The meeting room in the hospital basement was stuffy at the best of times. Waiting an hour for Meg to appear made it seem stifling.
Frank looked at his watch for the fifth time. “She’s not coming, so what do we do?”
It wasn’t the simplest question. When they arrived the door was locked. Lilith had an extra key. They got inside, and the golden shrine had been placed where it always sat, in the middle of the table. They were baffled.
Now Galen leaned forward and laid his hand on the chapel’s smooth roof.
“What are you doing?” Frank asked. His tone wasn’t hostile. Last week’s session had melted away any rivalry. The mood was more suspenseful than anything else.
“I want to see if something happens when she’s not here,” Galen replied. “Maybe the mojo comes from Meg.”
“And?”
Galen shrugged. “Nothing.”
“I think she’s deliberately leaving us on our own,” Lilith remarked. “We should start without her.”
The group wasn’t enthusiastic about her suggestion.
Frank jumped to his feet. “We were instructed to go into the light this week. Did anyone succeed?”
Silence.
“Me neither. Meeting adjourned.”
“Wait,” Jimmy protested. “We should talk about it some more. This week was a lot better for me. I didn’t see a zombie in the mirror.”
He got a few weak smiles. No one else spoke up. Mare said what they were all starting to think. “What if she’s gone, and she’s not coming back?”
“Don’t get carried away,” Lilith said tartly. “Jimmy’s made a start. Who else wants to share their experience?” Silence. She shook her head. “This is quite peculiar,” she muttered.
“What about you?” Jimmy asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
In fact, Lilith had been dead serious all week in her search for the light. She was more ambitious than anyone else in the group, or just more driven perhaps. The disciple must have planned some extraordinary experiences for her. An illumination? A great epiphany? What would it be?
Lilith mulled this over in the big house where she and Herb lived. He had never questioned her again about things he couldn’t understand. Their two grown girls had left home for other cities, to attend graduate school or follow a job opening. They were Herb’s daughters, really. They had the same literal mind, which made them feel safe. Too safe, Lilith thought. She had been tempted many times to reveal herself to them, especially when they faced a crisis.
When Tracy, the older girl, was in high school, she was seeing a boy who suddenly began to lose weight and feel tired. She got irritated when he canceled two dates in a row. He was never home when she phoned. When they finally connected, the first thing he said was “I have bone cancer.”
The news devastated her. Lilith stood in the hallway outside Tracy’s bedroom, hearing her cry on the other side of the door. Any mother would have gone in to comfort her, but Lilith was conflicted. She didn’t feel anything for the sick boy, who was probably doomed. Malignancies progress with vicious swiftness in someone that young. Lilith turned away from the door and went downstairs.
She sat at the kitchen table, still feeling nothing. These were the years when looking into her heart made her afraid. She had a sudden impulse. She should ask why she didn’t feel what normal people felt. She silently put the question out to the void.
A voice in her head replied, Because you know. Because you can see. I will show you.
Lilith’s heart beat faster. Show me now. I’m ready.
But no more came. She was bitterly disappointed. Why was every experience a tease? She got up from the table and went up to her daughter’s room.
“Tracy, honey, are you okay? May I come in?”
The door opened, and Lilith went over and sat on the bed hugging the girl and comforting her. It went well, because Lilith had learned long ago that other people can’t read who we really are. That night, after making sure Tracy had fallen asleep, Lilith had a dream, the kind she thought of as a “special” dream. She saw the boy, Greg, lying in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of his body. He was asleep, his face pale and worn. Lilith saw him from a bird’s-eye view, as if hovering in the air over his bed.
“I’m here to take you home,” she whispered.
He stirred in his sleep and moaned softly without waking up. Then a wisp of light emerged from the top of his head. Lilith felt like his mother, tenderly coaxing him not to be afraid. The wisp of light became a silvery thread, and as it emerged, it grew longer, extending up to the ceiling. The boy in the bed stopped moaning or moving. And there the dream ended.
Tracy came home early from school the next day, her face streaked with tears. Greg had died suddenly in the hospital that night. His heart had stopped. The doctors were mystified, but they were spared from telling him that his cancer had spread so far that it was untreatable.
For days Lilith went around feeling good and bad. Good because she had gone on an errand of mercy. Bad because it was just a dream. The experience refused to go away, urging her on. But it took a long time before she screwed up the courage to visit the hospice unit at the hospital, where she proved to herself that she could actually witness someone’s spirit leave the body.
So it was true that she hadn’t seen the light that week, but the whole truth was that she had seen it many times before.
Another half hour passed in the meeting room. It was hard for the group to accept defeat.
“It’s not our fault,” said Frank. “Meg didn’t tell us enough.”
He glanced over his shoulder in case she had come through the door. “As long as Meg’s not here, I have a question for everyone. How into Jesus are we supposed to be? The scene we saw last week, it’s not in the Bible as far as I know. Do any of you have a clue where this is coming from?”
