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gone wrong? And where was Wally anyway?
    Wally was a successful writer of, of all things, horror stories, two of which had been made into movies. Rose did not like his stories; she found them sinister and wondered how they could have come out of the mind of a man so handsome he could be a poster boy for clean living and good health. Which, she guessed, just went to show how you could not judge a book by its cover, especially the ones Wally wrote. He was supposed to be writing now, getting on with his next “epic,” but all he seemed to have done for the last few weeks, here at the lake, was take the sailboat out when the wind was up, and if not then he would row himself out of sight of the house, fishing rod in hand, and be gone all day, returning late with nothing to show for it and nothing to say for himself.
    Of course, the thought of another woman crossed Rose’s mind. This was a resort community with plenty of vacationers like themselves whose families had been coming here for decades. In fact now she thought about it the place was probably full of bored wives drinking too many martinis and looking for a spot of trouble. A man like Wally was a prime target; successful, good-looking, and undoubtedly sexy. At least he used to be and she was sure things had not changed in this department. Was it simply that boredom had set in?
    She thought of him now. Was he downstairs, alone in the kitchen, drinking? She could stand it no longer, she would have to find him and ask what was going on, why they were like this.
    But suddenly the door was flung open and there Wally was, still fully clothed in jeans and sweater, staring at her as though she were a ghost. Rose stared back, astonished.
    Then without warning the whole room turned red, the glass in the windows crackled like tissue paper crushed in the hand, and the following explosion knocked Wally off his feet and Rose out of her bed.

 
    6
    Evening Lake, 3 A.M. ,
Madison & Frazer Osborne
    Madison and Frazer Osborne were not identical twins, something for which every time they looked in the mirror, they thanked God. “At least I got the blond hair,” Madison would say, smugly. And, as Frazer would tell her, she was a bit too smug for her own good, which Madison said sounded like a threat, and inevitably that led to a row.
    “Getting on” was what you were supposed to do as a family, their mother informed them, exasperated with their continual bickering.
    Rose had her own set of commandments, one of which was “thou shalt not hit each other.” Another was “thou shalt not curse at each other” (the word “fuck” was definitely out). The third was “thou must remember thou is—” Here Rose had become a little confused with the “thou’s” and the girls giggled. “You are sisters,” Rose had finished firmly. “Sisters don’t fight, they stick up for each other, regardless of who got the blond hair.”
    “So why am I the one with the horrible ginger?” Frazer had demanded.
    They were standing on the deck at the lake house some weeks ago when this happened. It was evening and the sun was a molten red ball sinking rapidly into the rippled lake, turning Frazer’s orange hair into a true fiery red and her normally blue eyes into spitting red fireballs. Rose told her to ask her father. Wally’s ancestors were Irish redheads. Frazer decided it was all her dad’s fault anyway, but Rose calmed her down, told her her hair was beautiful and that one day she would be really glad she had it. It was what made Frazer different, Rose said firmly.
    It was also what made it easy for Rose to distinguish who was who in their darkened bedroom at night, when she stole in to check on her sleeping girls: one pale head on the left pillow, one true red head—nothing carroty about it—on the right.
    Plus always on Madison’s bed, on her chest, practically tucked under her chin, was her black rescue cat, Baby Noir. Sleek, and so fat Rose wondered how on earth Madison could stand