “Cool.” “So… maybe we should check it out sometime?” It took Zelda a beat to realize that was an invitation. “Yeah, that’d be fun.” Maura smiled. “Cool.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars

“At night, she often lay there, back against the warm shingles and the cool sky above. She watched stars emerge between fast-flowing currents of fog. She reminded herself that some of those stars might even be dead, and the light now hitting her eyes was only a memory of warmth.”
― Andrew Van Wey, By the Light of Dead Stars