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Robert Charles Wilson

BURNING PARADISE

^{PART ONE}

UNSPEAKABLE TRUTH

1

_{BUFFALO, NEW YORK}

EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWED MIGHT HAVE happened differently—or might not have happened at all—had Cassie been able to sleep that night.

She had tried to sleep, had wanted to sleep, had dutifully gone to bed at 11:30, but now it was three hours and some minutes past midnight and her thoughts were running like hamsters in an exercise wheel. She stood up, switched on the light, dressed herself in gray sweat pants and a yellow flannel shirt, and padded barefoot down the chilly parquet floor of the hallway to the kitchen.

Unusually, she was alone in the apartment. Except for Thomas, of course. Thomas was her little brother, twelve years old and soundly asleep in the second bedroom, a negligible presence. Cassie and Thomas lived with their aunt Nerissa, and Cassie still thought of this as Aunt Ris’s apartment although it had been her home for almost seven years now. Usually her aunt would have been asleep on the fold-out sofa in the living room, but to night Aunt Ris was on a date, which meant she might not be back until Saturday afternoon.

Cassie had welcomed the chance to spend some time alone. She was eigh teen years old, had graduated from high school last spring, worked days at Lassiter’s Department Store three blocks away, and was legally and functionally an adult, but her aunt’s protectiveness remained a force to be reckoned with. Aunt Ris had made a completely unnecessary fuss about going out: You’ll be all right? Yes. Are you sure? Of course.

The evening had passed quickly and pleasantly. There was no television in the apartment, but she had played rec ords after dinner. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier had the useful effect of making Thomas drowsy even as it rang in Cassie’s head like the tolling of a divine bell, echoing even after Thomas was in bed and the house was eerily quiet. Then she had turned off most of the lights except for the lamp on the living-room end table and had huddled on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and a book until she was tired enough to turn in.

So why was she prowling around now like a nervous cat? Cassie opened the refrigerator door. Nothing inside seemed appetizing. The linoleum floor was cold under her feet. She should have put on slippers.

She scooted a kitchen chair next to the window and sat down, resting her elbows on the dusty sill. The corpses of six summer flies lay interred behind the sash-tied cotton blind. “Disgusting,” Cassie said quietly. November had been windy and cold, and wisps of late-autumn air slipped through the single-pane window like probing fingers.