Chapter One ORION, Gamma Ori +06° 20' 58" A hundred years ago, the first Astronomer looked up at the night sky and made note of what she saw: horseshoe nebulas and spiral galaxies and dying star clusters. But she did not yet know what lay hidden in the shadowy darkness between stars. She was not a seer, a fortune-teller, as was common in the old world but rarely talked about now. Instead she used the circular glass rings of her telescope to make sense of the dark; she used physics and chemistry and science. She drafted charts and measured distances and sketched formations like Pleiades and Andromeda onto wax paper. Maybe if she had believed in fate. If she had listened to her gut--that hollow twisting beneath her lowest ribs--she might have feared what she didn't understand. She might have known that the shadow concealed more than dust and particles of broken moons. She would have looked closer. And seen. Excerpted from A Wilderness of Stars by Shea Ernshaw All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.