Chapter 1

1

Rome, 1948

"Julia, I still don't think you should go," Lillian said as we sat down at the base of the Spanish Steps near the entrance to the famous Babingtons Tea Room. It was late in the afternoon and the sunlight glowed against the boat-shaped fountain that Bernini's father had designed nearly three hundred years before.

I sighed. Lillian and I had been arguing ever since I had received the invitation to sit for Salvador Dalí. "You know this is an opportunity I can't pass up. And you also know how much I need the money."

Dalí had made waves in the city papers because he was in town creating sets for the Rome Opera. But he was also painting on the side, which was good for me. I had graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in the spring but continued to take classes to maintain my student visa, and I modeled to pay the bills. Dalí had inquired about me by name—I don't know how he'd heard of me, but it was often difficult to find a naturally blond model in Rome and I assumed that another person I had sat for referred me. He wanted to paint me in the guise of an ancient goddess—Proserpina, the Roman counterpart to Persephone. Lillian was convinced it was a bad idea.

"Come on. He admires fascists, for god's sake. You have to be pretty bad to get kicked out of the Surrealists for having weird views."

"I know, I know. But he's been spending a lot of time in New York, so maybe he's changed. It's only for a week. He's one of the best painters in the world, Lil, and watching a maestro like him at work isn't something I can pass up. It's only a week." But I hated that she was right and felt guilty that I still planned to go.

Lillian tried a different angle. "Okay, then. But he's also a deviant. You'll be naked in front of him."

"His wife will be there," I protested. "There's nothing to worry about. He only has eyes for Gala."

Lillian, who worked as a shopgirl at a luxury clothing store, had never understood how I could be just as comfortable dressed as I was undressed. But the art scene had always been comfortable with nudity, sexuality—and promiscuity—while the rest of the populace was not.

My friend pulled a ribbon from her pocket and began tying up her long, dark hair. "You don't even like surrealism."

"That's not true," I insisted. "I just hate most surrealism."

In fact, I was somewhat obsessive about surrealism, but it was no longer in vogue to say so. Abstract expressionism had taken the art world by storm and I wanted to sell my work, so I followed the trends, inspired by the likes of Kline and Rothko. But, oh, the surrealists tugged at my heart and soul. It had been Dalí's Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Waking that had lured me in when I was in Madrid. The painting of a naked woman—Dalí's longtime muse, his wife, Gala—resting on rocks in the middle of the ocean, a pomegranate by her side, had a lot going on. In the sea, another monstrous pomegranate births a rockfish that spits out two tigers, their mouths wide open, their claws ready to rip the woman apart. There was also a floating gun and Dalí's first spindly-legged elephant. But it was the pomegranate that had really caught my eye—how it opened up, bursting with life, and yet the woman lay asleep, unable to react to all the emotion and life around her, lost in a dream.

There was something in that painting that resonated with me, that made me feel a little less fragmented. I couldn't explain that to Lillian. She would never understand. She knew the newest version of me, a fabricated tale: born in Italy, raised in Manhattan by an eccentric aunt after my parents' tragic deaths, and educated in Boston before returning to Italy postwar.

But the truth is, my earliest memory is emerging from the Pantheon years before into the streets of Rome and a stranger's kindness to help me reach the accademia . Beyond this, my past is a void; I have no recollection of family, childhood, or schooling. A doctor once dismissed my amnesia as temporary, but it never resolved.

To dispel any awkwardness, I concocted a fictitious past. This story satisfied the curious and accounted for my advanced intellect and erudite speech—traits I never fully understood in myself. I claimed an education at Radcliffe and feigned ties to high society, a narrative that seemed plausible enough to explain my idiosyncrasies.

But the way I felt when I looked at that painting by Dalí was one of the reasons I couldn't turn this job down. There was a connection there and I had an inexplicable need to discover what it was.

Lillian looked at her watch. "I really should go. I don't want to be late for my shift. But I hate you gallivanting off to some town no one has ever heard of with a couple of fascists to pretend to be some Properseena goddess in a wild garden of monsters."

"Proserpina. Pro-ser-pin-ah ," I corrected. "I know, the name is confusing. You could just say Persephone. And don't worry. I'll be home before you know it, and much richer. I'll take you out for dinner on the Veneto."

"On the Veneto?" She whistled. "I never did ask how much he is paying you, but now I want to know."

I pulled out the invitation with the details and handed it to her.

"Holy mackerel, Jules," she gasped. "Seventy-five thousand lire a day for seven days? That's what, about a thousand bucks? Dear lord."

"I know. Pennies from heaven. It will be nice not to be a starving artist for once." And with that kind of cash I'd be far from starving. "But, Lil, this is less about the money. It's the chance of a lifetime. To learn from a master, to be depicted as one of my favorite mythical heroines, and to be..."

