So far didn’t last long. Soon they were reduced to crawling.
As the ceiling dropped, their angst heightened. “If this gets too dicey, we’re turning back,” McCauley said. He recalled saying the exact same thing not long ago in Montana.
Katrina allowed herself a momentary joke. “No room to turn.”
“Onward it is, then.” But, McCauley was apprehensive. So much could have changed in four-plus centuries.
One thing would tell them if they were taking the right step back into history, McCauley thought. The electrical anomalies.
He felt another dip in temperature. “Cooling more.” As he told Alpert and Eccleston, he heard his voice echo. “Hold it for a second.”
McCauley shined his flashlight above and beyond. The roof was rising and further on he could see that the cave was widening.
He turned his head back to his cohorts. “Looking okay, We’ll be able to walk again, soon.”
Another twenty meters they were upright and gazing upon a sight more magnificent than any of them had witnessed: magical colors enhanced and embellished by their flashlights; brilliant hues that defied description in any language; indescribable geological shapes that would inspire any artist’s imagination; a slowly flowing subterranean river that mirrored the wonders and reflected the experience. All of this was part of the Grotte di Frasassi cave system. None of it was in any tour guides.
“This has to be it,” McCauley stated. “The earth at its grandest.”
“Oh, so much more,” Fr. Eccleston said sharing his true beliefs. “God at his best.”
They had all seen awe-inspiring caverns. Nothing on this level. Katrina was the first to take pictures with her disposable mechanical camera, one of three they bought along the way. They had also purchased basic match-lit carbide lamps.
“Use the cam on your cell for now. You might not be able to later.”
“Got it.”
Katrina lingered a few minutes. No one could fault her. Before they continued, they put on sweaters, lightening their load and warming their bodies.
Pushing on, they entered another cavern, which fed into tighter quarters again. They weren’t worried now. Their sense of discovery, more accurately re-discovery, drove them until….
“There’s a damned fork. Two tunnels. Galileo probably described it in his July letters. But they’re missing.”
Eccleston stepped forward. He shined his light down both passageways. Nothing ahead gave him a clue. Then he laughed. “We’re going left.”
“How do you know?” Katrina asked.
“Well, let me rephrase that. I have faith in the direction Galileo took.” Then he corrected himself. “No, I’m convinced. This way.” He pointed to the left.
“Why there?” she still wondered.
“It would have been natural for Galileo. He was left-handed.”
“You know he was left-handed?” McCauley was amazed.
“I do.”
“But in those days,” Quinn recalled, “wasn’t a dominant left hand considered the mark of the devil? A negative trait the church knuckle-thwacked out of people?”
“More schools than the Catholic Church. Okay, some of them religious schools. But the pejorative connotation really goes back to the Greek word, meaning weak and the Latin synonym for left which is sinister, sinistra/sinistrum. Right-handed in Latin is dexter, like in dexterity or skill. So you can see how language led to habitual thinking.”
“But you’re convinced he would have unconsciously veered left?”
“Completely convinced, Katrina.”
“What if left didn’t lead anywhere and he came back to this point and went down the right fork?”
“Well then, we’ll be doing the same thing. But first, left it is.”
And left it was. At the fourth narrow passageway, McCauley’s flashlight flickered. It was the signal he had anticipated.
He twisted around in the cramped space. Katrina’s light was also fluttering. The last thing she saw before it went out was McCauley smiling.
“What’s the matter?” Eccleston asked.
“This is it,” she replied.
“How do you know?”
“Come a few feet closer. Watch your flashlight.”
“What?”
“The electronics,” she explained. “Galileo didn’t have that problem. We do. But it means we’re close. Really close. Time for the lamps. I’ll do mine. Just follow until we get more room to work in, then light yours.”
The passageway brightened and widened. Soon they were able to stand side-by-side. Now all three lamps were illuminated and focused forward, revealing the opening to another more remarkable cavern.
The entrance expanded into a space too large for their lights to fully flood, more magnificent than imaginable.
“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places,” Eccleston said.
“What’s that from?” McCauley said raising his torch.
The priest explained as McCauley examined the ceiling. “John 14:2. From The Holy Gospel According to John. ‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may also be.’ ”
“Well, if this is God’s house, Father, he’s a phenomenal architect.”
“None more creative, Quinn.”
The lamp lights revealed a ceiling that appeared to be two stories high with glistening crystals and colors that had no names.
McCauley strained to get a sense of the true size. He took a few steps to the side. “More light.”
Katrina and Eccleston lifted their torches.
“Higher.”
The priest had the height advantage. Alpert did the best she could.
“Come closer.”
Combined, the lights brightened the ceiling enough to detect a curvature. “Higher than I thought. Thirty feet? Forty?” He wasn’t sure. “Let’s keep walking. Looks like the cavern closes in again up ahead,” he said.
They took twenty cautious steps around golden formations of stalagmites. Then darkness.
“Watch your head. The ceiling’s dropping fast,” McCauley warned. “And the passage looks narrower. Can’t see much.”
But it wasn’t that the ceiling was lower or the walkway was narrowing. No matter how McCauley held his lamp or focused the beam, the approaching section of the cavern was in pitch black.
He held his hand out in front, groping for obstructions, yet touching nothing. “Stop.”
Alpert and Eccleston huddled close. They could see one another, but nothing ahead, to the sides or above.
“Like Montana,” Katrina whispered, almost afraid to speak louder.
“And Denisova,” Father Eccleston added.
“This is it. But if there are more spurs, we could get lost,” McCauley realized.
“Galileo was inquisitive, but he wasn’t crazy,” Eccleston explained. “I’m sure he found something otherwise he would have turned back with the same worry.”
“So one step at a time?” McCauley proposed.
“Yes, but together,” Katrina said.
McCauley took the lead. “I’ll cover the front. Katrina, you keep feeling for the sides. Father, you’re the tallest. Make sure the ceiling’s not closing in on us.”
They proceeded. Three walking as one. A minute later McCauley called a halt.
“Dead end.” He felt a surface, but it wasn’t rock, not even igneous It was smooth to the touch; polished. Neither hot nor cold. It was just there.
“Amazing,” Father Eccleston said reaching out. “It’s…” he searched for the right word. “Perfection.”