Chapter 1
Brutal things happen on the most beautiful days.
The sun no longer beat down on Moro Ridge Road at 6:15 in the afternoon, instead hanging over the ocean to the west, glaring at intervals from behind jutting ridges of bleached rock and gnarled coastal scrub. Crystal Cove State Park was empty because it was Easter Sunday, and Frances Cohn—Frannie to Noreen Swail, her only companion today—figured they were the luckier for it. If they made bikes that could go off the concrete road and up into the rocks she would have veered off with Noreen and zoomed down the ridges, zipping around scrub like a skier around trees. She pictured the descent, the jolt of rocks and the swoop of tiny hills and valleys and picked up her pace. It was their twenty-fifth mile.
Maybe Noreen was getting tired, but probably not. Every Sunday, the Laguna Beach Girls Cycling Club rode thirty to forty miles, starting at the Laguna Beach High School and heading up Ocean Highway, past giant cars swaying with their own bulk on the road, then up into the park, as far as the paved road would take them. Noreen was one of LBHS’ strongest athletes, and Frannie competed with her for who got winded the least.
Cycling was the most.
Usually there were ten or twelve girls, but for Easter everyone had begged off except Noreen. “Believe me, Frannie,” she had said. “By the afternoon I’ll be wanting to get out of there.” Noreen had five little brothers and a forty-mile ride was just the thing after a day of Easter egg hunts and decorating.
“So, what about egg soup?” Frannie asked.
“What?” Noreen asked, pulling closer. The wind was picking up, unseasonably hot, flying in from the Mojave, the Santa Ana winds that made the hairs on Frannie’s arms itch as the sweat boiled right off.
“Do you do egg soup?”
“No, for Pete’s sake. All the eggs are boiled.”
“So egg salad.”
“Egg salad, absolutely,” said Noreen. “Come over tomorrow and I’ll give you a couple casserole dishes of it.”
“Deal.” Frannie gave her pal a thumbs-up sign and dropping into 4th gear as the road pitched up for a quarter mile. She had a Passover meal with her folks and her uncle, but she’d make a stop at Noreen’s somehow.
At home, Frannie thought, her mom probably had a whole feast for her pop and his students from the University who were all over to talk about literature—he had been waving around a gray canister of The Golem, a crazy old silent movie he loved to show, and she figured he would show it and talk legends. She had been to a couple of these parties. About now, in the old movie, the old wizard would be asking a risen devil to breathe life into a big lump of clay, to make a hero to protect the chosen people.
Not a foolproof plan, unless the old wizard wanted a big clay Frankenstein lumbering around scaring people.
Frannie preferred a ride over a movie any day. “I’ll have my mom send a bunch of knishes.”
“Well, I knew we let you in the club for something.”
Frannie laughed and thanked God that they had let her in the cycling club. She had been in California for two months and this was her reason for living now, riding the hot mountains with girls on bikes.
They turned right as they topped the ridge and a rabbit zoomed across the road, daring them to flatten it. “Thank you for coming out today,” Frannie called, watching the white tail disappear behind some rocks.
“You talking to the rabbit or me?” Noreen called.
“Both.”
A state park truck, a white Ford Ranger with a California seal, appeared far below and started moving up the road towards them. Noreen pulled in front then, making a single file on the right side of the road.
“Ah, I wouldn’t let you do it alone.” Noreen pumped those legs of hers that made her so famous at school and that would surely do her even prouder on the beach. Frannie had never seen a California beach in summer with all that entailed. She wasn’t looking forward to it. She felt like a living scarecrow next to Noreen, skinny and small. Thank God for friends who didn’t care about that jazz.
Without Noreen, Frannie wouldn’t have known what to do in a school that was so different from Brooklyn that she may as well be on Mars. For a moment Frannie looked out at the concrete road, long and blank and waiting. Like it was nothing until she rode over it, like her life was blank and it could be miserable and alone or a friend could walk in and then it’s full of adventure and sun.
Whiteness filled her vision and she blinked it away.
A deep mechanical bleating burst through the air and Frannie looked down the hill to see a motorcycle come flying over a hill, looking to connect with Moro Ridge Road. Frannie saw the rider’s brown helmet and arms wobbling as he entered the road and the state pickup veered left instead of right.
Noreen gasped and went off the road and hit a rock and for a moment Frannie saw Noreen tumble headlong. A split second’s image of blood, flying in a spattering arc. Frannie felt a surge of shooting empathetic pain, her skin tingling under the hot wind. She tore her eyes back to the road, too late. She had a brief moment to brake and then she was partly stopped and partly flying.
The white hood of the truck filled her vision, blankness stretching endlessly before her body came to a sudden halt.
Chapter 2
She saw the Golem of Prague.
Frances Cohn soared across a space of white, endless and undulating. She cast a shadow that flowed over the whiteness and made visible recesses, the shadows licking letters into view, lines of writing she could not read, until the meaningless writing went away and one word floated, white on white: Emet, truth.
A figure, the golem, rose up in her vision, gray and crackling like old film, standing in the sea of white. He was a man of clay, his arms wide, and the word Emet shone on his forehead and his eyes burned and spewed out curls of white smoke.
Here to save us, she thought, here to guard us, here to lead us out of the darkness. The golem watched her, and she began to tumble, drifting. The sea of white had an edge now and she was sliding towards it.
Come back, the golem said. Come back to the truth. Can you hear me?
She felt her feet hit the white ocean and she was sliding, sliding towards the edge, reaching back to grab on to nothing and the edge was coming fast, nothingness.
Another voice: your story is done. There is no shame in closing the book when the story is done.
But the golem was still in her view, reaching down, the whiteness splashing around his giant clay hands. That voice lies. That voice fools. Come back to the truth. Come back to Emet.
Can you hear me?
Frannie, can you hear me?
And she awoke.
Chapter 3
“Frannie, can you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you.” Frannie blinked and rubbed her eye, wincing as the stitches on her forehead throbbed. She focused on her mother at the edge of the hospital bed and turned a little away from the sun pouring through white window shades. The calendar and the clock on her nightstand saw that it was Tuesday, two weeks after the accident. “I was just sleeping.” She cast her eyes over her mother. “Your blouse is pretty.”
Sally Cohn pursed her lips in an apologetic half-smile, smoothing down her cream silk top. “I’m supposed to give a lecture later.” Mom reached out a thin arm and brushed back a few strands of Frannie’s hair. “Oh, that’s looking good.”