PARADISE ONCE TRACES THE AFTERMATH of the massacre by Spanish forces of the fictional Maima village in Cuba in 1513. Some believe the destruction of Maima is the result of angering the cem es--Ta no spiritual entities--when foreign practices, contrary to the sacred laws of the Ta no, began to infiltrate the village. Four young people who survive the massacre are unwittingly chosen by the cem es to save a Sacred Bundle and return it to a cave in the Cauta mountain, the mythological place the Ta no are believed to have come from: Night Orchid, a young girl and the reluctant bearer of the Sacred Bundle; the young Ta no noble, Heart of Palm; Flint, whose mother is part of the 'Old Ones,' a remnant group of people on the islands displaced by the Ta no; and Sekou, an enslaved African born in Spain who has aligned himself with the Ta no resistance. The four survivors start off on separate perilous paths and only learn of their roles in the sacred mission when they unite at the holy site and