by Tracy Clark
The key around my neck suddenly weighed a billion pounds, and every thump of my heart felt like the key had a heartbeat. The guileful artist could easily have found a way to hide a key within the hand of St. Peter.
Piero must have taken my contemplation as an indication to leave because he shook my hand and said good-bye, leaving me standing alone with my racing thoughts.
If I couldn’t see Michelangelo’s room, where else could I look for clues as to why the church would include the Scintilla in its witch hunt? I couldn’t very well come straight out and ask Báthory if there was a modern-day witch hunt and why, though I suddenly wanted to know where the office was located and if there was any way to get in.
I made my way outside so I could call Mami Tulke to tell her about the developments and that the man I’d met had mentioned South America. Paranoid or not, I had to assume everything was a threat and keep them posted.
Ramp-like steps led down to the pavers of St. Peter’s Square. I scanned the tourists’ auras for anything peculiar or dangerous. Nothing obvious, but I continued to feel the prickling sensation of eyes on my back. To my right, St. Peter stood watch over his square as I dialed Mami Tulke’s number. Busy signal. I tried to call Giovanni’s number, and it went straight to voicemail. How many flaming-fresh-hell-hoops was I going to have to jump through?
I kept walking, approaching the obelisk straight in front of me. People were taking pictures in front of the tiered fountains that flanked the obelisk, lying on the ground to take upward pictures of the obelisk itself, and darting in all different directions. My eyes darted just as quickly. A troop of uniformed school kids marched past me in two lines. Each child had a buddy whose hand he or she clasped, creating a bubble of colorful light around their joined hands. Lovely, seeing the openhearted auras among children who hadn’t yet learned to separate their energy. It made me suddenly wonder: if we were born with no sense or reason to separate our energy, wouldn’t that mean that the most natural state to be in was one of connection with one another? It reminded me of Giovanni and the oneness conversation we had at Dr. M’s. It also made me think of Finn and the sense of inexplicable connectedness we had.
I kept moving, kept dialing South America, growing more frightened every time I redialed and was unable to get through. I stood scanning the crowd and waited a couple of minutes before dialing Mami Tulke again, getting yet another strange-sounding busy signal. “Damn,” I said, punching the end-call button on the phone. Of all times not to be able to get ahold of them…
Again, I felt like I was being watched and spun around toward the Sistine Chapel. Nothing caught my eye except the stately giant statue of St. Peter with his gold keys and his pointing finger. The more I stood there and stared at St. Peter, the odder it seemed that he wasn’t just holding the sacred keys to heaven but using his finger to point. And not up at heaven either, as one would think, but straight ahead of him, like he was pointing the way to something…earthly.
I turned and looked in the direction in which he pointed but saw nothing but a long street leading straight from the middle of the oval of St. Peter’s Square. Severely agitated by my inability to contact my grandmother or Giovanni and not sure what to do with myself, I let St. Peter lead the way.
Via della Concilazione was an incredibly straight and long street, but there didn’t seem to be anything special about it except that a great number of tourists with maps in hands and cameras around their necks headed in both directions. There had to be some kind of tourist attraction. I walked far enough that St. Peter could no longer be seen when I turned around. Following close behind four elderly women who chatted in English and cackled continuously at one another’s jokes, I soon realized what it was that drew the crowds. A sign said, Castel Sant’Angelo.
It was a castle all right, topped with a statue of an angel like a cake topper. I overheard one of the women say that the bridge, the Ponte Sant’Angelo, which spanned the Tiber River and led from the castle out to the city, used to be called Pons Sancti Petri—The Bridge of St. Peter.
Intrigued, I paid the fee to enter, took a pamphlet, and began a self-guided tour of the castle, searching for any sign that would indicate a reason I should be wandering through the ancient building, a reason for St. Peter to point to this place.
