The Return (11 page)

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it right now. Where would you like to go next?"

I turned around, seeing an old friend behind me.

"Let's go to the Moon!"

There was no obvious sensation of speed as we soared toward Earth's natural satellite: no wind in our hair, no roar of a rocket engine. Yet the flight was exhilarating. Having the Moon rush steadily toward me, I never felt so free, so possessed by the certainty that all this was indeed my creation, as much as everybody else's, a playground made for all of us by God to learn in and enjoy.

With a simple thought, I slowed as we neared the silver globe. But Peter was having too much fun and rammed headfirst into the Moon. We danced about on a crater-marked field, and then were off again, heading for the fourth planet from the sun, the red planet. Mysterious Mars. Here I discovered both wonder and fear. On a purely physical level Mars appeared uninhabited, but studying it with the spiritual eye I was learning to use, I was treated to two interlocking visions. On what I can only describe as a low vibration, I saw a race of demonic reptilian beings. A cruel civilization that fought and warred with itself and every other living being in its dimension. Here there was no light, no love, and as a result, only pain. I could only tune into it for a few seconds before being forced to shut it out.

"Do you see it?" I asked Peter.

He nodded gravely. "It's like hell. Yet it's there with the other as well. How can that be? Two races on one world and our scientists on Earth can see neither."

"I think there's a lot that science has yet to learn." I focused on the other race. I say focused only in a manner of speaking. Actually, I found I could perceive more by "letting go" inside. Several octaves above the reptilians were enchanted cities of beings who looked similar to people on Earth. Immediately I was reminded of the haunting civilization the author Ray Bradbury had described in his book The Martian Chronicles. For these were a beautiful people with long shiny gowns, wine-colored faces, and sleek bodies. Canals filled with luminous dark liquids crisscrossed their globe and they floated from town to town along these watery highways on delicate boats that could have been made of glass.

Music filled their towns, sad and serious, yet uplifting and beautiful as well, echoing softly over the stark red deserts as well as into deep space. If these people—I preferred to think of them as the real Martians—were aware of the hellish dimension around them, they gave no sign of it. Peter seemed to read my mind.

"I wonder if writers on Earth somehow tuned into these two races and wrote about them," he said.

"Mars is often described in literature as both evil and magical."

"It's possible," I replied, thinking that when I returned to Earth as a Wanderer I wanted to write about Mars, preferably about the beautiful race.

We took off for Venus next, and even approaching the second planet from the Sun, we were thrilled by the light and joy that emanated from that white globe.

We had to stop far off in space to observe it, the vibrations were so high our ghost bodies couldn't stand it. Through the radiance I glimpsed—and it was only a glimpse—a race of beings much farther along the path of evolution than either humanity or the lovely Martians. It was as if Venus were inhabited by angels, and I understood why on Earth it was usually referred to as the planet of love.

"I don't think we can get any closer," I said.

"We're probably too gross for them," Peter agreed.

"I wonder why they are so much ahead of us?"

"I don't know if it's so much a thing of being ahead or behind," I said, once more feeling for the truth inside, something I had begun to do out of habit since talking to the Rishi. I wondered if he had rekindled the ability in me, and if it would follow me back to Earth as a Wanderer. "I think they started before us. They are as we will be in the future."

Peter laughed. "In ten millions years?"

"Maybe it won't take so long," I said, once more feeling I had spoken the truth.

The Rishi mentioned a transitional time on Earth, in the next few decades. I wondered if we might not join our cousins on Venus sooner, ghosts included.

Without consciously deciding on our next destination, we began to drift away from Venus and the Sun. Soon we were out among the globular clusters and nebula. Never in my wildest imagination as a mortal had I imagined such colors, such beauty and vastness of scale. It was as if all my life I had lived in a great palace, but kept my head in the closet. On Earth all I had cared about was who was looking at me and talking about me, while I lived in a universe of mystery and adventure. I made another vow to myself, to study astronomy when I returned as a Wanderer. I did not merely float through the star fields, I merged with them.

