The phone call came at 3:17 on a Tuesday in November 1943. Thomas Webb was in his apartment on West 73rd Street, drinking tea from a chipped cup and reading the sports section, when the landlady called to say that Mr. Cross had disappeared.

Thomas put down the newspaper. He put down the teacup. He sat in the armchair by the window and watched the street below—people hurrying to work, a streetcar clanking past, a vendor selling roasted chestnuts on the corner. The city was moving forward, as it always did, as if nothing had changed.

But something had changed. Julian Cross was gone. And Thomas, who had not spoken to his father in eleven years, was the only person who knew.

Julian had written The Starlight Boy when he was twenty-four, a young widow whose husband—a pilot in the American Expeditionary Forces—had been killed over the Argonne Forest in October 1918. He had moved to a leaky apartment in Brooklyn's Sunset Park with a three-year-old daughter and a typewriter that clicked too loudly and a determination to survive.

The Starlight Boy was about a boy who lived in the space between stars, collecting fragments of light and distributing them to children who had lost their way. It was published in 1920 by a small press in Manhattan. The press owner, a man named Harrington who wore velvet vests and spoke in exclamation points, called it "the most wholesome children's book of the decade."

It sold twelve thousand copies. Then eighteen thousand. Then thirty thousand. By 1923, The Starlight Boy was the most-borrowed children's book at the New York Public Library. More than Sherlock Holmes. More than any of the adventure stories the boys preferred. Children checked it out week after week, and the librarians noted in their ledgers that the same children returned it again and again, as if each reading revealed something new.

Thomas had never read it. Not until he was twenty-two, three years after leaving home, when he found a copy in a thrift store on Broadway and bought it for a quarter because the cover made him curious.

He read it in one sitting, sitting on the floor of his apartment with his back against the radiator. The prose was simple—Julian had never been a literary writer—but there was something in the rhythm of the sentences, in the way the Starlight Boy described his work, that made Thomas's throat tighten.

"He collects the fragments," the book said. "The pieces of light that fall from the sky when children cry. He gathers them in his pocket and carries them home, where he stores them in a jar. And on the nights when the world is darkest, he opens the jar and lets the light out."

Thomas had not cried since he was nineteen. He sat on the floor and cried for an hour.

Then he stopped crying, and he hated himself for stopping, and he went to work as a junior reporter at the Evening Tribune and wrote about city council meetings and factory inspections and the prices of coal.

Now his father was gone, and Thomas was twenty-eight, and he had a typewriter in his apartment and a salary that barely covered rent and a life that consisted of writing other people's stories instead of his own.

He took the train to Brooklyn the next morning.

The apartment was on the third floor of a brick building on a street that had once been called Sunset Park but was now called something else—something the street signs had been changed to without Julian's knowledge. The building smelled of boiled cabbage and coal smoke. The stairs creaked. The door to Julian's apartment was unlocked.

Inside: a small living room with a sofa that had seen better decades, a kitchen with a stove that still held warmth from whatever neighbor had cooked breakfast, and a bedroom that was exactly as Julian had left it. The bed was made. The dresser drawers were closed. The typewriter sat on the desk, a sheet of paper loaded, the last sentence unfinished.

Thomas read the unfinished sentence: "And the Starlight Boy looked out the window and saw that the jar was empty and he—"

He could not finish it. He sat in his father's chair and stared at the page until the words blurred.

He began to sort through Julian's belongings. A closet full of dresses—dark dresses, always dark dresses, even on Sundays. A shoebox of photographs: Julian and her husband, both young and smiling, standing in front of a church. Julian holding baby Thomas. Julian sitting at the typewriter, her face lined with exhaustion and something else—determination, maybe, or hope.

In the closet, behind a row of wool coats, Thomas found a wooden box. It was an old cigar box, the kind men used to store important papers. He opened it.

Inside: letters. Dozens of letters. Hundreds. Tied in bundles with string, each bundle dated by year. Thomas untied the first bundle—1920, the year The Starlight Boy was published.

The first letter was from a woman in Pittsburgh. Dear Mrs. Benson, it began. My boy lost his father last winter. He does not speak. He does not eat. I read him your Starlight Boy story every night, and last night he asked me what happens when the jar is empty. I did not know. Please tell me what happens.

