She loved the thought of it. The Sassi was the first place that had felt like home to her. Maybe ever.
They’d taken to exploring the unoccupied buildings, picturing what they would do with this one or that. Callie fantasized about what life in the Sassi would be like. They would live in one of the old houses. Paul would restore the rock churches. And she would learn Italian and get involved with the music school in some capacity, she hoped setting up some kind of sound healing practice.
Today, while Paul worked, she was exploring more of the deserted properties. She hadn’t encountered another person since early morning. She was deciding which stairway to climb next when she was alarmed by the sound of approaching footsteps. “I’ve been searching for you for over an hour!” Paul said, as he turned the corner. “Come with me. There’s something you’ve got to see.”
With the new rope railing in place, the hike down to the cave was much easier. Callie could see that they’d hooked up a klieg light at the entrance, creating an artificial sun. The frescoes took on an eerie luminescence; the pietà on the north wall now glowed with a light that seemed to emanate directly from the face of Christ. Paul took her arm. “Over here,” he said, leading her to the east wall. “Underneath the first fresco—we found another, an older one.”
The east wall, the water-damaged one.
When the workers saw Callie coming, they stepped back to give her a clear view. They were all gathered around, and she could feel their excitement. At first, Callie wasn’t certain what she was seeing. Then, slowly, she saw the crisscrossed lines. “It’s a tree.”
“Not just any tree,” Paul said.
It hadn’t just been painted on the stone but had been carved into it as well, which accounted for some of the crumbling the water damage had caused. Its roots stretched as far into the earth as its branches extended skyward. The whole image promised to spread out across the entire east wall.
“We think it’s a very early version of the World Tree,” Paul said. “Yggdrasil.”
“Like the tree we saw in the Crypt of Original Sin?”
“No, this is not the Tree of Knowledge. This is the other Garden of Eden tree described in Genesis, the Tree of Life. Also known as the World Tree. You could even call it the Tree of Immortality. According to Norse mythology, Yggdrasil was where Odin hung upside down to acquire the runes of power.”
“Wait—you think this is Norse?”
“No. We think it’s Mesopotamian.”
Now she was really confused.
“The Indus Valley image of the World Tree informed a number of religions that followed. Including our Old Testament. The Garden of Eden, for example.” He hugged her. “This is where the ancient religions all come together. If we’re right, this is really big!”
The tree displayed almost perfect symmetry from roots to branches.
“As above, so below,” Paul said. “It’s a Hermetic phrase. Ann uses it in her practice of Wicca, but the phrase and its concept appear in varying degrees in almost every culture or religion. Even the phrase ‘on earth as it is in heaven,’ from the Lord’s Prayer, refers to this symmetry.”
His enthusiasm was contagious. Paul was in his element; if she thought she loved him before, she was certain of it now.
“This could be one of the oldest depictions on record. My adviser has requested that the Vatican send two of their antiquities scholars here to photograph and study it.”
Hearing the news, Emily and Finn sent a congratulatory telegram. They had just returned from Florida, and they said Emily was feeling “renewed.”
Paul and the crew hosted a celebration at the Palazzo Gattini Hotel that lasted long into the night, with music and dancing that seemed to grow wilder as the night progressed, with too much wine and some unusual couplings that reminded Callie of a slightly tamer version of Rubens’s Bacchanalia.
Paul had left the party for a moment, and when he returned, he grabbed her hand, dragging her away from the frenzied crowd and onto a balcony that overlooked the rooftops of the Sassi. He was holding an envelope.
He handed her the letter.
It was from the Italian government. She looked at him, confused. Beyond the official letterhead, she couldn’t decipher a word.
“I’ve been looking into what it would take for us to move in and restore one of the old houses,” he said.
“What does it say?”
“It basically says we should start looking.”
“Really?”
“You still want to live here?”
“I do.”
He smiled. “Me, too.” He kissed her. “I love you, Callie Cahill.”
“I love you, too.”
They chose a house the next day. It was one they’d admired, not far from the monastery. They’d been looking at it for a while. It sat on the edge of the ravine where three stairways came together. From here, they could see the river below and the caves across the canyon. It was just the shell of the old house, and it would take a great deal of work before they could move in, but they could see the possibilities. The location was perfect.
Together, Callie and Paul began to visit all the rock churches, the few that had been restored and the many that were possible. There were years of work here, Callie realized. The thought of it made her happy.
On April 2, they visited the Crypt of Original Sin for the third time. As the one church that had been meticulously restored, it would feature prominently in Paul’s dissertation. It was a great example of what was possible.
They stood side by side in the darkness, listening to the presentation as, one by one, lights went on around the cave, illuminating each fresco, finally settling on the one they had come to see, not Paul’s Tree of Life from the cave across the ravine but the Garden of Eden’s other sacred tree. Callie drew in a breath; each time she saw the Tree of Knowledge, its power intensified. She couldn’t take her eyes from the serpent wrapped around its trunk, separating light from darkness, Adam from Eve.
“It isn’t the Tree of Knowledge that the Bible describes, per se. A more apt translation is Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The decision to know the tree is the decision to be responsible for your actions.” He pointed to the serpent that wound through the roots. “Original Sin is the dividing line between innocence and responsibility.”