The Stolen Gospels (13 page)

Within the immense computer screen on the wall, the separate panels contained words, alphabet letters, and sentence fragments in an unknown language, and in English below that, with dots between the entries representing missing portions. The terminal operator scrolled the panels so that new sections came into view.

“How are you, Veronica?” Dixie Lou asked, with a broad smile. She clasped one of the child’s hands in her own, commented that it was warm to the touch.

Veronica didn’t reply, pulled her hand free and kicked the dolls and animals on the table. Some tumbled to the floor.

“She doesn’t talk in the normal sense,” Dixie Lou said. “None of the she-apostles do.”

“The what?”

“She-apostles.” Dixie Lou went on to explain to Lori that this child and the others like her were the reincarnated female apostles of Jesus—and that the children spoke in sentence fragments from a long-ago language, Aramaic.

Startled, Lori caught her breath. She didn’t know what to believe. It didn’t sound possible.

“This was one of the first two we found,” Dixie Lou said. “She was born to Italian parents, who quickly took her to a doctor when she started babbling. It wasn’t like normal baby talk, and frightened the parents.” Dixie Lou stroked the hair of the child.

Veronica pushed her away.

“Be polite, little one,” Dixie Lou said, in a soothing tone, “or we won’t give you the little oranges you love.”

At a signal from Dixie Lou, the matron brought out a small orange from one of her own pockets.

The child reached out for it, but the woman withheld it.

The child shook her head angrily, and scuttled to the opposite side of the table, away from her.

“I’m not the best person with these children,” Dixie Lou admitted. “They’re moody and unpredictable. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t.”

“May I try?” Lori asked, reaching a hand out to the child, but not touching her yet. She didn’t like the way Veronica was being treated, but didn’t feel comfortable saying anything about that. Not until she figured out how to voice her complaint, and what to do about it.

“Don’t let her,” an urgent voice said. Peripherally, Lori saw Katherine Pangalos in the doorway.

“Go ahead,” Dixie Lou said.

Gathering courage, Lori clasped the child’s hand. Tiny fingers wrapped around the teenager’s forefinger, and a sub-cellular earthquake shook Lori to the core, then dissipated, leaving her with a warm, infinitely calm sensation. She lifted Veronica into the air, and suddenly the child began to speak loudly and rapidly in a peculiar language, as if a faucet had been turned on.

“She’s speaking ancient Aramaic!” Dixie Lou said excitedly. “Complete sentences!” She pointed to the woman at the computer. “We’re translating to English on-the-spot . . . a rough translation that is refined later, after the recording is studied in more detail.”

In their spoken form, the words sounded vaguely familiar to Lori, but she couldn’t quite place them. She read the words on the wall screen, printed in ornate script:

“Our Lord Jesus loved and respected women. I, Veronica, and Mary Magdalene were among his twenty-four apostles. When the Savior was being led to his crucifixion, carrying his own heavy wooden cross, he stumbled and fell to one knee, near where I stood with Mary Magdalene in a throng of onlookers at the side of the road. As the Lord Jesus struggled to His feet, He gazed upon us and smiled. He was bloody and bruised from being beaten by the guards. I stepped toward Him and wiped His face with my veil. Gazing upon me tenderly He blessed me and said, ‘You have my blood. I am with you always.’ They took Him straight to the cross on the Hill of Golgotha and nailed Him there.”

As the translator finished typing, Veronica held onto Lori’s hand, and smiled at her. “The Catholic legend of Veronica,” the translator said, “but the words of Jesus are new.”

“Give her the orange now,” Dixie Lou said.

The matron did so, and the child began peeling the skin off the fruit.

Standing and watching the she-apostle, Lori felt angered at this method of dealing with children, but held her tongue. She had heard of food deprivation techniques on animals, but never on human beings.

Dixie Lou glared at the old woman in the doorway. “Well, Katherine, what do you say to the latest?”

“It requires further study.”

As the two women continued their discussion in sharp tones, Lori smoothed the child’s reddish-brown hair, which was of a darker hue than her own.

“How diplomatic,” Dixie Lou said to Katherine. “I’m surprised you’re not accusing me of setting up a trick.”

