continues to shrink, undermining the picturesque city, which is on verge of
collapsing into the valley—giving it the nickname ‘the dying city.’ We spent
time hiking in the region, and got just as mud-covered as Savannah did!
Savannah and Jaxson arrived in Italy through a portal in a garden of stone
monsters. This location is based on the Sacro Bosco (Sacred Grove) in
Bomarzo, also known as the Parco dei Mostri (Park of the Monsters). The
wooded garden is filled with towering grotesque sculptures, some of which
were sculpted directly into the bedrock. They include a giant ripping a man in
half, a war elephant with a Roman legionnaire wrapped in its trunk, and a
massive turtle, among many others.
The garden was commissioned in 1552 by Prince Pier Francesco Orsini as
an expression of grief. The prince returned from a brutal war in which he’d
been held for ransom and lost his best friend, only to have his beloved wife
die soon after. The garden defies all conventions of a well-manicured and
orderly Italian renaissance garden. It is an expression of chaos, with
grotesque sculptures, an asymmetric layout, wildly growing trees and shrubs,
and even a tilting tower house.
Perhaps the most striking sculpture in the garden is the massive head of
Orcus, whose screaming mouth opens into a cave, and which directly inspired
the portal Jax and Savy traveled through. Orcus was an Etruscan/Roman god
of the underworld and known as a punisher of broken oaths. In many ways,
his open mouth is like a gateway to hell. Over the entrance, the words ogni
pensiero vola are inscribed on his lip, which translates as “all thoughts fly” or
“all reason departs.” If you are brave enough to enter the screaming mouth,
you find a little table where you can have lunch, and thus take part in eating
while appearing to be eaten.
Speaking of portals, you might be wondering why, of all places, did we
put a portal to the Dreamlands in Forks, Washington—the town of Twilight
fame? While on a writing retreat in the upper Olympic Peninsula, we were
inspired by the Tree Root Cave in Olympic National Park. The cave is in the