Twists and turns led inside old corridors to the atrium and a spiral ramp. I toured rooms with frescoed chambers, a theater courtyard with a door leading to the prison, and learned that Galileo had a trial at the castle once. It was fascinating to discover that there was an elevated passage leading from Castel Sant’Angelo to St. Peter’s Basilica. I spent quite a bit of time in what’s known as the Angel Courtyard, which was designed by Michelangelo, but could find nothing clue-ish. I left the courtyard frustrated and headed to the last part of the museum I hadn’t seen, the Room of the Treasuries/Room of the Library where the most secret archives and treasures of the papacy were once kept.
I entered the library first. Off the library was the Treasury Room. Nothing prepared me for what I saw there. The room was small and circular and paneled with dark wood with one small window high to my left. The floor looked like brick and was patterned in a spiral. Iron candelabras stood off to the sides. What took my breath away were the four treasure chests taking up most of the floor space in the room. One was enormous, easily seven feet tall. In front of that were two chests that reached my waist, and in front of those, the smallest chest at knee height.
My father would have been in heaven at the sight of these treasure chests. A pang of missing him, of missing our California home filled with his collection of treasure chests hit me so hard I bit my lip to keep from crying. He’d hidden the truth about my mother in one of his treasure chests. It’s where I’d found my mother’s letter to him and had cried onto the scribbled sheets, realizing for the first time ever that she hadn’t abandoned us, me. She loved me. My fingers touched her Celtic mark on my forehead, and I kissed them. It had become my way of remembering her.
No longer able to stave off the tears, I silently cried as I thought about my parents and relived their last moments, their deaths by ruthless Arrazi. Tears trickled down my cheeks, my neck, and met the chain holding the key.
Oh my God, the key! Michelangelo had a key made for a chest, and I was staring at four chests that belonged to the church. Was it possible that one of them was his?
I stepped forward with my hand outstretched.
Chapter Seventeen
Finn
“We had thieves in our family, too,” my mother said, pulling two pairs of medical gloves from a box and handing me a pair before slipping her hands into the other. What looked like a small fridge sat on top of one chest, and my mother used the same combination as the outer door to access it and pull out a large black box.
“What’s that?”
“An acid-free archival box. The outer box is temperature controlled to minimize damage to the artifact.”
“Artifact?” I said, stifling a smirk, though my curiosity was peaked. That entire room had me buzzing. Mum lifted the lid of the box and I—I couldn’t help it—I literally stepped back with my hand on my chest. “No…”
“Yes, son.”
“You realize what you have here?”
“If it is not the original cover and missing first pages from the Book of Kells, then it’s a copy. A very convincing one.”
“It’s Ireland’s national treasure, for Christ’s sake. Why? Why have you kept it? Why did someone from our family take it to begin with? I thought it had been stolen during the raids on Kells.”
“I have no answers for you. I’m showing this to you, all of this, that you might find answers that will bring peace to you. I don’t know how this came to be in our family. All but one jewel are in place, so I don’t believe it was for the value of the gems.”
“Why haven’t you turned it in?”
“What do you suggest? I leave it in a pram on the steps of Trinity College with a note? Good God, no. I haven’t relinquished it
for one simple reason: I believe it was taken and kept in our family for a purpose, and that it should remain in the family until that reason is discovered.”
“Stolen artifacts… Can we call ourselves different from Ultana Lennon, then?”
My mum was the Queen of Derisive Looks, but this look won out. “In this respect, we can’t.” She waved her arm toward the desk. “There’s a computer here as well, in case you want to look something up. I know it’s come in handy for me a fair few times. Have your time with the book, but mind your handling of it, and put it back the way we found it.”
“Aye, Mummy. Can you pat me on the head and bring me my bottle like a wee lad while you’re at it? Only put some whiskey in it, aye? It’s the water of life, after all.”
Her eyebrow arched at me. “Mind the security cameras before leaving so you’re not seen by your father or Mary.” With no other words, my mother left me in that secret Mulcarr family vault, and my search began. I started with the book, of course. I’d read that some stolen pages were recovered under sod but that the cover and a few pages were never found. This cover either was never buried under soil, or had been meticulously cleaned if it was. It was in impeccable condition.