“I’m willing to admit I’ve been hard on you in the past,” Katherine said. “We need to work together, so I’ll try to be more understanding.”

“How refreshing.”

The elderly doctor’s eyes flashed, but this time she made no retort.

“How do you know Veronica is reincarnated?” Lori asked, of no one in particular.

The translator spun on her chair, looked at Dixie Lou. “Shall I answer that?”

The Acting Chairwoman did not respond, and as she looked at Lori she seemed amazed by the remarkable effect the teenager’s presence seemed to have had on the child. Dixie Lou watched them continue to interact, touching hands, smiling, sharing something in the looks they exchanged, in their eyes.

“There is no other explanation for the words they speak,” the translator explained. “They are tiny children, using the ancient language of Jesus and no other tongue. At first, two female babies appeared, and informed us they were among a group of twelve.”

“All females?” Lori asked.

“Yes, meaning Jesus had twenty-four apostles, twelve of each gender. When the special female babies and toddlers were brought in—we have eleven now—Amy Angkor-Billings began to call them ‘she-apostles.’”

“Where is the twelfth—she-apostle?” Lori asked.

“Missing. Hasn’t been brought to us yet, so we hope she is safe. With each additional child we learn new fragments of the story of Jesus, which we fit into place like puzzle pieces. Sometimes putting the children together causes them to talk more, but that stopped working several days ago, and they began speaking only sporadically, in incomplete sentences. Until you showed up.”

Lori tried to understand. “These are
new
gospels?”

Finally Veronica pulled away, then hurled the doll of the Roman man across the little room.

The translator rose to her feet, crossed her arms over her chest. “In a sense, but they’re actually
old
, brought to light again after being lost for centuries. We’re assembling a new holy book, combining edited sections of
The Old Testament
and
The New Testament
with our
Testament of the She-Apostles
.”

“This is a mind-blower,” Lori said.

The woman nodded. “We quite agree.”

“Have you learned anything sensational about Jesus?” Lori asked. “Anything shocking?”

“Such as confirmation of rumors that he might have been married, or something like that?”

“I guess so. Any dirt on the holy man at all? Did he always turn the other cheek, or did he ever get in a fist fight and give someone a bloody nose?”

“You have an irreverent manner of speaking,” Katherine Pangalos said.

“I apologize for my directness,” Lori said.

“No ‘dirt’ on him,” the translator said. “To the contrary, we have new evidence that our beloved Jesus was completely nonviolent, and that he was celibate, too. Some of the rumors about his personal life are quite entertaining, and quite wrong. A number of biblical researchers have suggested that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were either lovers or husband and wife, and that children were born to them. There are even soap opera scenarios in which Mary Magdalene was not faithful to Jesus, or that he might have had multiple sexual partners himself. Some of these tales go back a long time. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther discussed the possibility that Jesus might have been something of a ladies’ man, and not in the platonic sense. There are even suggestions that he might have been married more than once.”

“Wow!” Lori said.

“We don’t believe any of that, of course. It’s all nonsense, utter nonsense. Jesus loved and admired women, but he had no physical relationships with any of them.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Lori said. “He wasn’t gay either, I assume?”

She heard Katherine Pangalos mutter something in disapproval.

“No, he wasn’t gay,” the translator said, “and he wasn’t asexual, either. He was celibate—one of the sacrifices he made when he took the form of a flesh and blood man.”

“It sounds like you admire him,” Lori said.

“All of us do, very much.”

“But you have goddess circles, a She-God, and Jesus, too—I don’t see how it all works.”

“We’re Christians, but obviously we’re not in the mainstream.”

“I’m sorry to ask so many questions. I’m just curious.”

Smiling in a kindly way, the translator said, “You have every right, considering what we just saw with Veronica.”

“I can’t explain what happened.”

