was a woman with long grey hair, her face skin wrinkled with wrinkles. She wore a long blue tunic with a golden talisman on top of it at chest height, secured to her neck by a chain also made of gold. He had lit a bonfire inside the cave, occasionally throwing dust into the flames, which from time to time caused a blaze of a different colour, sometimes yellow, sometimes green, sometimes blue, sometimes deep red. For each blaze that illuminated her face, she pronounced strange words, which the others present interpreted by arranging themselves around the bonfire, now holding hands and rotating in circles, now moving away and bowing to the will of the Wise Old Woman, now taking bunches of herbs and throwing them in turn into the fire, now sitting on the ground in complete silence. At one point, the only person left standing was the old teacher. She was holding a large book in her hand, on the cover of which stood out the drawing of a pentacle, just like the one in the family diary that her grandmother had given her some time ago, and the gothic inscription “Clavicula Salomonis”.
«By virtue of the powers conferred on me by this coven, I, Sara of the Bisenzi, welcome novice Lucia Baldeschi into our community. She is the chosen one, the one who will replace me one day and will be destined to lead all of you. Therefore, Lucia, come closer and swear obedience and fidelity to this book, written by the ancient King Solomon in his own hand, and brought here among immense perils by Jolanda, who lost her life once she reached her final goal. It is only thanks to his daughter Anna that the book and its teachings have been handed down to us and, from time to time, one of us has the task of preserving and protecting it.»
So saying, the old woman took off her medallion and gently passed the chain around Lucia’s neck. The golden talisman represented a five-pointed star, the seal of Solomon. The same design was drawn on the ground by the old woman using a pointed rod and the girl was made to stretch out so that her head, her hands at the end of her arms outstretched and her feet at the bottom of her legs apart corresponded exactly to the points of the star. Sara took some olive oil, marking with it in sequence Lucia’s left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand and forehead.
«Water, air, earth, fire: you know how to govern the four elements. They can be invoked and used separately by each one of us, but only your spirit is able to unite them and strengthen their powers and qualities to the maximum. Remember, Lucia! You will use your powers only for good and you will fight, even sacrificing your own life, against anyone who wants to abuse you and your abilities for evil purposes.» Then he poured water on the girl’s left hand, still lying down, blew on her left foot, threw a handful of earth on her right foot and brought a burning stick to her right hand. Finally he kissed her forehead. «And now stand up. Your long journey has begun.»
The initiation ceremony was therefore very simple, not as traumatizing as the girl had feared. The rite had taken place in the manner handed down from ancient times, without constraints, without violence, without the intervention of strange figures resembling goats or other beasts. The Devil was certainly not hidden among the participants in the rite. Lucia was disorientated, but she was beginning to understand many things, which her grandmother would help her to define in the following months. Magic, witchcraft, as she had conceived it up to that moment, did not exist. Her grandmother would explain to her what the frontiers of human thought were, how each individual was endowed with enormous potential linked to the use of the same, but that only someone was able to perform certain functions, both by innate ability and through exercise. But then, Lucia asked herself, was the floating sphere that materialized in her hands pure fruit of her imagination, of her suggestion? Yet she was able to visualize it! Yes, but only she, the others couldn’t see it. Anyway, he had experienced its devastating effects by throwing a fireball at that little girl, Elisabetta, who had found herself surrounded by flames. And she could read the thoughts of those in front of her, and she could hear the voices of the spirits, and she could predict the future somehow. How did she explain all this?
«There’s a rational explanation for everything», Grandma told her one night in front of the burning fireplace. «Some of our followers, in the light of what had already been done in the past by ancient scholars, some of whose texts escaped the fires of the ecclesiastical authorities, opened the skulls of corpses of men and women to study their contents, their brains. The surface of our brain is not smooth, but it has many folds, which are called “circumvolutions” by anatomy scholars and which are able to increase by many times the useful surface of this important organ of ours. It is not the heart, as everyone says, the seat of our feelings, but the brain is their repository. As well as all our memories, near and far, are set aside here. It is the brain that allows us to recognize sounds, colours, smells, makes us associate objects with a name, makes us learn the symbols of writing so that the most intelligent people, or the luckiest if you like, are able to read, write and count. It is also the brain that sends dreams to our eyes while we rest. And if all this already seems like a lot to you, know that a very small part of the brain surface is used for all this. The rest is enormous potential, but unknown to most people. Thus, those who manage to train the unused areas of their brain can perform activities that ordinary mortals don’t even dream about. And here you can hear speech spoken in one place even in ancient times. Every word spoken leaves its trace in the air, nothing is lost. If you can pick up these speeches, these words, it’s not that you’re talking to spirits, you can’t talk to people who have been missing for months, or years, or centuries, but you can listen to what they said even a long time ago.»
«What about foreknowledge?»
«That’s a little more complicated, but even here some scholars have speculated that those who predict the future will pick up the brain waves of someone who is already planning to act. That’s why prescience is limited to the short term, and it’s not possible to predict the future in the long term. Whoever claims to be able to do that is a charlatan!»
«What about being able to move objects, levitate them, or turn on a lamp with the power of thought?»
«Well, even these are potentials of the human brain unknown to most individuals. By exercising and training the areas of the brain that are able to use the elements around us to our advantage, we are able to do anything. We are accustomed to using the five senses that we know, sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell, without even imagining what the actual power of our brain is. The ancients knew very well how to use certain powers, so that they could build enormous works without the slightest effort. You see, the Romans, when they came to conquer Egypt, couldn’t explain how the Egyptians, long before their arrival, had built colossal works, such as the pyramids and the sphinx. The enormous blocks of stone with which they had been built could not be moved even by hundreds of slaves working together.»
«You mean to say that...»
«I don’t want to say anything. You draw your own conclusions.»
Lucia was more fascinated by her grandmother’s speeches every day, but she was even more interested in curing illnesses with herbs. During the spring, she went several times with her grandmother Elena to Colle del Giogo, but also to the countryside and woods around Jesi to collect medicinal herbs. Each time her grandmother explained to her the properties and use of a certain herb: Henbane, Turpentine, Licorice, and the dangerous Belladonna. Elena had promised Lucia that, starting from late summer and for all the following autumn, she would teach her how to recognize mushrooms, how to distinguish between edible and poisonous ones, how to prevent and treat intoxications due to the latter, and how to use the spores of certain mushrooms on infected wounds. But in those last days of spring, the course of history had taken her to assist the young Franciolini, wounded by the enemies of the city.
It had been more than ten days since Lucia was busy around Andrea’s bedside when the boy regained consciousness. He opened his eyes and Lucia felt immediately observed in a strange way. She read in those eyes the bewilderment of the young man, who perhaps believed he was already dead, that he had reached heaven and that he had an angel at his disposal to take care of him. Certainly, he was a nobleman and, as he had servants on Earth, his head certainly led him to think that he would have servants there in Paradise too. But then, little by little, Lucia realized that Andrea was beginning to recognize the walls, furniture and ornaments of his room.
«Who are you, taking care of me, without even knowing you? And what happened to the rest of my family? And my servants? Where’s Ali? Damn that miserable Turk!