Callie jolted awake to find herself standing naked, not in Hammond Castle but in Paul’s room, the candle not extinguished but still burning. He lay as still as stone, his bare muscled shoulders above the blankets, his eyes watching her. Though she wanted to turn and run, her hands were still clasped, her feet immovable. Realizing she had spoken the words aloud, she stopped, a shameful blush spreading its heat along her skin. She could not bring herself to recite the next line of the letter, the words far too embarrassing and far from her own. Instead, she remembered its final line, and the words came to her as truly as if she’d written them. Her voice shifted from the lyrical tone of her dream to one of certainty. She spoke each syllable separately and listened to her own voice as if hearing it for the first time. “We have waited long enough, my love…”
She didn’t cling to the dream traces that remained. Instead, she locked her eyes on Paul’s, taking one baby step forward and then another, until, finally, she was standing over him. “Another nightmare?” he asked hoarsely.
She nodded. She could see herself in the half-silvered mirror on the wall, looking every bit the pale spirit.
“Make them go away,” she commanded.
Keeping his eyes on hers, he pulled back the covers, revealing his naked body underneath, strong and ready.
They didn’t emerge from the monastery until long past dinner on Sunday night. The few restaurants at the top of the hill were already closed. Nothing was open in the square, either, and there were few people around. Paul remembered seeing a pizza place down a side stairway and looked to her for approval.
“Pizza sounds great.”
The stairway was crumbling, winding another hundred steps down, crossing left over the rooftops of empty buildings, flat for a few steps, then descending again, along the outer rim of the Sassi. Their footsteps echoed on the stone. “There’s really something down here?”
“I don’t know. I hope so,” Paul said, starting to doubt his memory.
Callie had taken to measuring every journey in terms of steps. Five steps down, three up. Descending and climbing. Twenty more steps now, past darkened shells of deserted stone residences.
“If it’s not around this corner, I give up,” Paul said.
A string of white lights hung over the entrance to the pizza place, a cave that Callie could see served as the foundation for the house that sat above it.
The owner looked surprised to see them so late, but he was delighted when Paul spoke in melodic Italian. The man agreed to serve them, and he led them into a deep chamber carved out of the soft stone, seating them at a table at the far end.
The cave was dimly lit, smelling of pizza and dampness. Sitting across from Paul, Callie found it difficult to look at him directly. She hadn’t much experience with what happened after; she rarely stuck around long enough to find out. But sex with Paul had been like nothing she’d ever experienced. This had been so intimate, so different—so connected.
Paul took her hand and made her look at him. “Did I make the nightmares go away?”
She had to laugh. “Too soon to say—you didn’t exactly let me sleep.”
“That was my plan.”
Callie ate most of the pizza and didn’t protest when Paul ordered another. She was so hungry. She was thirsty as well. They polished off a bottle of Aglianico and another of sparkling water.
The string of lights flipped off as soon as they exited, leaving them in darkness again. He held her hand during the long climb to the top of the hill. By the time they reached Via Riscatto, her thighs were aching. When the path descended again toward the monastery, she was grateful.
He waited while she unlocked her door. Then he followed her inside and up the five steps to her bed. This time they both slept.
It was the first nightmare-free sleep Callie could remember.
The Sunday before she was scheduled to leave, Paul told her he wanted to take her to church.
“Confession?” she asked, nodding her head at the crumpled bedclothes that surrounded them.
“Just the opposite, actually. I want to take you to the solfeggio mass before you go back.”
“Really? There’s a mass?”
“I just heard about it,” he said. “They’re going to celebrate the medieval Hymn to John the Baptist in Latin, composed in the solfeggio scale. It’s a healing service.”
“Wow,” she said. “The Catholic Church is really getting progressive.”
“Or regressive,” he said. “Depending on your perspective. In any case, people seem quite excited about it.”
“Do they do it in one of the caves?”
“No. It’s going to be a really big event at a very beautiful old church. The music school is participating as well as some Gregorian monks.”
“I’d like to see that,” she said. “Or, rather, hear it.”
“I thought you might.”
The church stood at the top of the Sassi, where the light was brightest. It was one of the earliest churches in the area, Paul explained, built just after Christianity stopped hiding in the darkness of the caves and began to celebrate the mass publicly. They’d built it out of tufo high on the hill, and, unlike most of the churches in the Sassi, which were still dark and cavernous, it had long windows, which flooded the entire structure with light.
The sanctuary was crowded. Paul directed her to a seat midway down the long center aisle, where the sound was the best. “It’s like being in one of your bowls,” he told her.
The students from the music school filed in first; they spent several minutes adjusting their instruments, retuning to the slightly different tones of the ancient scale. When they began to play, the congregants went silent. The sounds of the medieval hymns were echoing off the walls.
Callie had never experienced anything quite like it. She closed her eyes and slipped into an easy meditation. Time stood still as the notes moved across and through each other, creating a tickling sensation inside her head.
It was one of the simplest and deepest meditation experiences she’d come into contact with—and definitely healing. She didn’t open her eyes again until they had stopped playing and she could ease herself back into the world. She glanced at Paul, and he took her hand.