"Dalí's muse," she finished for me. "I know." She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me goodbye, giving me one last admonishment to be careful.

At four o'clock on the dot, a sleek black-and-red Alfa Romeo pulled up, with a wood-paneled Fiat station wagon following behind, laden with luggage and easels strapped to the roof. Salvador Dalí stepped out of the elegant car, walking cane in hand, and looked around. The artist wore a beautiful dark gray double-breasted suit, complete with a pink-and-gray tie, and I worried that he might find my outfit, a simple black sweater over a red dress, lacking. I approached slowly, working up my courage, but Dalí caught sight of me and waved me over.

"Are you my modelo ?" he asked with a thick, clipped Catalan accent. His mustache curled upward just barely and his hair was slicked back, his eyes dark and piercing. His ears, which stuck out a bit too much from his head, were his least attractive feature. He had about twenty years on my twenty-four.

"Julia Lombardi," I said, extending my hand to the artist. Dalí clasped it with both of his and kissed it, his lips caressing my skin in a way that would make any woman swoon.

"You are a goddess," he said, rolling the r in a most dramatic way. He stared at me as though I were a landscape or a rare, precious object. "You are exquisite, your skin so pale, like you have just stepped forth from the darkness. I was right to ask for you."

I blushed.

He let go of my hand and looked around at the crowd. "Am I stealing you from a boyfriend? Has some dark Italian knight swept you off your feet before I got here, my Proserpina?"

I swallowed, thinking about Lillian's warning of him being a deviant. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time some man asked me that within a minute or two of meeting. I thought of my last boyfriend, a Roman who was controlling and manipulative. "I sent him away. He was inadequate."

Dalí fell into a fit of deep laughter. "All are inadequate for the beauty that is Proserpina. Only the darkest knight will satisfy the light within you."

"A princess in need of a knight?" said a woman with a heavy Russian accent, as she stepped out of the car. "It's a good thing you aren't a knight, Salvador."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I had heard so much about Gala. The woman was not just Dalí's wife, but also his manager. She had inspired many a poet and artist: éluard, de Chirico, Ernst, and Breton, to name just a few. It was said that many of the surrealists did their best work during the time they had been in love with Gala. I found that particularly interesting because she was rather plain of face, with a long nose and a disapproving stare. Yet she moved with a sexuality and an assurance I envied.

She walked up to me and took my chin in her hand, her grip harder than it needed to be. "Good. Your skin really is like porcelain."

"Imagine her as Proserpina, pomegranate seeds across her flesh, dotted like a thousand ants," said Dalí. He had long been known for adding lines of ants into his paintings. Together, they eyed me like I was a treasure in a museum.

I stood there awkwardly, until finally, Dalí tapped his cane on the ground twice. "Are you ready? I must warn you that where we are going is like nothing you have ever seen. I was in Bomarzo fourteen years ago with my friend Maurice Yves Sandoz, and I saw the wild wood there. A surreal place full of monstrous statues. Giants, a screaming ogre, sirens, a Pegasus, gods and goddesses, and of course, Proserpina."

I lifted my suitcase and gave him a nervous smile. "I am ready, Signor Dalí."

"No!" He tapped me on the shoulder with his silver-tipped walking cane. "I am Dalí."

I jumped, surprised at the strength of the gesture. "Very well, Dalí," I said, wondering if perhaps Lillian was right about not going. But no, I couldn't back down now. I drew a breath and gave him a nervous smile. "I look forward to vanquishing the monsters."

His driver retrieved my suitcase to put in the boot, then escorted me to the seat next to him. As we sped out of Rome, it felt like I was traveling through a tunnel, and every mile we drove, it was as though the light was growing a little brighter, that we were heading toward a beacon that might help me navigate the uncertain path of my future. Strangely, just as my past was blank, so, too, was my ability to envision a future, leaving me with a sense of emptiness and an unshakable feeling of being different. But for the first time, I felt a spark of something like hope.

The engine roar made it difficult to hear the Dalís' conversation, and the driver didn't seem interested in small talk, so I enjoyed the ride in silence, mesmerized by the beauty of the Lazio hills beyond Rome's walls. I hadn't traveled far outside the city and was glad for all the fall colors.

We could see Palazzo Orsini long before we arrived in Bomarzo, the boxy castello looming high above the trees, its ramparts gray against the blue of the November sky. A cluster of medieval houses crept up the hill and tumbled against one another until the line of buildings blurred into the edges of the palazzo itself. A lone bell tower stood out higher than all the rest of the edifices, jutting coarsely skyward. It looked like a place out of a dark fairy tale.

