Or not by chance at all.
The professor didn’t ask why he was so early or question how he’d found the dig. “If it were me, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep, either. Come down, come down.”
Content to let the professor assume enthusiasm had brought him there at six-thirty in the morning, Josh breathed deeply and took a first tentative step down the ladder, refusing to allow his mind to dwell on the claustrophobia he’d suffered his whole life and which had intensified since the accident.
Strains of music from Madame Butterfly that had first caught Josh’s attention and then drawn him up this particular hill were louder now, and he concentrated on the heartbreaking aria as he descended into the dimly lit chamber.
The space was larger than he’d anticipated, and he exhaled, relieved. He’d be able to tolerate being there.
The professor shook his hand, introduced himself, then turned down the volume on the dusty black plastic CD player and began the tour.
“The crypt is-I will do this for you in feet, not meters-eight feet wide by seven feet long. Professor Chase-Gabriella-and I believe it was built in the very last years of the fourth century. Until we have the carbon dating back we can’t be positive. But from some of the artifacts here, we think it was 391 A.D., the same year the cult of the Vestal Virgins ended. Such decoration is atypical for this type of burial chamber, so we believe it must have been intended for someone else and then used for the Vestal when her inconstancy was discovered.”
Josh lifted his camera to his eye, but before he took a shot he asked if the professor minded. Nothing short of a bomb had ever stopped him from taking a photo when he was working for the Associate Press. Then six months ago he’d taken a leave of absence to work as a videographer and photographer of children who came to the Phoenix Foundation for help with their past-life regression memories. Since then, he’d gotten used to asking for permission before shooting. In return, he had access to the world’s largest and most private library on the subject of reincarnation as well as the chance to work with the foundation’s principals.
“It’s fine, yes, but would you clear it with either Gabriella or me before you show the pictures or release them to anyone? Everything here is still a secret we are trying to keep until we have additional information about exactly what we have discovered. We don’t want to create false excitement if we’re wrong about our find. Better to be safe, no?”
Josh nodded as he focused and clicked the shutter. “What did you mean by the Vestal’s inconstancy?”
“Maybe that is the wrong word, I’m sorry. I meant the breaking of her vows. That’s better, no?”
“What vows? Were the Vestals nuns?”
“Pagan nuns, yes. Upon entering the order they took a vow of chastity, and the punishment for breaking that vow was to be buried alive.”
Josh felt an oppressive wave of sadness. As if on autopilot, he depressed the shutter. “For falling in love?”
“You are a romantic. You will enjoy Rome.” He smiled. “Yes, for falling in love or for giving in to lust.”
“But why?”
“You need to understand that the religion of ancient Rome was based on a strict moral code that stressed truthfulness, honor and personal responsibility while demanding steadfastness and devotion to duty. They believed that every creature had a soul, but they were also very superstitious, worshipping gods and spirits who had influence over every aspect of their lives. If all the rituals and sacrifices were performed properly, the Romans believed the gods would be happy and help them. If they weren’t, they believed the gods would punish them. Contrary to public misinformation, the ancient religion was quite humane in general. Pagan priests could marry, and have children and…”
The faint scents of jasmine and sandalwood that usually accompanied his memory lurches teased Josh, and he fought to stay attuned to the lecture. He felt as if he’d always known about these painted walls and the maze beneath his feet but had forgotten them until this moment. The sensations that usually accompanied the waking nightmares he’d been experiencing since the accident were rocking him: the slow drift down, the undulating, the prickles of excitement running up his arms and his legs, the submergence into that atmosphere where the very air was thicker and heavier.
He ran in the rain. His soaked robe was heavy on his shoulders. Under his feet the ground was muddy. He could hear shouting. He stumbled. Struggled to get up.
Focus, Josh intoned in some other section of his brain where he remained in the present. Focus. He looked through the lens at the professor, who was still talking, using his hands to punctuate his words, causing the light beam to crisscross the tomb wildly, illuminating one corner and then another. As Josh followed with his camera, he felt the grip on his body relax and he let out a sigh of relief before he could stop himself.
“Are you all right?”
Josh heard Rudolfo as if he was on the other side of a glass door.
No. Of course he was not all right.
Sixteen months before, he’d been on assignment here in Rome, which turned out to be the wrong place at the wrong time. One minute he’d been photographing a dispute between a woman with a baby carriage and a guard, and the next a bomb was detonated. The suicide bomber, two bystanders and Adreas Carlucci-the security guard-were killed. Seventeen people were wounded. No motive had been discovered. No terrorist group had claimed the incident.
The doctors later told Josh they hadn’t expected him to live, and when he finally came to in the hospital forty-eight hours later, scattered bits of what seemed like memories started to float to the surface of his consciousness. But they were of people he’d never met, in places he’d never been, in centuries he’d never lived.
None of the doctors could explain what was happening to him. Neither could any of the psychiatrists or psychologists he saw once he was released. Yes, there was some depression, which was expected after an almost-fatal accident such as the one he’d suffered. And of course, post-traumatic stress syndrome could produce flashbacks, but not of the type he was suffering: images that burned into his brain so he had no choice but to revisit them over and over, torturing himself as he probed them for meaning, for reason. Nothing like dreams that fade with time until they’re all but forgotten, these were endlessly locked sequences that never changed, never developed, never revealed any of the layers that hid beneath their horrific surface. These were blue-black-scarlet chimeras that came during the day when he was awake. They obsessed him to the point of becoming the final stress in an already-broken marriage and set him apart from an entire phalanx of friends who didn’t recognize the haunted man he’d become. All he cared about was finding an explanation for the episodes he’d experienced since the accident. Six full blown, dozens of others he managed to fight back and prevent.
As if they were made of fire, the hallucinations burned and singed and scorched his ability to be who he’d always been, to function, to sustain some semblance of normalcy. Too often, when he caught sight of himself in a mirror, he blanched. His smile didn’t work right anymore. The lines in his face had deepened seemingly overnight. The worst of it was in his eyes, as if someone else was in there with him waiting, waiting, to get out. He was haunted by the thoughts he couldn’t stop from coming, like a great rising flood.