Excerpts from The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill

She was used to the echoey ring a fatigue, but there was no comfort in the thought of the morning ahead. Page 10

I look for changes. New things in the night sky. Page 69

Regret is a wasted emotion, Hanna, Dr. Hall said d. It offers no comfort to the soul, for what's done cannot be undone. This, on the other hand... He picked up the cane and swing it in an arc, indicating the bookshelves surrounding them. Shakespeare. Milton. Plato. Euclid. Here is where comfort lies. In knowledge. Especially when shared. Page 169

She blinked in the brightness of day, then turned away from Town and began to walk west. Air and sky, dirt and leavess, these were what she needed. Things devoid of malice. Page 221

In the last light of the day, the flowers blazed as if to defy their own transience. Page 329

What would it be like to see the sky only in this way? A sparkling picture, pretty as a quilt. To lie each night beside a man and stare at the sky with no more care than for the next day's supper, for nicely tatted lace, ripe tomatoes, clean aprons? Page 364

What, I wondered, would compel a teenage girl to spend her nights alone on the roof of her house, staring at the stars for hours on end, sweeping the skies in hopes of spotting something so few people had the opportunity to see? Page 381