Summer of Love, a Time Travel Read online

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  BAST

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  Summer of Love, A Time Travel

  Lisa Mason

  This is an ebook adaptation of Lisa Mason’s Bantam classic Summer of Love. A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book of the Year.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously, without any intent to describe their actual conduct.

  Copyright © 2010 by Lisa Mason.

  Cover art and drawings copyright © 2010 by Tom Robinson.

  All rights reserved.

  Permission to reprint material by Allen Cohen and Lenore Kandel is gratefully acknowledged.

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bast Books ebook edition published May 2010

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-578-05897-9

  For information address:

  Bast Books

  [email protected]

  Thank you for your readership! Visit me at my Official Web Site for more about my books, screenplays, and stories. Enjoy!

  Lisa Mason

  Praise for Books by Lisa Mason

  The Gilded Age, A Time Travel

  A New York Times Notable Book

  A New York Public Library Recommended Book

  Sequel to Summer of Love, A Time Travel

  “A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Should both leave the reader wanting more and solidify Mason’s position as one of the most interesting writers in science fiction.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Rollicking…Dazzling…Mason’s characters are just as endearing as her world.”

  —Locus

  “Graceful prose… A complex and satisfying plot.”

  —Library Journal

  Summer of Love, A Time Travel

  A San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book of the Year

  A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist

  Prequel to The Gilded Age, a Time Travel

  “Remarkable… .a whole array of beautifully portrayed characters along the spectrum from outright heroism to villainy… .not what you expected of a book with flowers in its hair… the intellect on display within these psychedelically packaged pages is clear-sighted, witty, and wise.”

  —Locus

  “A fine novel packed with vivid detail, colorful characters, and genuine insight.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Captures the moment perfectly and offers a tantalizing glimpse of its wonderful and terrible consequences.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Brilliantly crafted… .An engrossing tale spun round a very clever concept.”

  —Katharine Kerr, author of Days of Air and Darkness

  “Just imagine The Terminator in love beads, set in the Haight-Ashbury ‘hood of 1967.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Mason has an astonishing gift. Her characters almost walk off the page. And the story is as significant as anyone could wish. This book will surely be on the prize ballots.”

  —Analog

  “A priority purchase.”

  —Library Journal

  The Garden of Abracadabra

  Lisa Mason’s Urban Fantasy, THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series is also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY, Book I: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3: The Right Road.

  “So refreshing! This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

  This is dedicated to people everywhere with truthful vision, loving hearts,

  belief in liberty, and joyful lives,

  and to Tom, Alana, Luna, Ara, Sita, and all the beautiful cats.

  TENETS OF THE GRANDMOTHER PRINCIPLE

  [Developed for tachyportation projects approved by

  the Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications]

  Tenet One: You cannot kill any of your lineal ancestors prior to his or her historical death.

  Tenet Two: You cannot prevent the death of any of your lineal ancestors.

  Tenet Three: You cannot affect any person in the past, including aiding, abetting, coercing, deceiving, deterring, killing, or saving him or her (except as authorized by the project directors).

  Tenet Four: You cannot affect the world in the past.

  Tenet Five: You cannot reveal your identity as a time traveler to any person in the past, including yourself.

  Tenet Six: You cannot reveal the future of any person in the past, including yourself.

  Tenet Seven: You cannot apply modern technologies to past events or people, except when the result conforms to the Archives and, in that case, you cannot leave evidence of modern technologies in the past.

  The CTL Peril: You are capable of dying in the past, including your personal past. If this occurs, the project is transformed from an Open Time Loop (OTL) to a Closed Time Loop (CTL).

  You cannot escape a CTL.

  Contents

  June 21, 1967

  Celebration of the Summer Solstice

  1 She’s Leaving Home

  2 Do You Believe in Magic?

  3 Somebody to Love

  July 1, 1967

  Festival of Growing Things

  4 Foxy Lady

  5 White Rabbit

  6 Purple Haze

  July 9, 1967

  A Dog Day

  7 There Is a Mountain

  8 Ball and Chain

  9 Strawberry Fields Forever

  July 27, 1967

  Rumors

  10 Dedicated to the One I Love

  11 Sunshine Superman

  12 A Whiter Shade of Pale

  August 8, 1967

  Inquest for the Ungrateful Dead

  13 Are You Experienced?

  14 Piece of My Heart

  15 Over Under Sideways Down

  August 28, 1967

  Chocolate George’s Wake

  16 Penny Lane

  17 Light My Fire

  18 With a Little Help from My Friends

  September 4, 1967

  A New Moon in Virgo

  19 Hello Goodbye

  20 Brown-Eyed Girl

  21 If You’re Going to San Francisco

  June 21, 1967

  Celebration

  of the

  Summer Solstice

  1

  She’s Leaving Home

  Susan Bell clings for dear life to a Ford flatbed truck five years older than she is. Jig-jig-jig up Twin Peaks. High in the hills. Five-thirty A.M. San Francisco slumbering at her toes. Pitch-black beyond feeble streetlights. West wind from the ocean, salt scent of sea dragons. Never smelled anything like it in Cleveland. Wild and free, oh the sea, the sea.

