Les étoiles sont comme des âmes errantes

Les étoiles sont comme des âmes errantes is the expression Shelby Anderson Barnum uses to describe stars as restless souls that arrive and depart without finding what they seek. Spoken during a rare, quiet moment with Jungkook Jeon, the image gives shape to her bleak sense of aimlessness while leaving its personal source undisclosed. Jungkook remembers her words after their conversation has ended, and their recurrence links his attention to Shelby’s hidden suffering with a sudden confrontation with his own painful past.

The Evening Conversation

After dinner, Shelby Anderson Barnum and Jungkook Jeon wander through the downtown streets. Their surroundings remain busy: somewhat tipsy students linger outside, cars pass, some shop windows stay lit, and animals move through the streets without confronting people. Against that activity, the pair share a silence that is striking because their usual antagonism has eased. Jungkook is not brusque, and Shelby is not insolent or confrontational; for a while, they are simply together without trading barbs.

They sit on a bench, and Shelby looks up at the stars. Stargazing is something she enjoys, especially when the pleasant sound of waves accompanies it. Jungkook watches her before following her gaze. Her comparison of the stars to wandering souls catches him by surprise, and he asks why she sees them that way. Shelby explains that they come and go without ever truly finding what they are looking for: they wander constantly, while those watching them wonder when they will join them. The expression is therefore more than a description of the night sky; it turns an ordinary act of looking upward into a reflection on restless searching and possible disappearance.

What the Image Suggests

Shelby’s explanation is concise but unsettling. Its stars have movement without arrival: they depart and return, yet remain unable to reach what they seek. Her words then extend that image to the observers below, who wonder when they, too, will join the wandering. The thought places the speaker and her listener near an imagined boundary between watching and vanishing, without specifying exactly what joining the stars would mean.

The narration emphasizes the darkness of Shelby’s thoughts. Jungkook wonders whether she has ever attempted suicide or experienced a traumatic event, questions he would not ordinarily ask himself. The scene does not answer them. Shelby gives him an image, not an account of what has haunted her for two years, and her slight smile seems intended to reassure him without opening that history. Although she is wary of him, she feels strangely at ease beside him; that comfort remains incomplete, and her body trembles under his dark gaze. The expression makes her distress perceptible while preserving the silence around its cause.

Jungkook’s Recollection

Later, after leaving an establishment at night, Jungkook steps outside into Ellensburg beneath a moon and bright stars. He remembers Shelby’s words and the earlier exchange in full: her comparison, his question, and her explanation of endless wandering. The narration stresses that he will not forget them. This return transforms the expression from a remark confined to their evening walk into a thought that follows him after they separate.

The memory also shifts Jungkook’s attention. Guilt gradually takes hold, and curiosity returns as he wonders what happened to Shelby. He wants to know, but does not intend to force her to talk. The recollection prompts a contrast with his usual hardness: the narration playfully presents his unexpected gentleness as ill-fitting for someone more wolf than lamb. Yet the expression’s effect is not simply to make him kinder. As he tries to silence his inner demons, thoughts turn toward his father, and he breaks down alone, crying and suffering an anxiety attack marked by chest pain, blocked breathing, nausea, trembling, and a racing heart.

Narrative Significance

The book gives the expression two distinct moments: Shelby first speaks it in a shared pause, and Jungkook later replays it in solitude. The first scene allows an unusually peaceful interval between them to carry an image of estrangement and unresolved searching; the later recollection gives that image emotional consequence without making Shelby explain herself. Her words awaken Jungkook’s concern, but the narrative then turns toward his own buried distress, so the phrase connects their suffering without suggesting that either has fully understood the other.

The stars remain an image rather than an answer. Shelby’s account offers no destination for the wandering souls and no certainty about when the observers might join them. That unresolved quality suits the scene’s balance of tentative closeness and guardedness: Jungkook notices what Shelby’s words may reveal, but she does not disclose the history behind them, and his response exposes a pain of his own.