Light Years

by Emily Ziff Griffin

  I imagine an empty seat at Christmas dinner.

  I swim a mile and a half and climb out. I return to the locker room. The radiators hiss warm air. A small TV chatters in the corner. I take off my suit and watch news of the presidential campaign in full swing. Bell is up in the polls, they’re saying. They call him a “hero” for curing ARNS.

  It’s strange to me that so much time has passed, that I could have no memory of it. There must be nearly a million people with stories about a phantom video that cured them of ARNS symptoms. Does anyone care about that? Or is it like tales of aliens landing in empty fields and old bridges haunted by ghosts? Is my cure just a myth?

  I come out of the shower and wrap myself in one of the too-small towels they give you. Bell is still on the television.

  “America is ready for tougher, smarter leadership. We are ready to innovate in ways our parents and grandparents only dreamed,” he says to a crowd of supporters at a rally. “The time is now.” A chill as his words echo the voice from the station. I pick up my pace.

  The water from my wet hair drips down my back and as I wrap my towel around my head, I feel a presence.

  I look up at my naked reflection in the mirror. The flattened coin around my neck. There’s no one there.

  I ride the elevator up from the pool. I imagine Bell being found out. I picture him jumping to his death from the balcony of his apartment. Then I flash to him standing outside my front door, calling to me to help him. I shudder as the elevator doors open.

  The snow is blinding and the wind is like a wall pressing against my body. I make it two blocks and realize the remaining six will be impossible. I notice a small shop across the street. It looks open.

  I push through the brightly painted door and greet the smell of cinnamon and ginger.

  The space is brightly colored and lined with shelves filled with an array of ornate gold and silver statues. I move closer and see they are the statues of Indian deities.

  “Good afternoon,” calls a voice. I turn to see a heavyset Indian man behind a counter at the back of the store. “Would you like some chai?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I reply. I pull off my gloves and rub my hands together.

  “This is not a day to be outside,” he says, smiling.

  “No,” I agree. I take off my hat. I’m drawn to the statues. Men with elephant heads, monkey heads, women with multiple arms seated on flowers or riding on lions—they are vaguely familiar from the stories I read as a child.

  The man approaches with a hot, steaming mug. “You like the murtis?” he inquires.

  “The statues?” I reply, presuming to translate the word I do not know.

  “They are statues, yes. But they are also the gods and goddesses themselves. We make no distinction between the deity and its image.” I nod and sip the chai. “Is there one that calls to you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Each of us can find an archetype in these entities. There is great power in choosing and working with your archetype.”

  I pace alongside the shelves, looking at each one carefully. I stop in front of a bronze sculpture of a woman with eight arms riding on a lion. “That one,” I tell him.

  “Ma Durga,” he replies. “Pick her up. Hold her.” I set down my mug and lift the statue off the shelf. A shock radiates up through my hands and arms. I place her back down, startled.

  “Don’t be frightened. She’s just letting you know she’s real.” His smile puts me at ease.

  “Who is she?” I ask.

  “She was created by all the other gods and goddesses when the demon king Mahishasura was granted a sort of immortality by Lord Shiva. They created Durga to vanquish him. She is goodness in a fierce form.”

  I pick her up again. I hold her.

  “In each arm she holds a tool given to her by the others to use in her quest. She heals through firmness and compassion.”

  I study her eyes.

  “You must take her,” he offers.

  “I’m sure I can’t afford her.”

  He wraps his hands around mine, still holding the statue. He closes his eyes. “She’s yours,” he says softly. “Please, take her. My gift.”

  “No, I can’t,” I protest.

  “You already have. Please.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “Put her someplace where you can sit near her and look at her.”

  “You mean, like, meditate?”

  “Well, yes. But nothing so formal. Just be with her. She will rub off on you, so to speak.”

  I look outside. “It looks a little better,” I say. “I need to get home.”

  “I shall thank the snow for bringing you here,” he says, beaming.

  “Me too.” I put Durga in my bag. I thank him again, and step outside.

  The snow is still falling. The banks are higher now and it’s difficult to walk. I make it to the next corner, but the wind picks up into a howl. My view dissolves into total whiteout. I stop moving.

  I close my eyes. An image of me and my brother hanging my father’s Christmas stocking flashes across my mind. How can it be that my dad won’t be there to open presents with us in the morning? I clutch my bag. My hands grab for Durga’s solid shape. My face braces against the chill.

  When I open my eyes, I’m surrounded by white. But it’s not snow. It’s fog. Dense, opaque, enveloping fog. I look down and the snow is gone, along with the paved sidewalk of the city. Instead, a dirt path lies under my boots. I can see only a couple of feet in any direction and all other sensory perception is nonexistent—there are no smells, no sounds, no colors.

  Am I dead?

  I begin walking forward, compelled once again by something other than logic. I follow the path up a steep incline, as the colorless cloud floats all around me.