We couldn't take the cars up to the palazzo, as the medieval streets were far too narrow. Instead, we parked at the bottom of the hill and Dalí hopped out of the car and led us at a fast pace through a short tunnel and up a narrow road lined with centuries-old houses to the unassuming entrance, leaving the two young men in the Fiat with our luggage. I was surprised to see the face of the most important building in the city was so bland, a double door framed with stone, set into a simple medieval wall, chipped and cracked in spots.

"Something is wrong with this palazzo," Gala said as she raised her hand to the door knocker.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

She rubbed her hand along the worn metal. "It's just a feeling. That something is out of place."

But it did not deter her. She lifted the knocker, its sound reverberating off the buildings around us. A man more arresting than any other I had ever seen opened the door for us. He was beyond a cliché, even more beautiful than stars in the movies. He was too perfect, too handsome, too...everything. His eyes were pale green, like shining sea glass. Thick, ridged eyebrows gave him a serious air. His dark hair was long and slicked back on the sides, his lips full. He seemed familiar, but I knew I hadn't met him before.

" Benvenuti. Welcome," he exclaimed, his voice deep and rich with the barest trace of an accent, one I couldn't discern.

Gala moved toward him like a moth to a bright flame, reaching out for a handshake. She didn't seem inclined to let go of his hand, but somehow, he extracted himself and fixed his eyes on me.

"Julia."

How did he know my name? I was just the model, a person of little importance. It was surprising that either Dalí or Gala would have mentioned me.

"You are welcome here, Julia." His eyes never moved from mine as he took my hands in his.

I almost gasped as the heat of his touch lit every fiber of my skin on fire. My mind whirled with the sensation of something terribly familiar. But then he let go and ushered us inside. I looked at my hands. What just happened?

"I'm Ignazio," he said as I stumbled across the threshold. "I am your steward. I will see to your every need."

" Every need?" Gala said, laying a hand upon his arm and winking at Dalí.

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at Gala's suggestion. The rumors about her open sexual inclinations were rampant in the art world, but to see her so willfully flirting with another man in front of her husband was something I hadn't expected. Dalí, however, did not appear upset at all. On the contrary, the conspiratorial smile he gave her seemed to signal his approval. The idea they were in it together, that they both found some measure of pleasure in her flirtatious proclivities, was fascinating.

For his part, Ignazio deftly removed her hand from his arm and carried on as though he had not heard her comment. He led us on a tour of the six-hundred-year-old property with numerous long corridors, rooms full of antiques, weary frescoes, and shabby tapestries. The floors were bare, save for some decorative black-and-red tile in the main halls. Our steps echoed as we walked. It was darker than I liked. The electricity wasn't bright, and the wall sconces cast queer shadows.

"The palazzo is not as grand as many other places you may visit, but it's full of history and forgotten memories," he said, his tone wistful. "So many memories."

The back of my neck tingled at his words. Someone had walked over my grave, Lillian would have said.

As we walked from room to room, Dalí peppered Ignazio with questions about the Orsini and particularly about Vicino's obsession with alchemy, which he had read about. Our host was pleased to oblige the maestro and explained that Vicino was interested in the transmutation of the soul, in finding true enlightenment. "And if he turned metal into gold along the way, well, that would be a happy circumstance, wouldn't it?" he mused as he led us to the ramparts and ushered us outside.

"Below us is the boschetto , the little wood. Beware, there are monsters there." He pointed to a spot far down in the valley, but, in the fading light, it was difficult to see anything other than the dome of a small white building, which I took to be the tempietto . "Tomorrow you will meet them."

I thought that sounded rather ominous but didn't say so.

As we peered down at the garden, the sky began to transform, moving from yellow to pink, to the deepest violet, to dark blue.

"This," Dalí breathed, "is the only painting I could never paint."

We stared, mesmerized as the colors flowed across the sky, leaving the landscape awash with nature's brilliance.

"It's a gift," Ignazio whispered to me as he placed his fingers on the small of my back. It was the barest of touches, but it gave me a heady feeling of déjà vu and sent a distinct rush of warmth up my spine. I wanted to pull away, to break free from whatever invisible bond this man had wrapped around me, but my body was transfixed, as if tethered by an unseen force. "I think Sol is sending us his good luck."

"Sol?" I whispered back, my heart pounding, confused. Why would the sun god be sending "us" his luck?

Ignazio remained silent, a cryptic smile gracing his lips as he pivoted away. He shifted his focus to the Dalís, narrating tales of the abandoned Torre di Chia, a thirteenth-century lookout tower in the distance, jutting up like a mysterious obelisk in the forest. This sight stirred something within Dalí, who launched into a frenetic monologue about elephants and fantastical towers on their backs. But his words floated past me, mere specters of sound.