“Well, it happened.” She looked at Veronica. “Some of the information provided by the she-apostles is entirely new, while some of it—such as what this child said moments ago—is linked to information we already had. Last week, Veronica told us that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene most of all, a story that is very similar to the Gospel of Philip, one of the gospels that was omitted from the
Bible
. In the early centuries after Jesus died, a great struggle took place over the role of women in the church, and gospels favorable to them were destroyed. But some brave person hid copies near Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, where they were found in 1945. Later there was an additional major discovery at Alexandria, with even more gospels that have been translated—gospels that contain fragments matching the new words of the she-apostles. This is further confirmation of our project.”

The translator paused and glanced at Dixie Lou Jackson, who simply smiled. In Comparative Religion class, Lori had heard about the Apocrypha and other religious texts that were not in the
Bible
. . . but she didn’t know much about them, or the reasons for the decisions.

“Why was the Gospel of Philip omitted from the
Bible
?” Lori asked.

“The framers of the
Bible
—powerful male clergymen in the first three or four centuries after Jesus Christ—didn’t want any suggestion that he might have had a physical or even an emotional relationship with a woman. They had another overriding concern as well, wishing to conceal the high esteem Jesus felt for all of womanhood.”

“Do you understand what you’ve done?” Dixie Lou said to Lori. “You’ve drawn more words from this she-apostle than anyone else, and we have ten others like her. What effect will you have on
them
?”

Lori shrugged. She was sensing something she couldn’t quite identify, an inexplicable, mystifying feeling that was coming over her.

“Come back tomorrow,” Dixie Lou said, “and we’ll see what you can do.”

The teenager was beginning to feel worse with each passing moment. She didn’t respond. . . .

“But she could contaminate the memories of the children,” Katherine protested, in a concerned tone.

“How?” Dixie Lou asked.

“Don’t be dense. This is potentially disruptive to our entire program. It requires further study, the judgment of the entire council.”

“So nice to see you back in your usual good humor.”

“Think about it. At least admit when I’m right.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” But inwardly Dixie Lou was beginning to agree with Katherine, and realized she may have acted precipitously in allowing her son and the girl in. This could be the work of the Devil, acting through an innocent-looking teenage girl.

“Do I need to obtain an emergency council order?” Katherine demanded.

“No,” Dixie Lou said in an agitated voice. “I’ll go along with you on this.” Aside from her own concerns about allowing Lori in, Dixie Lou didn’t want to risk weakening her own personal power base by going against the council on an issue where she would in all likelihood lose.

“Now you’re making some sense.”

“Lori Vale will be kept away from the children until the council approves,” Dixie Lou promised.

“I’ll see to that myself,” Katherine said. . . .

“Thank you,” Dixie Lou said, but Lori noted displeasure in her eyes, oddly mixed with fascination.

Lori noticed Alex outside the cubicle, watching silently with his gray-eyed gaze. In the midst of all the commotion, she’d almost forgotten about him. His relationship with his mother seemed peculiar to her. There was a playful aspect to the young man that surprised Lori—the race today, and other things he did. But the night before, he had confided that he didn’t like his mother, and more. His exact words came back to her: “She’s dangerous if you make her mad.”

An overwhelmingly bleak feeling had settled over Lori, a dismal gloom. She felt alone and vulnerable, with a general sense of unease, that she was faced with important decisions but didn’t have the wisdom or experience to handle them.

She thought she heard a whispering of women’s voices, like a heavenly susurration on a cosmic, ethereal wind. Turning her head slightly, she saw Veronica’s mouth moving.

Something clicked off in Lori’s mind . . . or on. She wasn’t sure which, but it was like a change of pressure, or the sealing of a vacuum chamber. She no longer heard specific sounds, not the mysterious murmuring and not the voices of Dixie Lou or the other women in the cubicle. The child’s mouth continued to move, silently, and Lori saw that Veronica had one hand over the side of her mouth.

The lips made the same pattern of movement over and over. Word shapes, but not in English, and not in Aramaic either, she sensed. Closing her eyes, Lori envisioned Veronica’s tiny mouth, framing something so carefully. A private message?

With a start she realized it was a single word, in a secret language that was unknown to the translators in this Scriptorium.

Iktol
.

Somehow, inexplicably, Lori knew what it meant.

Murder
.

But a secret language? How did Lori know that, and why couldn’t she summon up any other words in that tongue? Surely, her mind must be playing tricks with her.