The Shroud Codex (36 page)

I
N THE
T
URIN
chapel, Bartholomew’s hung body began levitating once again. Castle strained his eyes, but somehow a burst of radiant light that he did not understand began extruding from Bartholomew’s wracked body.

Spellbound and unable to comprehend what they were experiencing, everyone in the room was equally frozen in a combination
of wonder and fear. Castle’s mind raced back to Dr. Bucholtz’s comment that the image had been transferred to the Shroud in a blinding flash of almost pure light, shining brilliantly. Could that be happening again?

Frantically, Ferrar’s camera crew made sure they were capturing what was happening, both with the high-definition camera they had brought to document the Shroud and with their mobile equipment. Ferrar’s heart beat rapidly. Whatever was happening, he was willing to bet the next few moments would make him famous worldwide.

Levitating now at the level of the Shroud, with his back to the Shroud, Father Bartholomew’s body suddenly went horizontal, at a distance of about three feet above the floor. Instantly as he reached horizontal, a plane of pulsing blue light crossed through his body from head to toe, rotating him so he faced outward into the room, still completely levitated, with his back facing the Shroud.

Silently, Father Bartholomew’s robe disappeared in a burst of radiance, leaving him completely naked. Bartholomew’s left hand folded across his right hand, with the fingers modestly covering his pelvic area. All the wounds were now clearly visible on Bartholomew’s tortured body. With Bartholomew levitated against the Shroud like that, the one-for-one identity of the two bodies was unmistakable. Slowly Bartholomew’s body rotated around the blue light plane that appeared to hold him in midair. The wounds on his backside were equally apparent to everyone in the room, as were their identity to the dorsal wounds of the man in the Shroud.

Castle’s mind raced to anticipate what was going to happen next. Bucholtz had said an event horizon opened up in the tomb where Jesus had been laid to rest. She said the Shroud of Turin
had rested above and below a levitating Jesus in the tomb, such that the burst of brilliant light that marked his passing into the next dimension would leave no distortions in the image, negating the idea that the image had transferred from contact with the body. Castle realized Bartholomew’s body was positioned for the transition.

The radiant light from the blue event horizon line began penetrating every square inch of Bartholomew’s body; his body was transfiguring into a light-created being. Rapidly disappearing from sight were his flesh and blood. Almost imperceptibly, a rumbling noise arose as if from a distant horizon. Just then thunder could be heard in the hills outside Turin, and even though the windows in the private chapel had been covered to prevent light from entering, flashes of lightning seemed to penetrate the coverings and burst around the room.

Looking around, Castle could see that everyone in the room, including himself, was being covered with electricity that looked like the luminous plasma of St. Elmo’s fire. It surrounded them and danced in a continuous coronal discharge from a source unseen.

Just then, Bartholomew’s eyes opened and he called out to Anne what sounded like “Mother, please join me. We are returning home.”

Puzzled at what Bartholomew meant, Castle looked to his side, where Anne had been quietly positioned since they entered the room. He was astounded to see her moving forward toward her brother, as if she were in a trance.

Looking at her closely, Castle could see that she too was levitating and that she was walking with her feet about one foot above the floor.

Castle strained his eyes to comprehend what he was seeing, but
Anne seemed to have exchanged her twenty-first-century clothes for the veil and robes common to Jewish women two thousand years ago.

Bartholomew stretched out his hand to receive Anne. The moment the two touched, a burst of illumination filled the room. Castle and everyone else in the room felt the pulse pass through their bodies as if an electric shock had hit them. Forcibly, he and the others were thrown to the ground. The rumble of thunder and the flashing of lightning filled the private chapel as if all Heaven had burst loose and its energy was pouring forth in waves pulsing through every cell of their bodies. For what seemed an eternity, the vibrations made every tissue of bone and muscle in Castle’s body quiver as if he were going to burst apart.

Then, as quickly as the event began, it was over.

Gone was the brilliant illumination.

Gone also were Father Bartholomew and Anne Cassidy.

