The Ray (excerpt)

Even before the mental chaos of the last few weeks, nothing had ever really appeared normal to Marisa. Her first painting had been abstract: rivers covered with ice; forests heavy with snow, twisted branches. Her world -- her reality, had appeared strange to her. At least in her teenage years. Before that everything had seemed to fit together perfectly. The world of the child -- the world that she would like to get back to, was like a sand castle on a beach, standing proud until the tide came in. And when those walls were knocked down she presumed that somehow time would rebuild them again. It was just a matter of moving into the future and taking the puzzle of life apart and then putting it back together again. Her instinct had told her that when things had first turned awry; told her that some day everything would be right. But that same instinct, reacting to a building perception of emptiness, told her something different as time passed. The picture of what she saw around her was incomplete, and that sense of there being a missing piece had drawn her to art. With a brush in her hand she imposed her will on the world. Painted it, albeit abstractly, to her liking. A beautiful world, but one fraught with danger. A world of chance, of love, but one that could be unforgivingly cruel.