The cover was rigid, with weight to it, possibly a thin cutting of wood. It was probably the most beautiful thing I’d ever had my hands on besides Cora. The design stunned me, drove me nearly mad with the desire to understand its significance.
Gold metalwork decorated the cover, and a series of tacks held the metal in place along the sides of the wood. The gold was embossed with intricate designs. Three of the corners had a lovely Celtic knot with a different delicate jewel. Only one corner was missing its gem. There were triskele spirals linked together in threes around the entire border. Emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and even small pearls decorated the cover. The jewels glittered in the light as if they’d been lonely for it.
The largest gilded relief was in the middle of the cover.
The triple spiral.
Each of the three spirals had a large jewel encased in the center. I wished so badly that Cora was with me to see it. To touch it. I wondered how on earth I could get it to her. She could see more with her hands than I could with my eyes.
One thing was certain: the spiral was a very old and important symbol, and now I understood why it was so significant to my mum and to our family. Cora and her mother thought they were an important clue to our shared past. I believed that to be true, now more than ever.
The fact that the spirals were so often clustered in threes, especially on a document like the Book of Kells, could signify the trinity. But I kept reminding myself that spirals were around long before people sat around and decided what would go into their holy books.
With a delicate touch, I turned the cover.
The ornate inscription on the first page of vellum, the title page, was written in Latin and said: Nere Ponentus Tenebras Lucem.
I gently lifted that page and turned it over. More surprising than the triple spiral being on the front of the Book of Kells was the illustration on the first page. Drawn on a background of saturated hues of deep reds and rich blues, and taking up nearly the whole page, was a hexagram, beautifully sketched with one triangle facing upward in gold, the other facing down in silver.
My brain whirred with questions, trying to make connections. Recently, the symbol had come up a lot. The rock my father gave me after I returned home from attempting to die on my boat was painted with the shatkona upon it—an ancient Indian symbol for the union of opposites—that phrase again—also fire and water in alchemy, or male and female. It represented Sefirah Tifaret…perfection. Also, divine union.
Maybe it was bloody ignorant of me, but I was surprised to see it in this book. After staring into space for a few minutes, I rolled my chair over to the computer and logged on to educate myself about the design that I’d always assumed was a symbol of Judaism.
I was wrong. The hexagram was one of the most universal spiritual symbols in all of recorded time. Pictures of engravings from the oldest known civilization in Sumeria had star clusters believed to be the hexagram. It was everywhere: Japanese shrines from the fifth century BCE and ancient sites and artifacts from countries as varied as Sri Lanka, India, Greece, Egypt, Mexico, and Rome. It was all over Rome, in actual fact, including St. Peter’s Basilica. An aerial view of Vatican City showed that the property of the Vatican museum called the Castel Sant’ Angelo was in the exact shape of the six-pointed star.
It had been employed by the Freemasons and was even on the Seal of the United States. Surprisingly, I learned that it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that it was adopted as a Jewish icon, a relatively new incarnation of the ancient symbol.
In the lost pages of this famous book, the hexagram joined hands with the spiral and stood together, two of the most enduring symbols in all of mankind. I had to find out what they had in common.
Being as careful as I could, I put the manuscript back in the black box and tucked it safely away in its controlled environment, but not without first looking up the Latin inscription on the title page.
It translated as: Spinning…or turning…darkness into light.
I hadn’t opened a single cabinet drawer and yet I felt I’d touched on something vital. Only I couldn’t say exactly what, and that was the most maddening part.
“It’s been over two hours,” my mother said, setting a sandwich and a halfer of whiskey on the desk in front of me. I looked up at her in surprise. “Your water of life, luv.” Her brows lifted in an uncharacteristic show of humor. But it was her words that set me to deeper pondering. I thanked her and left the room momentarily to find a sketchpad and a pencil. I felt like my head might explode from holding too much random information at one time. I needed to purge it. I needed to make connections.