  As I climb, I hear the sound of a child laughing. The gentleness of that singular sound keeps my fearful thoughts at bay. As the ground levels off, the moisture in the air begins to thin. The smell of woodfire fills my nose. I breathe it in. It’s comforting.

  The fog is all but gone and in its place comes a rush of rich color as I enter a grove of impossibly tall, majestic redwoods—the kind that have been there for centuries.

  Their age, their beauty. I stop and look up as sunlight flares through their wispy boughs like the flickering light of an old projector.

  People and moments begin to play in front of me like the images across Jordana’s eyes on the train. Janine flying down the bike path on the bridge; my father’s hollow expression as he lay dead in his bed; the choir at Lux bursting with life; wolves in the woods; Kamal’s mouth on the back of my neck, his eyes narrow in the darkness; the ocean churning underneath me as I swam away from Bell.

  And then the images dissolve into a shimmering beam of light, shifting and taking the shape of what I eventually recognize as my own form rocketing through the void of outer space. My skin is illuminated by starlight. My whole body glows in a glittering wave.

  The light emanating from my figure grows more and more intense until it explodes into a blinding flash, retracting, pulling everything in the surrounding landscape with it—the trees, the path, the sky.

  Everything except me.

  I’m left in a darkening abyss that is losing light by the second, like a star collapsing into a black hole.

  Then, the sound of a flame igniting and the blink of a candle in the corner of my eye. I look down to see myself holding a freshly extinguished match, still smoking.

  Standing beside me holding the candle is Evans Birkner.

  She’s much older now, her face wrinkled and her hair gray, but her light eyes and clear skin remain as luminous as ever.

  I jump at the sight of her. My body is trembling.

  “Hello Luisa,” she says in her husky voice.

  “Am I dead?” I blurt out.

  She smiles. “I would venture to say you have never been more alive.”

  I tell myself to wake up, certain now that I must be
in the grip of a dream. But nothing happens.

  “When you arrived at Lux,” she continues, “we thought you had realized who you are. But your questions, your uncertainty. We saw you had not. But now it is time.” She pauses. The candlelight dances across her face. The sound of distant voices whispering.

  “Time for what?” I ask, sensing the answer is already somewhere inside my mind even if I can’t access it.

  “For you to remember your future,” she says plainly. “He threatens everything. He must be stopped. The girl who refracts the future of the world through a different prism, who holds her heart and her mind as one —it is she who can lead us where we need to go. We are ready for you, Luisa.”

  “Me?”

  “Will you answer our call?”

  I swallow and look past her image into the blackest point of nothing. Before I can form a single syllable, I feel the smoothness of wet sand under my feet. My legs are heavy, but I’m walking.

  I blink and I’m on a beach. I hear crashing surf behind me. I turn and look out at the waves. I see a small dot on the horizon. Bell’s Isis.

  My heartbeat slows steadily as the sun climbs out of the east.

  My right hand reaches for my aching head and my mind begins to offer explanations for what just happened. The wave. I hit a rock. I almost drowned. Grief. Fatigue. Hunger.

  As I become ready to dismiss everything that just happened as mere hallucination, I feel a tug of awareness pulling me toward my left palm.

  I look down. I open my cold, wet hand and there, pressed against my skin, is the half-burnt stub of a matchstick—a smudge of black ash sweeps across the grooves in my flesh.

  I hear Evans’s voice again as I hold the match between my fingers: “Will you answer our call?”

  In an instant, my mind shuffles through a hundred different replies, all dismissive and doubting. But then, a quiet voice, born from gathering all the light deep inside. That voice manages to climb onto the shoulders of my psyche. Its wise heart surveys its surroundings and recalls a future that has already happened, yet is just about to. As I stand alone on the beach in the morning sun, it is that voice, detatched from time and space, uncomplicated by insecurity or peril, that emerges from my mouth and utters a simple, unqualified “Yes.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not exist without two very special women, Carey Albertine and Saira Rao of In This Together Media, who packaged it. They took a chance on me and shepherded Light Years from the very start with their keen creative input, astute big-picture insights, and caring support. My deepest thanks are for them.

  I am also exceedingly grateful to Jess Regel of Foundry Literary + Media, who found the book a happy home and endured the endless anxieties and questions of a first-time author with kindness, patience, and sage counsel.

  And to Jacquelyn Mitchard, who leaped to publish the manuscript two days after receiving it and provided the exact right input I needed to “find” the book and bring it to its final form. To work with an editor who is herself a brilliant artist was a true privilege and she will always be a critical part of my story as a writer.

  To Mark Merriman, who made me feel heard, sane, and taken care of. Thank you times one million.

  To my genius publicist Megan Beatie, and to Mara Anastas, Jodie Hockensmith, Sarah McCabe, and everyone at Simon Pulse who brought the finished book beautifully into the wider world.

