Greta had been calling out for Sebastian, but the woods swallowed up her voice. Eventually she gave up. The long branch in one hand and the nearly burned-out torch in the other, she hobbled through the woods. Karl had told her to stay put, but she couldn’t sit still if her son might be nearby.
“Sebastian!” she called again. “Sebastian, can you hear me? It’s me, your mother!”
The silence was oppressive. In the distance she saw two moving lights, the torches of Karl and Johann, still searching for the entrance to the cave. A pale moon shone through the branches; it was bitter cold. Greta’s dress had dried, and Karl had given her his coat, but she still shivered as pitifully as if she were somewhere in the Alps, not Rome.
Something cawed.
When Greta looked up, she saw an old raven with blackish-gray feathers sitting upon a branch. It seemed to be eyeing her, and Greta wondered whether her father was right. Could the ruffled bird actually be a messenger from Tonio?
“Nonsense,” she murmured. She still thought it was delusional of her father to consider Tonio to be the devil incarnate. Nonetheless, she spoke to the raven. “If you know where my Sebastian is, then tell me. Please!”
Christ, what was she doing? She was talking to an animal! But then she remembered that there were plenty of people who didn’t believe that a person’s death could be foreseen in the palm of their hand. And yet she could do it.
“Where is my little Sebastian?” asked Greta again, this time even more desperately. “Tell me, please.”
The old raven lifted with a caw, flew for a few yards, and landed on another branch. It rubbed its beak on the branch and flapped its wings restlessly. Greta followed it, limping through the undergrowth with her crutch. Again the raven flew for a few paces, just as if it wanted her to follow. Then it came to rest on a branch above a large patch of herbs. The intense fragrance told Greta that it was parsley. She took another step.
And plunged into darkness.
Karl gave a start and listened. A high-pitched scream echoed through the grove.
“Greta?” he shouted. “Is that you?”
He and Johann had been searching the area around the tenth sign for a long while now but had found nothing. Despite the tension and the gnawing fear, he was awfully tired, and he was shaking with cold. But the scream made him wide awake.
Another one! It was definitely Greta, and she was crying for help. Was she being attacked? But who by? Karl was briefly overcome by a vision of Hagen, walking through the woods as a burned monster, his skin black and charred and his limbs molten, swinging his sword until Judgment Day.
“I’m coming, Greta!” shouted Karl.
He ran toward the screams, which were growing louder. To his right he could hear quick footsteps. It was Johann, following him with grim determination. They ran until they came to a patch of weeds. The screams seemed to come from inside the knee-high, bushy plants. But where was Greta? Karl was about to walk into the plants, but Johann held him back.
He knelt down and crawled forward on all fours. And still Greta called for help, her voice sounding strangely hollow, as if it came from deep below.
“A hole,” said Johann.
Karl went down on his hands and knees, too, and crawled toward a gaping hole in the ground that was almost entirely concealed by the weeds. It was roughly one pace wide, and Karl felt a warm breeze from inside it. When he held his torch into the opening, he saw that Greta was hanging from her crutch right in the middle. The branch had become lodged in the shaft, but it wouldn’t be long before it broke. There was a crack, and the crutch moved down a little farther.
“Take my hand!” shouted Karl.
She looked at him with a mix of despair, fear, and spite, then her right arm shot up. For a heartbeat she hung from the crutch only with her left hand—one wrong movement and she’d fall into the depths. But then Karl grasped her hand tightly. He pulled Greta until her upper body was lying on solid ground. Breathing hard, she crawled away from the hole. The stick fell rattling into the darkness.
“That was close. And you found the entrance,” Johann said, gesturing at the wild parsley. “This herb is dedicated to Proserpina, a Roman goddess of the underworld. In ancient Rome, parsley was used during funeral ceremonies for the journey to the underworld. Now we know why Karl’s vegetable farmers knew of the cave and why they believed it was cursed.”
“But this is no cave—it’s just a shaft,” said Karl.
“Perhaps the entrance used to be at the foot of Palatine Hill, but it collapsed,” suggested Faust. “Now there is only this shaft.” He sniffed. “Can you smell it?”
Karl took a deep breath. Indeed, he could also smell a waft of rotten eggs.
Sulfur.
“The porta infernale,” said Johann with a smile. “We have reached our destination.”
29
JOHANN CAUTIOUSLY CREPT TO THE EDGE OF THE SHAFT and peered inside. The hole was pitch black, and yet he thought he could make out a faint glow far below. The smell of sulfur was becoming stronger. On closer inspection of the hole’s surroundings, he discovered a thin hemp rope that led down the shaft. It was tied to a nearby tree and practically invisible in the tall weeds.
“Sebastian!” shouted Greta. “Are you there?”
“Quiet, damn it!” Johann snapped. “Do you want the master to hear us?”
“If your master really is down there, he has already heard us.”
Greta’s pointed remark reminded Johann that he hadn’t called Tonio del Moravia “master” in a long time. Not since Tonio had been his teacher, but