Those on the floor, including the pope and the cardinal, moved slowly, their bodies aching throughout from the surges that had penetrated them. Castle was beginning to understand they had been hit by translucent, pure impulses of irradiant energy.

“What happened?” was the inevitable question, with the only answer being the pathetically inadequate “I don’t know.”

Father Morelli was the first to recover sufficiently to notice the only tangible evidence of the transcendent phenomenon they had just experienced.

“Look,” Morelli said, struggling to stand. “The Shroud—the image has gotten brighter.”

Castle’s immediate reaction was that the inexplicable splendor of pure light had rattled Morelli’s brain. But then he looked for himself. Sure enough, Morelli was right. The reddish brown lines that had previously defined the image of the man on the Shroud faintly to the naked eye had darkened decidedly, showing much
more definition in the figure. The wounds now stood out in great detail, and the anatomical features were also more visible.

But that was not all that had changed.

“And the eyes have opened,” Father Middagh said with astonishment as he weaved back and forth, suggesting his ability to remain upright on his feet was very uncertain at best.

Castle thought Middagh had lost his mind, until he looked. Once again, Castle was astounded. Before, the eyes of the man in the Shroud had been closed. Now the eyes of the man in the Shroud were wide open, looking straight ahead. The once solemn and serene face now looked as if the Christ figure within were about to begin speaking.

Ferrar forced himself to his feet and rushed over to his camera crew. Reviewing the video, Ferrar saw they had recorded everything, including the illumination. “Keep taping.” Ferrar encouraged the camera crew, doing his best to make sure the cameras were still running. Ferrar did not want to lose a second of anything that happened.

Positioning himself in front of the cameras, Ferrar began what would be his afternoon newscast a few hours from now, relayed by satellite from Rome to New York and from there broadcast to every corner of the globe.

“You won’t believe what just happened,” Ferrar said into the camera with a look of disbelief on his face.

Castle was sure that was correct. If it had not been recorded, no one would have believed it.

From what Castle was provisionally putting together, he was beginning to conclude that Father Bartholomew had won his challenge with the pope. What had just happened before them in this small, private chapel in the Cathedral of Turin was unprecedented, uncaptured in human history.

As best Castle could figure, Father Bartholomew had just
transitioned into a dimension beyond and he had taken Anne with him. As Dr. Bucholtz had warned him, the Shroud of Turin was a codex into ancient mysteries he and others would have no choice but to decode. Even more than a codex, the Shroud was a portal, an entry point into the dimension beyond.

Looking within himself in those first moments after the event, Castle had to admit that he was now willing, for the first time in his life, to consider the possibility of God, or at least of the existence of dimensions he had never before contemplated as existing.

Maybe Father Bartholomew was right that creating an experience beyond what we consider the normal laws of nature, in full view of the world, was the mission God sent him back to earth to accomplish.

But if Castle thought, even for a second, that his religious conversion was going to be immediate, picking up Gabrielli off the floor was all he needed to plant his feet firmly once again on terra firma.

“That was the best magic trick that I ever saw in my life,” Gabrielli said, brushing himself off and rearranging his clothes. “How do you think the pope did it?”

Friday night

Hassler Hotel, Rome, Italy

Day 30

That evening, Dr. Castle returned to Rome in a daze.

He decided to go to the rooftop restaurant at the Hassler and have dinner by himself, hoping he would find the quiet time to sort out what he had just experienced.

Twilight was coming and the lights of the Vatican highlighted Rome with a magic that tonight he saw through different eyes. Perhaps Father Bartholomew had been right after all. Castle had always understood that religion could not be achieved by reason alone. Bartholomew was right in asserting that Castle had never gone through an experience that required him to believe in God. For the first time in his life, Castle was wondering if he had just gone through that type of experience.

As he sipped his wine and tried to decide if he had the appetite for dinner, the maître d’ approached him with a package.