Thomas read the next letter. It was from a girl in Chicago who had lost her family in the flu pandemic. I read one page every night, she wrote. One page. Then I close the book and I can sleep. Thank you for giving me something to sleep for.

Another letter, from a boy in Ohio who had broken his leg falling from a barn. The Starlight Boy made me believe I could see stars even with broken legs, he wrote. I know that sounds silly. It doesn't sound silly to me.

Thomas read letter after letter. Over decades. From children and adults, from cities and towns he had never heard of, from people whose names he would never remember but whose words he would carry forever.

The last letter in the box was from the New York Public Library, dated 1924. It was written in the neat hand of a librarian named Mrs. Whitfield. Mrs. Benson, it said, The Starlight Boy has been checked out 47,832 times since publication. This is the highest circulation of any children's book in this library's history. We would like to invite you to speak at our annual children's reading event. Please let us know if you are available.

Julian had never replied. He had been too busy. Too tired. Too poor. Too afraid that if he stepped into the light, it would go out.

Thomas sat in his father's chair until the afternoon light faded. Then he stood up, picked up the box of letters, and went to the kitchen to make tea.

He made the tea. He sat at the desk. He looked at the unfinished sentence.

And the Starlight Boy looked out the window and saw that the jar was empty and he—

He typed three words: He went outside.

Then he stopped. He closed the typewriter. He picked up the box of letters and walked out of the apartment.

He did not return to Manhattan for two weeks. He stayed in Brooklyn, in a hotel room above a bakery on 86th Street, and he read the letters. All of them. Every single one. He read them on the train, in the hotel room, in the park, sitting on a bench while children played and their mothers watched.

When he finished the last letter, he knew what he had to do.

He sold his apartment on West 73rd Street. The landlady was surprised. Thomas's friends at the Tribune were surprised. His editor, a man named O'Brien who had taken a liking to his steady copy, called his office three times. Thomas did not answer.

He used the money from the apartment to rent a larger space—a storefront on 86th Street, two rooms, with a window that looked out onto the street. He painted the walls a pale yellow, the color of starlight. He bought bookshelves. He bought a desk. He bought a sign and had it made: The Starlight Room.

It was not a library. It was not a museum. It was a room. A room with shelves full of The Starlight Boy books—new editions, old editions, foreign editions—and walls covered with the letters. Every letter. Every single one, pinned to the walls with brass tacks, arranged by year and city and state.

People came. Not many. The first week, nobody came at all. The second week, one woman came—a grandmother with a granddaughter, who saw the letters and stood in the doorway and cried. The third week, three people came. The fourth week, eight.

On the first anniversary of Julian's disappearance, Thomas opened The Starlight Room properly. He put a sign in the window. He lit a candle. He stood in the center of the room and waited.

At four o'clock, a man walked in. He was old, with gray hair and a worn coat and eyes that looked like they had seen too much. He stood in the doorway and looked at the letters on the walls. He looked at the books on the shelves. He looked at Thomas.

"I'm Harold Whitfield," he said. "Mrs. Whitfield's husband."

Thomas's throat tightened. "You're the librarian."

"My wife wrote to your mother. In 1924. She never told you, did she?"

Thomas shook his head.

Harold picked up a copy of The Starlight Boy from the shelf. He opened it to a random page and read aloud: "He collects the fragments. The pieces of light that fall from the sky when children cry."

He closed the book. He looked at Thomas.

"My wife has been sick for two years," he said. "She can't walk much. She can't read much. But every morning, she asks me to read this book to her. One page. Just one. She says it's the only thing that makes the pain bearable."

He placed the book on the desk. He left a letter on top of it.

"Thank you," he said. And he walked out.

Thomas stood in the center of The Starlight Room. He picked up the letter Harold had left. He did not read it. He placed it on the desk, next to the book, and he looked out the window at the street below.

A streetcar clanked past. A vendor sold roasted chestnuts on the corner. The city was moving forward, as it always did.

But in this room, in this small yellow room on 86th Street in Brooklyn, the light was still burning.

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