“I told you, it could be her mojo,” said Galen. He had backslid over the week. “Maybe she’s a hypnotist. Don’t look at me that way. It’s a better explanation than believing we met Jesus.”
Lilith shot him a sour look. “Bravo. Our archskeptic wants to burn a witch at the stake.”
“I didn’t say that,” Galen shot back. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
Frank shook his head. “The bottom line is none of us saw the light.”
“Then you looked in the wrong place.”
Heads turned. Meg was standing in the doorway listening. “I’m pleased at your honesty, but you gave up too soon.”
She walked in and took her place at the head of the table. “I suspected you wouldn’t succeed. For some reason that must be what the disciple intended.”
“To keep us in the dark?” asked Mare.
“She wanted you to search as hard as you could in all the ordinary places,” Meg replied, “until you realized how elusive the light really is. It’s nowhere and everywhere. It shines as brightly in a coal mine as in a cathedral.”
Their bafflement made her smile. She had a touch of the theatrical about her. “If I’d followed you around this week, how much looking would I have seen? Frank was at work, and so was Jimmy. Mare and Galen mostly watched TV and worried about not having a job. You four barely made an effort.” Turning to Lilith, she said, “But that’s not so with you, is it?”
“I told them before you came in, I didn’t see anything either,” said Lilith reluctantly.
“But you didn’t tell the whole truth. I’m sure of it.” Meg had a touch of the interrogator in her too.
“I didn’t go to the store for lightbulbs, if that’s what you mean.” Lilith’s instincts told her to guard her secret. That’s how she had survived. But Meg was waiting to hear something from her.
“There was never a special place to go. The light is the same as the presence. If you feel the presence, you are in the light,” Lilith said.
“Indeed.” Meg nodded approvingly.
“But that’s no help,” said Mare. “There was no presence outside this room.”
“That’s the mystery, when something is everywhere and nowhere,” Meg replied.
“More riddles,” Galen grumbled.
She ignored him. “Imagine, all of you, that you are a fish. You’re not satisfied being an ordinary tuna or halibut. You want to be spiritual. One day you swim to the mouth of a deep cave where a wise teacher is supposed to dwell. You don’t swim inside, in case this is just a trick and there’s a shark waiting to devour you. ‘Tell me how to find God,’ you plead. And from deep inside the cave, a low voice says, Get wet.
“‘What is this?’ you think. You ask again. ‘I desperately want to see God. Tell me the real answer.’ But the same reply rumbles from the cave: Get wet. You swim away discouraged and disappointed. You find other teachers who tell you all kinds of things to do. But in the end you never get wet, and God remains a mystery.”
Meg looked around the table. “Who sees what this parable means?”
Jimmy spoke up. “The fish is already wet, only he doesn’t know it, because all his life the water was too close.”
“Right.”
While Jimmy enjoyed the pleasure of getting the answer, Lilith argued back. “Now that we know we’re in the light, how do we actually see it?”
“With these.”
Meg held up a drugstore shopping bag. Inside were half a dozen pairs of plastic sunglasses. “One each. They’re all the same.”
Frank picked out a pair with neon-green frames. “I wore el cheapos like these to the beach when I was eight.”
“Not exactly like these,” said Meg. “Don’t analyze. Just wear them tomorrow. Agreed?” She didn’t wait for answer. The meeting came to an abrupt end as she got up and departed without a backward glance.
As he walked Mare back to her car in the parking lot, Frank twirled the plastic sunglasses in the air, like a kid with a whirligig. Something about the evening had put him in a manic mood.
“Get your God glasses here,” he shouted, imitating a carnival barker. “Don’t wait for the last trumpet, folks. It’s a downer.”
Mare didn’t do anything to stop him, but she didn’t laugh either. After the night when he held her until she fell asleep, they should have grown closer. Frank wondered why they didn’t. Maybe the mystery school was too much to handle on its own.
His manic spell vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Are we actually supposed to wear these stupid things?” It was a moonless night, too dark to try them on.
“Why not?” said Mare. “The worst that can happen is nothing.”
“I dunno. Maybe the worst is that we get sucked in too deep,” Frank said. “You really don’t mind going along, no matter what?” Now he was restless and uneasy. Every meeting left him feeling that way.
They found Mare’s car. Frank searched for an excuse to keep her from driving away. “We should talk more, about everything. Us and what’s happening.”
Mare didn’t go there. “What’s really bothering you?”
“You’re kidding. All of us should be bothered. I mean, jumping down the rabbit hole is nothing compared to this.”
“Galen’s scared too. I could see that tonight,” Mare said.
“I’m not scared,” Frank bristled. “Maybe, just maybe, he had a point about your aunt’s mojo. Our minds are being bent, and someone’s doing it.”