  Bone-chill, teeth chattering. Her butt’s really sore, three hours or more on Pan Am flight 153. Now bouncing on the flatbed, she feels frostbit all over. Her eyelids sag with fatigue. It was a frantic all-nighter, her daring escape from the oppression of Shaker Heights, Ohio.

  “Beam me up!” cries a skinny girl in a cowboy hat.

  “Om mani padme hum,” chants a shaved-bald boy in a long, orange robe.

  “Purple haze,” warbles a guy with a big blond ‘fro.

  A transistor radio blares, “If you’re going to San Francisco… .”

  A flag flaps above her, a tie-dyed bed-sheet stapled to a stick. Must be twenty kids jammed onto the flatbed. A scent-fest all their
own: patchouli oil, sour sweat, musty second-hand velvet, sexy leather.

  Grass? Sharp smoke pinches Susan’s nose. She knows that pinch. Last spring she and Nance caught Nance’s big brother with some. Dave wouldn’t give them a hit, but Nance’s cousin Don turned them on to a joint, which they toked, coughing and choking, to Rubber Soul. It was okay, not great. Same for the music. That stuff about a guy threatening to kill a girl if she sees another guy. Gross. She barely got a buzz, but Mom and Daddy would turn forty shades of pale if they found out.

  Susan looks around. Who’s got a joint?

  Some kids are making music, ringing cowbells, clinging finger cymbals, warbling on a flute, strumming awkward chords on an acoustic guitar. Someone sick off the starboard bow, Captain Kirk.

  Susan clutches the leather purse her parents had given her for Christmas and a blue canvas overnight bag. Teddy bear comforts, familiar and safe. The purse holds a hundred-and-fifty bucks, the overnight bag another hundred-twenty and change. Her under-the-table wages earned after school at Mr. G’s art supply store. Plus the hundred-dollar bill for when Mr. G pressed his hand on her tummy, down low, asking if she’d gotten her first period yet. The worst of it was, she just had.

  Wouldn’t Daddy, with his groovy new dentist’s office, flip his lid if he found out a dirty old shopkeeper had felt up his daughter. Well. That was just one more thing Daddy would never find out. He’d make things worse for her than for Mr. G. She would be equally to blame, if not more so. She always was.

  The driver of the flatbed truck slammed on the brakes just as she’d stepped off the 6 Parnassus bus running a red-eye down Market Street. He called out, “Hey, you. Chick with the bag. What’s your name?”

  Susan shivered, terrified and thrilled. What’s her name? She was ready with the alias Nance had scrawled on the postcard. Clever Nance. When they were little kids, they always wished on the first star of the evening. Like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio.

  “I’m Starbright,” she called back.

  “Far out,” the driver said. “Climb aboard, Starbright. You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”

  On the bus, off the bus? She didn’t understand, but she climbed aboard anyway with an unruly, chortling horde barreling through the dawn like there’s no tomorrow.

  “Baby, we’re gonna see the sun rise.”

  “Celebrate the Solstice.”

  “It’s the start of summer, man.”

  Now they crest Twin Peaks, top of the town. The truck sputters off, and the kids all pile out. Bongo drums quicken Susan’s pulse. Plum incense spices the scent of sea dragons. People everywhere; so many! There must be a thousand or more milling in the morning mist.

  Susan’s never seen anything like it!

  Oh, she and Nance used to sneak away to Coventry Street where the boys slicked down their Beatle bangs and the girls in miniskirts showed off their hot pink tights. Cool for Cleveland.

  But these people! Who are they?

  People stranger than the space aliens on Star Trek. The Lone Ranger stalks past in a fringed jacket and a Stetson hat. Another man fusses with his jewelry. Not the cuff links, tie tack, and plain gold wedding band Daddy wears. This man—a man!—is bedecked in beads, dangling earrings, silver rings on every finger. A banshee brushes by. No hair-spray for her, no mod-white lipstick. Omigod—and no undergarments, either, beneath her silky sheer dress. Susan lowers her eyes; nipples, a crotch. Other women climb the hill in buckskin shifts or Hindu saris, feathered headdresses, gypsy scarves of red and purple.

  Other people stride through the crowd, too. Guys in mod suits balance hulking, long-snouted movie cameras on their shoulders, jot notes on clipboards, whisper into microphones with looping wires plugged into reel-to-reel recorders the size of Susan’s overnight bag.

  The fringed and feathered folk ignore the cameramen with regal disdain or pose with extravagant gestures.

  An electronic eye whirls into Susan’s face. “We’re from Hollywood, babe,” says a guy with fluffy sideburns from ears to chin. “I’m a producer, we’re making a flick. You wanna take off your top? Come on, let’s see some titties.”

  Gross! Susan is stunned. He’s looking at her—at her—like she’s a space alien, too, and she’ll be watching herself on Star Trek reruns on TV tonight. She hides her face with her hand. The enormity of her daring escape strikes her for the first time—what if Mom and Daddy see me on TV?

  Her breath catches, and she darts away from the cameras, away from the crowd, seeking refuge in the shadows west of Twin Peaks. When she’s alone at last, she stops, heart thudding, and glances down the hillside.