"We're all stars," I told Peter.

"Yes. I was thinking how when my father died when I was ten years old I used to search for him in the sky."

A wave of sorrow swept over me, but it was sweet as well, bittersweet like sour candy. "When you died I looked for you in the sky." I reached out, across the light-years, and took his hand. My love for him then was like the light of the stars that shone all around us, and I knew it would burn for ages. "And now I have found you."

He squeezed my hand. He didn't have to say anything.

We floated for ages, seeing more wonders than any starship log could ever record. Eventually we found ourselves at the center of the galaxy. Here the stars were older, as were the myriad races, and the peace and bliss they radiated were like that from a million Venuses combined. Inside, I understood that these people had learned all that this universe had to offer, and that they were merely waiting for the "rest of us" to catch up so that they could go on, where, I didn't know, another dimension perhaps, another creation surely, where God was as real as the sky, and as easy to touch as water in the sea. In the center of this floated what I believe our astronomers would call a galactic black hole. The light that streamed from both the stars and the worlds swirled around the object in a cosmic whirlpool, disappearing down a shaft that seemed to have no bottom. Fascinated, I moved toward it but Peter stopped me.

"We don't know where it goes," he said, and for the first time since he had told me about the Shadow in the days after my death, there was fear in his voice.

"Nothing can harm us," I said. "I want to go inside."

"If you go inside, you might not get out."

I studied him. Throughout our starry journey he had been as enthralled as I was. But now I sensed not only his fear but the reason for it, something had happened to him while we were still on Earth. Yet I couldn't pinpoint the cause, and what it had to do with the portal to infinity that yawned before us. The black hole drew me like a magnet, and I realized we had not stumbled upon it by chance. I had to go in it before I could return to Earth and accomplish my mission.

"I am going," I said. "You can follow me if you wish."

He hesitated. "I'll wait for you, Shari. Take care."

"I am taken care of," I said.

I moved toward the portal.

As stars vanished behind me, so did the I that was Shari Cooper. Words fail me here. How to describe the knowledge of anything without the presence of a knower? In the interior of the black hole the knowledge and the knower were one. I ceased to be aware of things. I was awareness itself.

Still, here, outside of all places, I sensed my true place and finally understood the Rishi's words.

"Our relationship is a beautiful thing. We are, ultimately, the same person, the same being. But if that is too abstract a concept for you, then think of a huge oversoul made up of many souls. Throughout many lives on many worlds, these different souls learn and grow..."

I was not singular. Many people were I, and yet we were one as well. All that they had experienced, I had experienced. The different lives the Rishi had spoken of, I had lived them all. I was the Master in Egypt instructing the young student outside in the pyramid. The student was also me. I was enlightened and ignorant at the same time, and I saw it was not possible to have one without the other. No light without darkness. No day without night. No compassion without suffering. No good without evil. Everything worked together, ultimately—a weave of different-colored threads forming an unfathomably rich tapestry. How foolish we were to try to explain the mystery of life, I thought. The mystery could be lived but never explained. Any more than the mind of God could be explained. I felt so close to God right then I imagined myself a perfect fool. And I was happy.

I sensed something else as well. Peter was part of me, as much as the Rishi. It was right that he should be with me enjoying this glimpse of our higher selves.

But he was not with me because he was still supposed to be on Earth. He had committed suicide, I remembered that now, and I could see the effect that act had set in motion throughout our oversoul, like a ripple set out across a mountain lake that was finally settling down to freeze for the winter. He had feared to follow me because his fear still followed him. Even this far into eternity. It was this realization that jerked me back into normal space time.

Normal as far as ghostswere concerned. I materialized outside the black hole beside Peter.

"What happened?" he asked.

"How long have I been gone?"

"Just an instant."

