Eye Light

By Judie Gerber

A witness to seemingly impossible events relating to the lost continent of Lemuria, a biophysics graduate student must find and face the shocking truth about a haunting summer a decade ago before his genius leads him to insanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seachild
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780978788155

Book preview

Chapter One

Beware of Wild Horses

At the wheel of a muddied jeep, teary Trish, a crazed, twenty-three-year-old babe with more passion than sense, speeds recklessly on the barely-two-lane Easter Island road toward Rano Raraku quarry, birthplace of the famous moai statues.

In the passenger seat with his sinewy arms crossed over his chest, seething Ryan Chance—an unshaven and gaunt twenty-one-year-old clearly at the end of his frayed rope—casts his desperate eyes over the dangerously-close edge of the cliff to the gorgeous beach below.

The place of your boyhood dreams, Trish quips sarcastically. Having fun yet? Her angry eyes flit between unresponsive Ryan and the narrow road ahead. Okay. I lied. I was confused and scared.

Swallowing hard, Ryan sits ramrod straight with hurt in his eyes.

It was four years ago, Trish chides. Let it go. She swerves around a large pothole. For God’s sake, Ryan. We were stupid teenagers with undeveloped brains. Trish drives into a pothole-crater, careens off-road, and quickly rights the jeep as if she knows what she’s doing.

Exasperated, Ryan turns to face her. I think you just finally answered my unanswered question, he snaps. Thank you.

You should understand how screwed up I was after reading those books—

Poor Trish. So messed up, she had to drop out—

I apologize for not saying a proper good-bye! Trish barks. That was rude. She smacks the steering wheel. Dammit! I came back because I found something and haven’t had a chance to tell you because you keep harping—

Ahead, wild horses gallop across the road.

Watch out! Ryan shouts.

Trish loses control of the jeep and it veers toward the cliff. As the passenger side smashes into a boulder at the edge, Ryan’s head hits the dashboard. Trish kills the engine. His forehead bloody, Ryan slumps unconscious.

Brakes screech as a tour bus pulls up. The driver talks urgently on a phone. A native tour guide hurries out the bus door.

Ryan? Trish asks with concern.

No doubt about it, Ryan is out to lunch.

The tour guide races over to the jeep. Trish appears to be uninjured physically. The guide examines the gash on Ryan’s head. Help is on the way, she assures frightened Trish.

This is my fault, Trish despairs.

This is Spirit. Everything is Spirit, the tour guide offers, placing a comforting hand on Trish’s back. May the spirits who walk this island help you find peace in your soul.

Trish places her hand on Ryan’s chest and cries. Perhaps it would’ve been best if she hadn’t resurfaced in his life a week ago? But that wasn’t really an option.

Chapter Two

That Magical Twenty-First

Not a soul out and about on the blissful early Sunday morning one week before the Easter Island trip, which isn’t on anyone’s radar at the moment. All is calm on the California university campus.

In a row of tidy student houses, a derelict two-story with "21" painted in a rainbow of colors on the garage door stands out from the rest. In the front yard, a sprinkler waters beer bottles, lawn chairs, pizza boxes, and the unbagged Sunday paper. Out back, a garden shed floats in the pool. Inside the party house, sleeping college students fill the trashed living room, with the exception of wide-awake Denny, not a day over twenty-two, sprawled in a recliner near the front door, softly tuning his guitar. Trampled garbage and cake carpet the stairs to the upstairs bedrooms.

Inside the first bedroom on the landing, a packed duffel bag sits on the perfectly made bed, and twenty-first birthday cards are arranged just so on the highly organized desk. Around the perimeter of the immaculate space, shelves of books on biophysics, engineering, medicine, and psychoacoustics line the walls.

Scruffy, wet Ryan emerges from the bathroom in his underwear. He’s got some ribs showing and black bags under his eyes. Drying his hair with a towel, he scans the room expectantly, pauses, and frowns. On the bedside table, beside the framed sketch of a boy, a wine glass with a phone number scrawled in lipstick catches his eye. Ryan’s face contorts in pain. He quickly throws on his clothes, grabs the duffel bag, and walks out.

Ryan sneaks down the stairs to the living room, but his clean get-away is interrupted by Denny, who softly strums a jazzy birthday riff. Was that a phenomenal party or what? Denny sings in a low voice.

You’re the best, Denny, Ryan remarks. Merci beaucoup.

Denny grins slyly and peers up the stairs. I’m pretty sure you had female company last night, he prods.

What would you know? You were blitzed. Ryan shifts uncomfortably.

So, today’s the family party. You gonna tell’em?

Tell’em what?

Whatever the hell’s been bugging you. Denny gets dead serious. You’ve been weird lately, and now you’re blowing off a coveted scholarship that any biophysics major would die for. Moi included.

Ryan tramps out the front door. Denny leaps up and follows him out to the driveway. Ryan tosses his bag into the back of his truck.

Who was the babe you disappeared with last night? Denny persists.

What did you guys name the band?

Anti-Gravity, Denny replies impatiently. Who was she?

Ryan climbs in his truck and starts the engine.

It was Trish, wasn’t it? Denny demands to know.

Thanks in advance for cleaning up, Ryan offers.

It’s part of the deal when my best friend comes of age. So, don’t screw it up. You’re the smartest guy I know, but you have a lot to learn—

I need to learn things that aren’t taught in graduate school.

Denny scowls as Ryan reverses out of the driveway. That chick is bad news, Denny warns. I was there for the aftermath four years ago. Remember that?

Aren’t you supposed to be defining electricity or looking for a crack in the universe or something? Ryan quips.

That’s your job, Chance, Denny grumbles.

The two tip imaginary hats.

Don’t do anything stupid, Denny cautions.

Their eyes lock. Ryan drives away.

Chapter Three

A Rare Connection at Swan Mansion

After two hours on the highway, Ryan drives slowly through the charming streets of Chariot and parks his truck at the turnoff to Olive Lane, a shady dead-end road with three homes along one side. The first two houses are modest compared to the mansion at the end. On the opposite side of the lane, Olive Park resides beyond a row of century-old eucalyptus trees and a wooden fence. Across the park’s far boundary, a little white church nestles peacefully.

Working up the nerve to go home, Ryan sits in his truck and stares out the window. A bluebird preens on the hood. She cocks her dainty head at Ryan, and then flutters away, up the lane, back in time, to a day eleven years ago.

WITH A FLOWER IN HER beak, the bluebird glides above the line of eucalyptus to the mansion. On the roof, the bird settles in her nest at the edge of a stained-glass skylight in the shape of a giant eye, its huge pupil composed of many shades of blue glass. The bluebird embeds her flower in the nest wall, then casts her eyes below at the two young boys running up the front walkway.

Inside the front door, the foyer of Swan mansion—filled with dazzling floral arrangements and crowned by a crystal chandelier—branches into the living room, kitchen, and the staircase to upstairs.

Jayden Swan, a confident twelve-year-old boy, races ten-year-old Ryan Chance—a dead ringer for the boy in the sketch on Ryan’s bedside table at university—to the hall at the top of the stairs. The boys tiptoe past the open door of an office, where Jayden’s distraught mother, forty-five-year-old Sophia, an opinionated French woman as relentless as they come, stands and sifts through lab results. Seated at her cluttered desk in a crisp suit, charming Dr. Arbuckle, fiftyish, a man married only to medicine, writes in a medical chart.

Sophia’s office is a mess of books on autism