I pulled out a paper and began to diagram some of the findings in all of my searching and to frantically draw arrows to see how the scraps of information connected.
When I was done, I slumped back in the chair and closed my tired eyes. The thrum of excitement and discovery was too potent. My feet tapped like they did before a gig. I might have just stumbled upon the mother of all family secrets and a vital hint to the Arrazi’s past. I had to get the jeweled cover into Cora’s hands.
Chapter Eighteen
Giovanni
The quake had been wicked and destructive.
Inside Mami Tulke’s house, the floors were strewn with broken shards of fallen pottery, frames lying face down after having fallen from the walls, and toppled lamps. La Serena had been hardest hit. According to the only radio station we could access after searching for batteries to fit an ancient radio Mami Tulke unearthed from a closet, tsunami warnings were in effect along the coast. Boulders from the mountains above were scattered across the road like chess pieces swiped to the floor by the arm of an angry giant. None of us slept after the first one hit, and we’d spent the morning cleaning up debris inside the house—in between aftershocks.
Just as Benito Sandoval had predicted, natural disasters were striking harder and more often.
Claire sat in my lap as we drove toward Mami Tulke’s secret community disguised as a New Age commune. In the early morning quiet, the sound of the river that quenched the farms and vineyards of the valley was much more noticeable. My daughter looked up at me often for reassurance, her eyes crackling with questions. Since the major quake the night before, a series of aftershocks kept all of us rattled, and Claire hadn’t wanted to leave my side. Mami Tulke said that aftershocks could continue for a few weeks after a quake. Claire lay her palm atop my open palm. My little girl’s hand was so tiny inside mine. A swell of love surprised me. Sad to be surprised to ever trust someone and then to ever love anyone again.
Cora cracked me open, and Claire snuck in behind her.
When the golf cart could go no farther because of a fallen tree clawing at the ground from both ends, Mami Tulke parked, donned a wide hat, and we set off to walk the rest of the
way. I hoped the restless earth had settled enough for it to be safe outside with Claire. Mami Tulke was her typical unflappable self, announcing that in Chile, earthquakes were as common as pisco drinkers, though her eyes said that this quake wasn’t so common.
I was uneasy. It seemed strange that at the moment I was pondering Cora’s father’s theories about earth’s natural disasters, one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history struck Chile. The phone lines were still down. If Cora heard about it, she’d have to be worried sick. Maybe it would be enough to lure her home to us.
Claire grew agitated as we approached the houses and buildings of “the ranch.” She shook her head in a way that reminded me of a blind person seemingly feeling for frequencies. I didn’t know what to do for her. Mami Tulke noticed, too, and told me there was someone at the ranch who used their sortilege as a healer who might be able to help.
The savory smell of roasting meat wafted up the path and teased us the rest of the way to the village. Claire’s hand was damp in mine, but honestly, I didn’t know if it was her or me. I had mild trepidation at seeing Will again. He’d obviously been shaken up by our conversation, enough so to call Mami Tulke and whine about it. I still couldn’t regret telling him the truth, but some lobsters need the heat to be turned up slowly.
From our elevated path, I saw that someone had created a large labyrinth out of rocks in the shape of the triple spiral, and a lone figure was winding her way through it. The path took us past the large vegetable and fruit plots and onto the main, wider dirt path through the community. Small piles of broken things and rubble sat outside each home, and two teen boys, twins, loaded pile after pile into a wagon. They looked up at us as we approached and started whispering to each other with sideways glances.
Word had spread.
It was obvious from the looks from the people—the upward tilts of chins giving me props, or the sideways glances of the fearful and guarded. I’d lived my life reading expressions and auras. I could line them up by supporters and dissenters just by their auras. Mami Tulke obviously saw it, too. She slanted her eyes at me from under her straw hat.