"It felt like ages." Looking at him I remembered his comment about how the situation on Earth was no longer our concern. I had not discussed what the Rishi told me about my going back as a Wanderer. Now I realized it was because his destiny was separate from mine. I could have fun with him for now, but the fun would have to end.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"What happened to you in there?" There was an edge to his voice.

"It's difficult to explain." I reached over and took his hand again. "We have to go back. I have to speak to the Rishi."

"Why?"

Would I miss him on Earth? I asked myself. I missed him now and I hadn't even left him. And he was a part of me. It was such a paradox. How could I succeed as a Wanderer without the love of Peter beside me?

"Because I need his help," I said.

CHAPTER IX

JEAN RODRIGUES drove with Carol Dazmin toward the cemetery where Debra Zimmerer was buried. It was late August; over two months had elapsed since Jean's fall off Lenny Mandez's balcony. The summer had been warm even by Los Angeles standards. Jean had spent the weeks working at her Subway Sandwich job as well as doing volunteer work at the hospital. She had also tried to raise her basic skills in math and science to enter junior college. She was to be tested the next week to see if she could ayoid being placed in idiot classes. While she was in high school she had never considered going to college, but now it seemed inevitable that she should go. She was presently trying to talk Carol into joining her.

"I'm not saying a college degree guarantees happiness," Jean said. "But not having one guarantees that you'll be working grunge jobs the rest of your life."

"I don't know," Carol said. "I could become a hairdresser. They make pretty mucha lana."

"You can't spend the rest of your life cutting hair. You'd go mad from boredom."

"But how can I go to college? I'm too stupid. I was hardly able to graduate from high school."

"You're not stupid. You're just lazy. You need to focus. If you could be anything you wanted, what would you choose?"

Carol thought a moment as she steered them down the freeway off-ramp.

Debra had been buried across the town from them, at Rose Hills in uptown Whittier.

"I'd like to be a rock 'n' roll star."

"You can't go to college to study to be a rock 'n' roll star. Pick something else."

"But that's what I want to do."

"But you can't sing. You can't play an instrument. You can't even dance."

"That's what I'm saying. That's why I should be a hairdresser."

Jean sighed. "You don't have just two choices in life. You have a million. Why don't you study to be a nurse? I think you'd make a great one."

"Would I have to give people shots? Sporty once asked me to shoot him up with heroin and I couldn't do it. I told him to find his own goddamn vein."

"Giving someone a shot that's good for him is a lot different from shooting someone up with heroin.

Which reminds me. I heard through the grapevine that Darlene was looking to buy a piece."

Carol nodded. "I heard she's shopping."

"If you heard, then everybody's heard. Surely she can't be planning to go after Juan after all this time."

"I don't know. The timing makes sense to me."

"What do you mean?" Jean asked, although she knew the answer.

Carol shrugged. "Lenny just got out of rehab. He's in a chair. He's mobile.

Maybe she's buying the piece for him. Maybe he still wants Juan." Carol added gently, "Maybe he figures he doesn't have much to lose trying for him."

"Damn you! You have to give yourself time. If you can't think of a reason to live, then you have to find one. Think, Lenny, of everything and everyone in the world. Think of something you want to do. Hold on to that, at least until you get out of here. "

Jean had not seen Lenny since they had transferred him from the hospital to the rehab clinic in the valley. He had not wanted to see her, which killed her.

But she heard from friends that he was looking a lot better, and that gave her some comfort. It was her hope that now that he could get around, he'd call her.

She waited for that call.

"He has everything to lose," Jean whispered.

Carol glanced over, concerned. "You're not going to want to hear this, but I'm going to say it anyway. You should start dating other guys."

"You sound like my mama. "

"You should listen to your mother. You love the guy, sure, I love him, too. But his body's wrecked. His life's wrecked. You can't fix it pining away for him."

"His life is not wrecked! He can do everything any other guy can do except walk. That's it. Who needs to walk nowadays? We have cars."