My sister startles herself from sleep. I can feel her breath rise in the slow-motion of mine. I am thirteen, and she is three. Outside sleep unravels from our bodies. Her hand, perfect for cradling a coin, closes within mine. We walk in the backyard over long grass, between weeping willow trees. She won't remember her dream so I tell her another: How a girl alone in the night, the stars so close to her, she takes a pair of scissors and cuts them from the sky. She opens her slate-colored book, arranges the stars into constellations, pastes them flat as doilies. They are like a billion burning hearts. Each morning the book stretches back to the sky.
		Excerpted from The End of Desire by Jill Bialosky. Copyright © 1999 by Jill Bialosky. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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