To his surprise, Mare said, “Let’s go to my place. You can stay the night and pick up your car in the morning.”
Frank nodded and got in on the passenger side. Ordinarily he would have been thrilled at the invitation. He was drawn to Mare, just as he had been in college. Everything physical about her was perfect in his eyes, and whenever he made her smile, he felt as though he’d scored a small victory. But she sparked his insecurity. Mare was deeper than he was, and Frank didn’t think she ever let down her guard, not completely. She spent the meetings looking on, saying little. The weirdness they were going through might not be good for her.
They were way past the stage where he would swoop in with a charm offensive. In a serious tone he said, “I meant it about getting in too deep. I’m concerned about your welfare.” As soon as the words came out, he regretted it. “I sound like your father. Sorry.”
But she didn’t mind. “I don’t worry about getting in too deep. I worry that I’m another Aunt Meg.”
He was too surprised to react right away. Despite the winter cold, the roads were clear. Frank wasn’t holding tight to the door handle, fighting the urge to grab the wheel the way he had the first time Mare drove to her apartment.
She didn’t need a response from him. “My aunt gave her life away. I don’t know what happened in the convent, but I know she’s a total outsider. I can see it in me too.”
“So we’re not eloping?”
Mare laughed. “Don’t be freaked out, but I plan on sleeping with you tonight.”
Frank’s heart skipped a beat, but his mind didn’t go, Score! He even held back. “I get the feeling I’m your lab rat. To make sure you’re still normal, not like Meg.”
“Maybe.” Mare said this in a neutral tone, keeping her eyes on the road. The pavement looked clear, but black ice is nearly invisible.
When they got to her place, events unfolded in a pattern familiar to Frank. He enjoyed undressing a woman and admiring her body, confident that she admired his too. Mare turned off the overhead bulb; she lit a candle so the room wouldn’t be dark.
They silently agreed that sex was going to be a reprieve. Thinking about the mystery school was forbidden; thinking at all was forbidden. Frank loved the caressing part of being in bed, and this wasn’t his first time or his fiftieth—he could stand apart a little, watching how a woman behaved in bed. He was considerate about giving Mare pleasure. He stayed in her as long as she wanted; he was proud that he had enough control to extend their lovemaking without rushing or stealing his own pleasure first.
What he didn’t expect was that she would draw him in so deeply or how she did it. She was a quiet lover. When she made soft sounds, they weren’t needy or selfish. She wasn’t a little girl or a pliant body submitting to his will. He couldn’t figure out what she was. The flesh took over after a certain point, and he surrendered to skin hunger, letting himself be carried away by its sensations. At the moment of climax he was alone, not united with her or anyone or anything. It wasn’t the moment to question where this feeling came from.
After the physical rapture passed, always too quickly, they kissed and held each other. Each wanted to postpone the return of ordinary existence—when someone’s arm has started to fall asleep from the head resting on it, and sweat feels a little clammy, and the bathroom calls. Frank was a realist, and lovemaking was just an interlude, a kind of midnight vacation. Would this time be more? He fell asleep thinking about it.
He woke up alone in bed. Mare was taking a shower, and the broken blinds let in bright sunlight. He had slept a long time. Sitting up, he was surprised to see the neon-green sunglasses lying on her pillow. Curious, Frank held them up. More mojo or something truly unknown? He didn’t know which was better or worse.
At that moment Mare emerged naked from the bathroom, looking beautiful and ridiculous, because she was wearing a pair of the plastic sunglasses. “Don’t laugh at me,” she said. “Just put them on.”
Frank obeyed. At first the greenish-black lenses blocked out everything. He would rather have gazed at her.
“Do you see?” Mare whispered.
“See what?”
And then he did. The air was filled with glittering gold sparks. At first they were like a shimmering mist. In a few seconds, this changed. Everything in the room started to glow, exactly like the glowing chapel.
“Awesome,” Frank murmured.
“Wait. Don’t talk,” she urged.
Nothing changed. Frank wondered if he had to focus harder. Maybe he didn’t know what to do. As soon as these doubts entered his mind, the glow faded, turning back into the misty shower of gold.
“I think we have to relax completely. That’s the secret,” said Mare, sensing what was happening.
“It’s not that easy to relax with a gorgeous naked woman in the room.”
“Then look away.”
He did, reluctantly. Now he was facing the door, and it started to glow. The effect was warm and embracing, just as it was with the chapel. Then the door was gone, and the next instant the walls. Frank gasped. He was staring at the outside world, and everything gave off a lustrous golden light—the bare trees, the dirty snow, the chain-link fence. He turned his head, and in all directions it was as if the real world had melted away, leaving only the vaguest outlines around things.
Neither of them moved. They were transfixed by the beauty. And there was another thing. The light wasn’t shining from things.
Everything was the light, and nothing but.