“The signora you had dinner with here earlier this week left this package at the front desk for you today as she left the hotel,”
he explained. “She said you would probably be dining here alone tonight and she felt certain you would want to have this.”

Befuddled, Castle tipped the maître d’ generously and accepted the package, having no possible idea what it might contain.

A purple ribbon bound the contents in wrapping paper Castle recognized from one of the shops he and Anne had visited in the past few days along the Via Condotti, just below the hotel on the Spanish Steps, at the Piazza di Spagna.

He opened the package with haste, finding within it a letter and a photo album. The letter was from Anne.

“By the time you read this, I will be gone,” Anne wrote. “What you must know is that I am and always was Paul Bartholomew’s mother. After his car accident, when we were reunited before God, I promised that if Paul would accept the mission to return to life, I would return as well, to accompany him. So, you see, I invented Paul’s half sister in order to explain my presence back in his life. Seeing me in the hospital, Paul recognized me immediately. But when Paul and I spoke with one another privately in the hospital, I explained to him how it had to be. I could not come back as his mother. Everyone knew I had died of Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

Castle took a drink of his wine, struggling to grasp what Anne was telling him.

“When the authorities investigate Anne Cassidy in Canada, they will find that Anne Cassidy never existed. Obtaining documentation such as a passport these days is unfortunately easy to do.”

Reading this, Castle motioned the waiter over to the table and asked for a double scotch, no ice. “Please bring it immediately,” Castle told the waiter. “I need it now.”

“Subito,”
the waiter said compliantly in perfect, crisp Italian, as he rushed off to bring Dr. Castle his drink.

The waiter rushed back with the scotch, as ordered. Castle took a strong swig, then another.

He resumed reading.

“The photo album is Paul’s photo album, from when he was a baby. You will see there is no father for Paul in any of the photographs. You will see that the woman you knew as Anne Cassidy is the same woman that appears in the photos as Paul’s mother, Anne Bartholomew. There never was a Vietnam War hero named Jonathan Bartholomew who returned mysteriously from being missing in action. What I portrayed about being Paul’s sister also required me to make up the story about Matthew Cassidy. There also never was a father who took me to Canada when he learned my mother had always loved the soldier who never existed. When you find Paul’s birth certificate, you will find the father is listed as unknown. You can search for Paul’s father if you want, but that is a secret I plan to share with you in the afterlife, when we are reunited in the presence of God.”

Castle finished the scotch and ordered another. It was beginning to look to him like he might end up drinking his dinner that night.

“I know you do not believe in God,” she wrote. “I am sure it will take you time, maybe even years, to sort out and understand the events of the last month. I only wish I could be there to assist you.”

Thanks a lot
, Castle thought, reading that. When he had accepted Paul Bartholomew as a patient, Castle truly had no idea what he was getting himself into.

“Paul’s destiny was to decipher the Shroud codex for the world. Paul struggled to find God in an equation, until he gave up the idea and decided to be a priest. Professor Gabrielli will try to convince the world that my disappearing with Paul was an
elaborate trick. Dr. Bucholtz will understand that we transitioned through what she calls an ‘event horizon’ to another dimension people have called ‘Heaven’ for millennia, dating back to the writing of the Bible. You will have to decide for yourself what you have seen with your own eyes, from the first moment you met Paul in your office.”

For Castle, the idea was beginning to settle in. Anne was either delusional or the entire experience with Bartholomew would have to be explained in mystical terms Castle considered suspect by nature.

“Had things been different, we might have been lovers,” she wrote. “If you believe what Dr. Bucholtz told us about parallel worlds, in another time in another dimension, we might yet be lovers. The care you took to include me and provide for my comfort was noticed and appreciated. The affection I saw you express for me, I felt for you in return.”

Castle asked the waiter to return to his table. He asked the waiter to bring him one more scotch, but he had also decided to have dinner. “Let me see the menu,” Castle asked politely.

Castle paged through the photo album. The mother with the baby Paul Bartholomew was unmistakably the woman he knew as Anne Cassidy.