This is the story of how she first came to meet Brother Lazarus and travel to his world:
Wilhelmina’s experiments with Burleigh’s first device had provided her with a ready means of recognising active ley lines as well as guiding her to them. She had made a number of test jumps-cautious to the point of timidity at first, but with growing confidence as she gained experience-beginning with a series of single jumps, then a few doubles, before progressing to what were, for her, the very daring triple jumps. In each of these experiments she noted the place and time of the ley activity and memorised the destinations. On one of those early triple jumps she had landed in the pleasant Italian valley near Montalcino, on a narrow dirt road that passed a grand old church and monastery. The date-local time-was 27 May, 1972.
Surrounded by ancient cypress trees, well-tended fields, and a little pasture for sheep, the place seemed to speak to her; she felt drawn to it and decided to indulge herself with a little sightseeing. Passing through the handsomely carved archway, she entered the quiet sanctuary; the cool air was heavy with the scent of frankincense. From somewhere near the altar at the front of the high-ceilinged chancel, a small bell chimed. There were a few other visitors walking the aisles, quietly, thoughtfully, and in spite of her old-fashioned clothes, Wilhelmina blended right in. As she made her first circuit of the church, she came upon a large handpainted sign with a diagram of the floor plan. Seeing the explanation was in English as well as French and Italian, she paused to read it and discovered that, according to a series of measurements carried out some years earlier, no fewer than seven separate lines of electromagnetic force met at a point directly beneath the church’s altar. These force fields were not leys; at least, not like any Wilhelmina had previously encountered. They were not straight, and culminated at a single point-unlike normal ley lines; nor was that term used in the fragmented English translation provided on the sign by the mapmaker. Were these lines of force something similar? Or something else entirely?
Mina, determined to find out all she could of these mysterious lines of telluric energy flowing beneath the church, immediately hailed one of the monks going about his business. “Scusi, padre. Parla Inglese”
“Si, signora, a leetle.”
Pointing to the sign showing the map of the curious lines, she said, “This priest”-she tapped the neatly lettered name at the bottom of the sign-“Fra Giambattista Becarria?”
“Fra Giambattista, si,” agreed the monk.
“Is he here? May I speak to him? It may be important.”
“No, signora, is not possible. Fra Giambattista, he no longer with us.”
Mina frowned. “He is dead, you mean?”
“ Si. Many years now.”
“May I see his grave?”
“Alas, signora. Is at Abbazia di Montserrat, I think”
“Montserrat? Is that far?”
“Si, signora. Is in Spagna.”
Wilhelmina thanked the priest for the information and continued her exploration of Sant’Antimo. By the time she reached the altar rail she was in the grip of a conviction as potent as it was absurd: the unanswerable certainty that the knowledge she so desperately needed would be found at a place that thirty seconds ago she had never even heard of. Moreover, this conviction entailed an insistence of such urgency that she plopped down in the front pew and stared at the light streaming in through the high, narrow windows behind the stunningly lifelike crucifix, her mind reeling with the single thought that she must drop everything and get herself to the abbey at Montserrat by the fastest means possible.
At the time, her ley mapping skills did not yet extend to the Spanish peninsula, and she wanted to make no mistakes, so she decided to travel by train. In a typically canny move, Wilhelmina decided that if she was to visit a Spanish abbey, she would present herself as a German nun. In Montalcino, she purchased a plain skirt and blouse, and with the addition of a gift-shop cross of olive wood and a well-arranged dovegrey headscarf, she was a passable sister-if of the modern variety.
Upon arrival in Barcelona, she found a convent and arranged to join a group of visiting French nuns on pilgrimage to the Abadia de Santa Maria, which was located high in the jagged mountain range northeast of the city. It was a three-day trek on foot, but Wilhelmina enjoyed the fresh air and easy company of the nuns, who sang as they went and stopped in every village chapel and shrine along the way to pray and prepare for their sojourn at the abbey.
The little party finally arrived late in the afternoon of the third day. They entered the narrow gorge into which the abbey and its various buildings had been painstakingly shoehorned. The soaring peaks of the surrounding mountains rose sheer on every side save one, which gave onto a shimmering vista stretching from the sloping foothills all the way to the coast. As the covey of nuns stood marvelling at the magnificence of the abbey and its situation, the bell for vespers rang, so they followed the general flow of monks and visitors up the steep incline to the church.
At the top of the esplanade rose ranks of steps that terminated in a courtyard, the end of which opened to a gateway. Beyond the gates was a handsome atrium lined with statues of apostles and saints and paved with inlaid marble of many colours that marked out a geometric swirl of intersecting lines, at the centre of which was a circular mosaic representing the four rivers flowing out of Eden. The courtyard thronged with visitors behaving in a most peculiar way. They stood in a long line snaking back into the courtyard and, one at a time, each waiting patiently for the other, they took it in turn to step forward and stand in the central disc of the mosaic. Then they prayed-some in the classic attitude with hands folded and heads bowed, but many in apparent wild abandon with arms outstretched and faces turned to the clear blue sky above.
The faithful would stand like this for a time before moving off to join the general population making their way into the sanctuary. This curious activity was not lost on Wilhelmina. How very odd, she thought. Clearly, there was something going on here, and she took it as a sign that vindicated her own decision to come.
She followed the others as they moved slowly towards the entrance and, upon approaching the centre of the mosaic circle, experienced the subtle but unmistakable frisson of pent energy that she always felt in the presence of an active ley. It was there, marked out in stone in the middle of the atrium where, apparently, pilgrims in their hundreds and thousands also perceived the latent energy in some way.
Once in the chapel, she sat through the service, listening to the ethereal voices of the choir and wondering how to make sense of it all. The end of the service found her in a pensive mood of rapt contemplation; for overarching all other considerations was a feeling of peace and, if not contentment, then at least a sense of rightness-she felt that all was as it should be.
She took a light supper in the convent refectory with sisters from a dozen different nations and was given a cot in the dormitory. Wilhelmina slept well and awoke at the sunrise bell to attend prayers with them. As soon as the service was finished, she set off to find the grave of Fra Giambattista and to learn more about him if she could. She waited until most of the congregation had left, then approached one of the monks who acted as usher and guide. “Por favor, habla ingles?”