The Five

Summer vacation in Mountain's Edge, a sprawling two-square-mile subdivision of three-story half-million-dollar catalogue homes in suburban Denver. At the heart of the subdivision, its own fleet of soccer fields, manicured and gleaming - a game in play, a swarm of 12-year-olds running from end to end, moms and dads in that "off-duty Hollywood" look. At the foot of the subdivision: The desert to one side, long and dry, and endless-looking. To the other side, a span of high-desert foothills, rolling upward into the greener, higher mountains. It is here that two sets of kids - neighbors in both landscape and loss - will wake one morning to find that their paths begin to resemble that of a character in their favorite mythological book series. What they don't yet know is that an invisible darkness following them is what they make it out to be - themselves, their fears about their parents... Written by J. Reuben Appelman