Page 58 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Fifty-Six

‘It’s meant to be closed at the moment,’ Kathryn tells us as a security guard lets us into the building that stands above the ? al Saflieni Hypogeum in Paola. ‘They’re conducting essential preservation checks, but I managed to get us in for a brief private tour.’

‘It feels alive, somehow,’ Selena says as Kathryn walks us into a purpose-built room full of incredible artefacts: a skull, an oil lamp, a small statue of a sleeping woman.

It’s as if it’s charged and ready for . .

. something . ‘I’d love to wire the whole place up to understand its electromagnetism and the background sound and radiation levels. ’

‘I’m almost certain they won’t let you do that,’ Kathryn tells her.

We’d told Kathryn everything we’d discovered on the way here.

‘This is a precious place – a world heritage site. It’s estimated that about seven thousand individuals were interred here over the period it was in use,’ she goes on, in the melodic tone of an expert reciting facts to a bunch of laypeople.

Even in the dim museum lighting, I can see her eyes sparkling and the delight in her smile.

‘Now, there’s a series of metal walkways and steps that we must not deviate from, and please refrain from touching the temple.

’ She turns to look at me as she says this, knowing that later I will need to understand exactly where to go as quickly as possible if I am to stand a chance of not getting caught. This is a reconnaissance mission.

She leads us through an air-tight door into the upper layer of the temple.

It’s hard to reconcile what I’m seeing now with the place Sal and I visited in the dead of night.

It’s been carefully lit and somehow seems tamed by its dedicated protectors into something less feral.

Still, I can feel the charge in the air that Selena mentioned, and I hear a faint background hum waiting to rise.

‘It’s the way it’s built that still amazes and confounds archaeologists,’ Kathryn says.

‘And no, I don’t mean we think there’s a secret lost civilisation of giants or that aliens did it.

I mean that our distant ancestors were incredibly clever, resourceful and remarkable people, able to design shafts and manipulate light from the surface, so that it travelled throughout the complex.

We can’t know what was in the minds of the builders, but in some cultures, spirals – like the red ones painted on the walls here – are the symbols for eternal consciousness, representing our minds and souls unwinding forever into time and space, even after our physical bodies have turned to dust.’

Selena and I exchange a glance.

‘In Christianity, a spiral represents the Holy Trinity,’ Kathryn goes on.

‘God in all forms, like the spiral of a galaxy or the curve of a shell. It is the form of all creation. The same image is seen time and time again in ancient cultures, across religions, made by peoples who evolved completely separately. But in each instance, it seems to mark the first spark of life, and we can track its path evolving outwards from its conception into infinity.’

‘I’m not sure I like the idea of infinity.’ I’m whispering for some reason, as if we might be overheard. ‘The idea of being lost in nothing forever feels rather frightening.’

‘Ah, but there is no nothing,’ Selena tells me. ‘Even that which seems empty is still full of miracles: gravity, dark matter, the unknowable fabric of our universe – there is no void, only mystery.’

Kathryn bows as she leads us into a long, rectangular chamber.

‘But it’s here, in the Holy of Holies, as some call this room, or the oracle chamber, that their ingenuity is truly breathtaking.

’ Her enthusiasm makes me smile, and seeing the temple lit so carefully here gives me an entirely new view of the dark and mysterious place I visited once before.

We step into the largest chamber we have entered so far.

There is a rectangle in the centre, surrounded by curved walls forming an elongated oval.

Long, beautifully hewn steps lead down to a central floor.

The same design is repeated on the ceiling.

You could turn the room upside down like an hourglass, and everything would look exactly the same.

Even the long tunnels leading off into the dark match one another with fearful symmetry.

‘The oracle chamber,’ I say, feeling a sense of recognition in the air.

‘Yes.’ Kathryn nods. ‘The room where you say you began your journey back to us from 1942. You sang your way home?’

‘Well, it wasn’t a direct route,’ I tell her. ‘It felt like leaving home, if I’m honest.’

‘Oh, Maia,’ Kathryn says. ‘I don’t know what’s happening, but I do wish more than anything that I could find a way to make you feel that you have a home here.’

‘You did,’ I reply, taking her hand. ‘You gave me an idea of what family could be like. That’s why I recognised it when I found it in . . .’ I look around. ‘Another place. But there are people I have to say goodbye to here, and things I need to say.’

Kathryn nods. ‘I thought there might be.’

Just at that moment, a security guard coughs politely in the tunnel outside the chamber.

‘Apologies,’ Kathryn calls. ‘I’ll bring them out now.’ She turns back to us. ‘The moisture in the air, even in your breath – all of it can be damaging to the integrity of the temple. That’s why visitors are so strictly limited. We’d better go.’

The last to leave, I take one final look at the chamber before following the others out.

There’s a whole museum built over the site now, complete with state-of-the-art security.

But somehow, with Kathryn’s help, I’ll need to find a way in here later tonight.

This is the only way I can be almost certain of getting back to Stella in time to save her life.