I stared at the ever-changing sky, its hues shifting in response to the sinking sun. Yet it was Ignazio's strange words, and more bafflingly, his touch, that captivated my restless mind. It wasn't just heat that emanated from that fleeting contact; it was something far more disquieting—an energy that crackled and jolted, like the dangerous dance of a live wire. It was heat; it was sparking, jolting. It was like a brand , I thought. A mere human shouldn't evoke such a visceral, almost primal, reaction in another. I didn't believe in magic or the divine, yet there was something that felt distinctly otherworldly—magnetic, or dangerous, even—about our host.

"Let's not go to the cellar today," Ignazio said as he led us back into the palazzo. "Another day, perhaps, I can show you the prison cells."

"Who would they have kept in the cells?" Gala asked the question before I could.

"People who didn't pay their taxes, town criminals, prisoners of war. The usual ruffians. A few murderers."

The way he said this last word made me shudder.

"You are cold, Julia?" asked Dalí.

"A little," I said, not knowing what else to say.

Ignazio winked at me, and my heart clenched. "A meal will warm you up. Let me show you to your rooms so you can rest a little first." He led us to the second floor. The red carpet on the stairs beneath my feet was frayed, with a few white, threadbare spots. I was struck by how quiet the castello was. At no point during our tour had I heard any sounds other than those we were making: the plodding of our footsteps on the hard floor, the swoosh of our clothes, the chattering among us. There was no door being closed somewhere off in the distance, no water running in the kitchen, no hired help murmuring or scurrying about.

We stopped at a set of interconnected rooms that were intended for Gala and Dalí. I stood awkwardly near the wide double doors as Ignazio showed the couple everything they would need to know about their stay. Gala's voice floated toward me, and although I couldn't see her, it was clear she was fawning over our host. Then Ignazio appeared and ushered me out of the room, shutting the Dalís in behind him.

"Here we are," Ignazio announced, stopping at the door to my room.

"Thank you," I stammered. "This is lovely." And it really was. The gold-edged frescoes of ancient myths adorning the walls, the baroque-era, red-velvet love seat, the luxurious four-poster bed, and even the dark wooden beams overhead were stunning. Modern stained-glass lamps graced the tables, the only sign I hadn't stepped back centuries in time. He pointed out all the amenities: extra blankets and pillows, a basin with water to wash my face, a plush bathrobe, and a pair of fuzzy slippers. I had not imagined I would be sleeping in such a luxurious fashion.

Ignazio motioned for me to enter, but I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to be in a bedroom with this man. After making his way to the window to close the curtains against the blackness, he eyed me intensely, as though he intended to say something but thought better of it. Then he neared me, moving close enough that I could smell him—a heady scent of smoke, leather, wood, and cinnamon. For a second, I thought he would reach out and touch me, and I didn't know what I would do if he did, but he just swept right past me, pausing only briefly at the door.

"You can freshen up," he said, pointing to the basin in the corner of the room. "Then join us in the dining hall. You must be hungry." And with that, he was gone.

He was the one who sounded hungry—for me.

Going to the window, I parted the velvet curtains, hoping for a glimpse of the boschetto below. But the landscape was dark, save for the few houses lit up far in the distance. It was in moments like these I often tried to remember some of the blankness that furled out behind me.

I reveled in the darkness and the starry tapestry above me. To my surprise, three shooting stars streaked across the sky in quick succession. First, the display of the sun, then the brilliance of the night.

I hoped Ignazio's mysterious proclamation about Sol might be true—that the gods were bestowing something good upon us. If not Sol, then perhaps I could call upon Astraeus, the Titan god of the planets and stars. I made a wish on those stellar gifts, that some of their light would help me find my way.

Just as I was about to close the curtains, a green glow flared down in the valley. Faint at first, it grew brighter, illuminating the obscure corners of the landscape in an eerie radiance. I couldn't pinpoint its origin, but I knew it wasn't anything mundane. It wasn't a fire, that much was clear, and its ethereal luminescence ruled out the possibility of it being a car's headlights or a flashlight. It was mesmerizing yet unsettling, almost as if it tapped into some deeply buried instinct. The light began to pulse faster and faster, intensifying in brilliance. Leaning against the window frame, I analyzed its rhythm with a sense of growing astonishment, my breath catching when I realized that the pulsing light was eerily synchronized with the beat of my heart.

I shut the curtains and stood there, the hairs on my arms standing on end as I tried to calm my breath. The sound of laughter from down the hall brought me back to my senses. I was being ridiculous. There couldn't have been anything there in the garden. With great hesitation, I opened the curtain again.

The glow was gone.