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or wearing his collar. Maureen was anxious to catch up with him.
    She decided she would fly into Paris, do her business there, then drive down with Tammy to where both of their beloveds awaited themat Bérenger’s Château des Pommes Bleues in the southwest of France. Tammy was also blissfully in love, engaged to the gentle Languedoc giant Roland Gelis, who was the childhood best friend of Bérenger. They all lived together in the beauty of the Aude river valley, a magical part of the Languedoc region where the château was located, just outside of Arques. Bérenger, the heir to a Scottish oil fortune, had inherited the château from his grandfather. It had been built in the Languedoc as the exclusive headquarters of a secret society that protected dangerous and heretical secrets. Bérenger had inherited these secrets along with his French castle.
    It was too late to call Bérenger tonight, but first thing in the morning—her morning, his afternoon—she would talk to him about accompanying her from Arques to Florence. Destino sent her a letter advising them that he was leaving Chartres to return to Florence, stating it was “once and for all.” The letter had felt very final, as if he were preparing to die in Italy. It had upset Maureen immensely at the time. Destino was ancient—literally—and his death was inevitable. But to lose such a treasure, now that she understood and accepted what he was and the extraordinary wisdom he had to offer the world, would be hard to take.
    Destino’s letter indicated that he had much to teach Maureen in a limited time and that it would be her responsibility to be conversant in the Libro Rosso prior to her arrival. He did not have time to teach the basics of the Order’s tenets. He had very specific lessons for them and tasks that must be carried out in preparation for the mission they would all embark upon together. Destino was emphatic when referring to “the mission.”
    In preparation for her trip to Florence, Maureen reaffirmed her commitment to study the teachings of the Libro Rosso, which she currently had in her possession, as Destino had given all of them a translation as a gift: Maureen, Bérenger, Tammy, Roland, and Peter were all currently studying the English translation of the sacred red book that held the greatest secrets of Christianity.
    She had used these sacred pages to craft
The Time Returns: The Legend of the Book of Love
. But it was time to study them and commit certain passages to memory. Maureen pledged to start from the beginning and work all the way through, studying a few segments a night.
    It wasn’t a chore. Maureen had thought from the first moment she had been exposed to the Libro Rosso teachings that they were the most beautiful words she had ever read. She recognized them as truth, and it had been a celebration for her to write a book about the brave souls who risked everything to preserve these astonishing teachings for two thousand years.
    Maureen settled into bed with her book. The teachings always returned to the understanding of love as the great gift given to us by God. But as simple as such an idea should be, it was here that the controversy began. For within the Book of Love, God was not viewed as a patriarch; he was not simply Our Father. God was Our Father in perfect union with Our Mother. The first pages contained Maureen’s favorite passage:

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But God was not a single being, he did not reign over the universe alone. He ruled with his companion, who was his beloved.
    And thus in the first book of Moses, called Genesis, God said, “Let us make man in
Our
image, after
Our
likeness,” as he is speaking to his other half, who is his wife. For creation is a miracle that occurs most perfectly when the union of male and female principles is present. And the Lord God said, “Behold that man has become one of
Us
.”
    And the book of Moses says, thus God created man in his own image,