  A girl in a long, black cape stands downslope in the dim dawn light and swirling fog. Over her head she’s drawn a large peaked hood, hiding her face and her hair.

  The moment Susan sees her, the girl stirs, turns, and looks up at her. In another heart-thud, Susan sees it’s like looking in a mirror.

  Suddenly she’s awake, and there’s no mistake. It’s her. Her own face looks back at her from beneath the hood.

  The girl smiles, teeth glinting, but it’s all wrong. Little upside-down triangles glitter beneath her lip. Her eyes glow like red-hot coals, but a freezing breeze blows upslope. Her cape billows, sweeping curves and sharp points like the wings of a bat. A blackness deeper than the receding night forms an aureole around her, as though she stands in the mouth of a cave in the hillside.

  But no, not a cave. Gleaming panels surround the girl like the hull of a machine, pulse into view for a moment, then fade away. Weird electricity crackles, black sparks sputter.

  The girl with her face holds a rod or a staff in her left hand. She slowly raises it and points the knob on top at Susan.

  Bitter cold surrounds Susan. An odd force like invisible fingers pulls at her.

  Pulling her forward.

  Pulling her down.

  Confused, Susan takes a step, and the hillside falls away beneath her feet.

  Oh! She scrambles for a foothold, clawing at the dirt. Her purse bangs against her thigh. Through sheer luck, the strap of the overnight bag snags on a sapling tough enough to hold her. She digs in her heels, halting her fall before the hillside angles away to nothing. Scratches, scrabbles up the slope, pure fear propelling her. She hoists herself back onto the ledge.

  The girl watches, then steps back into the fog.

  And disappears.

  God! What was that?

  Susan gathers up her purse and bag, and runs, mouth dry and hands shaking.

  Upslope, to the dawn side, where people are gathering and chanting and laughing. Pink sunbeams filter through the fog as the solar fireball edges up over the forests on the eastern hills. People shriek and sigh as if they’ve never seen the sun rise before. Cameras click and whir. A firework rocket arcs up, and flares form red and white blossoms of light.

  “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.”

  “Oooom.”

  “Wheeee!”

  “Hey, Charlie,” someone says. “Do it, Charlie.”

  A mustachioed man stands before the crowd like a makeshift priest, sporting a necklace of chicken leg bones strung with a carved wood ankh. He beckons toward the sun and proclaims in a voice thick with wonder and joy,

  “Let the Summer of Love begin!”

  Weather Report

  This Summer, the youth of the world are making a holy pilgrimage to our city to affirm and celebrate a new spiritual dawn. The Summer of Love is a family and a seed-bearer.

  We carry to you this message:

  Our nation’s youth who have given birth to the Haight-Ashbury are but a small part of a worldwide spiritual awakening. Our city has become the momentary focus of this awakening. The reasons for this do not matter. It is a gift from God which we take, nourish, and treasure.

  The facts are these: many thousands of young people, our children, our brothers, and our sisters will soon arrive in this city.

  They seek meaning.

  There will be great celebrati
ons all Summer long, celebrations which affirm the universal values of Love, Peace, and Self-Knowledge.

  We call upon the world to help us celebrate the infinite holiness of Life.

  “Proclamation of the Council for a Summer of Love,”

  The San Francisco Oracle, Vol. 1, No. 8 (June, 1967)

  “Say hey, Professor Zoom. Check it out. Flower children,” the man says. A brash baritone, a smoker’s throat.

  His voice slides into Susan’s uneasy dreams. She’s falling, grasping, trying to hold on. Onto what? Her eyes pop open, then flutter shut against the sunlight. She peeks through purple lashes.

  “Seek and ye shall find, Stan the Man,” says Professor Zoom. A somnolent chuckle, a flat affect like Jack Webb on Dragnet. Just the facts, ma’am. “You always do. The roving eye, et cetera. A jug of juice, a wad of bread, and sweet pretty pussy.”

  Laughter. Men, not boys.

  Voices shout nearby, “Turn on the world!” Susan peeks again. A huge canvas balloon painted like the Earth bounces high against the thin blue sky, landing and rebounding onto people’s outstretched hands.

  “Rise and shine, wild things,” says Stan the Man. Mock daddy scold. He notices her stirring, apparently. “Say hey, foxy lady awakes.”

  “Sweet pretty pussy in droves and droves.” Professor Zoom drifts away, chuckling like the pull of a saw through wood. Muttering, “Verily, in droves and droves.”

  Noon; is it really noon? Must be. The solstice sun rides high in the sky. Susan nestles on the flatbed truck against the girl in the cowboy hat, the shaved-bald boy, and another girl she’s never seen before curled up in a poncho, her face buried in yellow wool. Strangers several baths short of clean. When did she fall asleep? She can’t remember. The other kids snore on, heedless of the flatbed’s rock-hard floor.

  Susan sits up, shivering, and checks her purse and overnight bag at once, the inside pockets where she hid her cash. Her spine and ribs ache worse than three summers ago when she and Nance camped out in her backyard and saw a great, glossy raccoon prying the lid off their can of Cheerios.