  To Kassie Erasherski and Mary Pender, the best!

  To Genevieve Gagne-Hawes, who, through her genius critiques, taught me how to write.

  To Rosemary Graham, who, through her genius critiques, also taught me how to write. She has become the kind of artistic mentor I have always dreamed about and I am so grateful to call her family as well as friend.

  To Francisca Alegria, Eoin Bullock, Erin Dicker, Arielle Fenig, Michael Fressola, Keith Gordon, Rachel Griffin, Jeff Matlow, Michelle Miller, Liam O’Rourke, George Paaswell, Kay Reinhart, Ellen Ross, Sarah Trouslard, and Liz Wyle who read various drafts and parts of drafts and provided feedback and encouragement along the way—you are each a part of the book’s DNA and I am so thankful for you all!

  To Marshall Lewy, who gave me a game-changer of a note. Thank you, brilliant friend.

  To Jennifer Niven and Mitch Larson, who gave me my first and most-cherished blurbs and who inspire me so deeply as writers and humans.

  To Erin Alexander, who designed a thoughtful, kick-ass cover.

  To Katie McDonough, whose copyedits were so intelligent and precise and polished the book to become the best possible version of itself.

  To the following generous souls who answered various research or publishing questions and/or provided helpful insights about math, science, technology, and/or various aspects of human existence: Jenny Ghose, Dean Gloster, Dr. Rachel Gordon, Jason Jones, Daniel Kohn, Jillian Lauren, David Lubensky, Robert Marshall, Rev. James Martin, Jynne Martin, Hannah Minghella, Dr. Bradley Perkins, Douglas Rushkoff, Graham Riske, and Stephanie Simon. Thank you so!

  To the following authors whose work inspired me while I was writing: Leigh Bardugo, Joan Didion, Clarrisa Pinkola Estes, Michio Kaku, Barbara Kingsolver, Madeline L’Engle, Edan Lepucki, Meghan O’Rourke, Amanda Palmer, Carlo Rovelli, John Sarno, and Rick Yancey.

  To Nicola Behrman, Jessica Gelson, Stephen Malach, Sara Murphy, Philip Schuster, Stephanie Swafford, and several of the people also mentioned above who believed in my creative abilities even when I wasn’t so sure and have always encouraged me to keep going.

  To Kelly Wheeler, who lovingly helped to take care of my children while I wrote. You are our family.

  To Gretchen and Peter Haight, who made it possible for me to devote myself to this project.

  To Tessa Petrich, who is a rockstar. Thank you!

  To my grandmother Ruth, who passed away just before the book was finished. You will inspire me for the rest of my life.

  To Phil Hoffman, who taught me too many things to list, but chiefly that all creative work must be personal. Oh, how I wish you were here to read this book.

  To my children, Wren and Zephyr, who show me daily how much wisdom, power, and beauty kids possess.

  To my husband, Nicholas Griffin, who complemented the efforts and impact of every single person on this list with his unwavering confidence in me; his beautiful, expansive, and creative mind and heart; and his patient wisdom. Everything this book is is because of everything you bring out in me.

  To my many extraordinary teachers, some of whom I include here by name: Beth Bosworth, Stanley Bosworth, Gail Brousal, James Busby, Manoj Chalam, Ruth Chapman, Maria Cutrona, Matthew Derby, Jonathan Elliot, Jim Halverson, Heather Hord, Victor Marchioro, Mike McGarry, Jack McShane, Barbara O’Rourke, Paul O’Rourke, Robert Perry, Bob Rubin, Leslie Thornton, Leslie Yancey, and most especially Michael Bernard Beckwith and Kelly Morris, without whose inspired teachings this book would be half of what it is.

  And lastly, to the girl who codes, who creates, who cares and fights and loves fiercely with her whole heart, to the girl who holds the entire universe in the palm of her hand, and to the rest of us who see her: I wrote this book for you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Author photo copyright © 2017 by Sara Murphy

  EMILY ZIFF GRIFFIN lives in LA, where she writes, produces, teaches, daydreams, and mothers two young kids. When she was twenty-five, she cofounded Cooper’s Town Productions with Philip Seymour Hoffman and produced the Academy Award-winning film Capote along with Hoffman’s directorial debut Jack Goes Boating, and John Slattery’s God’s Pocket. She’s run three marathons, slowly, and holds a degree from Brown University in art-semiotics, the study of how images make meaning. Light Years is her first novel. Find her at emilyziffgriffin.com.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition September 2017

  Text copyright © 2017 by Emily Ziff Griffin

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2017 by 123RF/photo5963, Thiti Adeong

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  Jacket designed by Erin Alexander

  Interior designed by Mike Rosamillia

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  ISBN 978-1-5072-0005-6 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-5072-0006-3 (eBook)