With a roar, the little car hurtles past the invisible fawn. A flurry of leaves plays a faint lullaby as they tumble over each other. Seconds later, the forest slumbers, the disturbance nothing but a hazy memory skulking the shadows of sleep. Several hundred metres away, a banana-yellow Volkswagen Thing huddles silently beside the road, shielded beneath a broad canopy of fir trees. A sharp click ripples out into the darkness.
Muffled footsteps crunch a convoluted path accompanied by a whispering choir of rustling branches.
Overhead, the cloud cover parts for a split second and a pale shaft of moonlight illuminates the scene. Inside the small chamber, I step onto the elevator platform, drawing the cage door behind me. The scissors doors sound like so many knives drawn across a stone. There is only one button on the control panel, a singular destination for my Calvinist cubicle. With Virgil by my side, and a chorus of electrical humming around me, the lift descends into the abandoned mine shaft, drawing me ever-closer to the elusive Beatrice.