CHAPTER ONE
It was a vivid, shimmering summer night, touched now and agar by cool, gentle breezes. Above them, the Milky Way seemed to have ruptured, spilling stars like grains of incandescent sand, until the clear midnight sky pulsed with its cold, distant light.
"What?" Les asked. His voice seemed distracted, as if he had been somewhere else, faraway, and the urgency of her voice had brought him back unexpectedly, before he was ready to return. There was the stub of a cigarette between his lips, and he sucked on it, filling his lungs with a harsh, bitter smoke. He dropped the cigarette into the grass and stepped on it. Exhaling, he said: "I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said I was -- thinking."
Cherlynn did not turn or look at him. She continued, instead, to stare out across the
