The Sword of Ruth: The Story of Jesus' Little Sister

by V. M. Franck

Raven

  My room, a grotto hewn from stone, was decorated with woven wall hangings and furniture of fine wood. Grateful to close out the others, I readied for bed and climbed beneath a hand-stitched quilt. Scrunching in, I thought back on the events of the day--an award, a cave with secrets and an old Indian who thought I could unlock the "Mystery of the Ages". Zak thought so too, as did Jessie. They were nice people, but it had been my experience that nice usually required something of me. I had nothing left. Tad's death stripped away inner resources I had been unable to rebuild.

  Needing him, I retrieved a memory. His eyes--I had always loved their softness. I was well-passed the crying the stage, but my life was still vacant without him. Wondering how I was ever going to sleep, I turned off the light and managed to shut down repeating thoughts. I felt myself drifting.

  A knock came to the door.

  Leave me alone.

  It came again.

  "Yes?"

  "It's Jessie."

  "Just a minute." Go away. I turned on the light, slipped on my robe and opened the door.

  "Sorry to bother you," Jessie said, "but Felipe insisted. He's concerned you didn't get anything to eat. He says Maya is like that. She gets so caught up in what she's doing she forgets everything else."

  "Thanks. I'm not hungry."

  "Please, I'll show you the way. I would have brought dinner to you, but Zak wants us to know where everything is, in case we need something in the night." His eyes were kind, interested. I was never sure if he was going to give me a romantic kiss or pat me on the head big brother style.

  "I'm in my robe."

  "So, it's not like you're naked. Really, come on."

  Reluctant, I followed him along a series of tunnels to the kitchen and dining area. I had expected it to feel institutionally cold. The opposite was true. There were antique tables and modern appliances made to look like those from pioneer days. A door to the side of the room opened. A tall lean man, probably in his early forties, emerged. His eyes and hair were cavern black. He was dressed in jeans and a business shirt.

  "I see you convinced her," he said.

  "Yep. So, here she is as per your request, Felipe. Now, you have to forgive me," Jessie said. "I'm beat. I feel grouchy, and I desperately need sleep."

  I was alone with a man of strong ethnic bearing--deep set eyes, a distinctive nose with a slight bend like it had been hit. He had an artistic look, complete with guitar fingers.

  "Interesting, I've never known him to say something like that," Felipe said.

  "Like what?"

  "That he's grouchy. He doesn't do grouchy. Regardless, as he indicated my name is Felipe. My mother is maya, my father the ocean. I am but a drop, returned. But then, you already know that."

  "Oh sure," I said, "these days I know everything."

  "I'm glad you realize that, Raven."

  "Funny," I said, plopping myself on a chair at the nearest dining table.

  "We all know lots of things we don't remember. The lack of food will do that."

  "Make us remember or make us forget?"

  "Take your pick."

  "Cute," I said. "So you're the cook?"

  "Among other things. Mostly I like to fish."

  "Then you're living in the wrong place. Where do you do that around here?"

  "On the lawn mostly." He gave an open grin, the kind one could get lost in. It threw me. I didn't want to get lost.

  "When we flew in I didn't see a lawn." Remembering I was in my robe, I wished I had changed.

  "Good point." He served a plate of chicken, home fries and coleslaw and set it before me.

  Self-conscious, I ate while he finished dinner clean up.

  When I was done, he said, with an unusual resonance in his voice, "Now, to the reason I wanted to see you."

  Shivers raced the length of my body. "Feeding me wasn't it?"

  He reached into one of the drawers and pulled out a photograph. It was of an old plate with a scene painted on it. The plate was covered with cracks.

  "Where did you get this?" I asked. It had mysterious appeal, like something I had seen before.

  "From Zak. Look close." Felipe stroked his throat.

  The artist's rendering was of a man's head on a platter, being offered to a harem girl.

  "It has to be ancient," I said.

  "It's been dated first century C.E."

  "A.D." Grandma Duval had always corrected me when I used the term C.E. She had said it was disrespectful to Jesus.

  "I prefer Common Era," Felipe said. "It's religiously neutral. It respects the beliefs of those who don't think everything revolves around Jesus. He didn't want that. He still doesn't."

  "Where was this found?" I examined the details. The artist had been skilled.

  "With the scrolls. We believe it's a historical record."

  "As in Maya's scrolls?"

  "Yes. There are a number of plates in the vault. This place was chosen for storage because there's a lot of salt in these rocks."

  "This has to be John the Baptist's head being offered to Salome."

  "That's what we believe." Again, he stroked his throat.

  "Do you know who the artist was?"

  "We were thinking it could have been the person who wrote the scrolls or someone close to her."

  "Her? A woman? I thought the scholars during that time were men. So you think only one person wrote them?"

  "They're in the same hand. Simeon is an expert on such things."

  "I'd like to see the plates. I spent a summer when I was in college on an archeological dig in Italy. We uncovered a number of frescos, bits of pottery and such, but nothing in as good a shape as this one."

  "Tomorrow will have to do. The vault is on a time lock."

  "Rats. Well, uh, what else can you tell me?" I said, energized for the first time since Tad's death. "You know, this whole set of events is strange. I can't get my head around everything that's happened in the last week."

  "That's how I felt when Zak found me." He took out a bottle of wine, offered me a glass, poured one for himself and straddled a chair opposite me.

  "Thanks. How did he find you?"

  "I was fishing in the Clackamas River."

  "Not near Oregon City by any chance? I have a house on the Clackamas."

  "As a matter of fact, down from the old railroad bridge. I was on vacation from the typical white collar job. Too much stress, too much overtime I wasn't paid for, too many projects that withered my soul, so they could be finished ahead of schedule, only to be canceled. You know, The Republican Way, shine-on the peasants and use them for fodder.

  "I'd spotted a steelhead holding behind a rock. I was in the process of casting to it, when someone hollered. I lost my balance and landed on my butt in two feet of water. Boy, was I pissed. I scrambled to get my fly rod before it floated away and glared back at the bank. There was this guy, holding a bottle of what turned out to be Scotch and a couple of plastic cups.

  "'Didn't mean to startle you, partner,' he said. He gave me that big Southern grin of his, and I started laughing hysterically. An overreaction to be sure, but it suddenly occurred to me that I was way too tense. Fishing usually relaxed me, but after a week off I was still wound. I joined him on the bank, and he offered me a shot. He was wearing threadbare overalls and a red and white plaid shirt. The only clue that he had any money was his shoes. They looked like some European brand he'd paid too much for. He offered me a couple more shots, which I gratefully accepted, and then he said, 'I have a proposition for you, son.'"

  "Weren't you suspicious?"

  "Of course. I was thinking, what could this hayseed offer me that I could possibly be interested in? I had no idea, no idea what was about to happen. Gees. I quit my job, packed up and followed him. My kids, who were eighteen and nineteen by then, had a fit."

  "Your kids? I'm getting lost."

  "Sorry," Felipe said. "I still
find it hard to believe."

  "So what happened? What did he offer you?"

  "Everything. Nothing. Myself."

  "I'm confused."

  "You'll see. He'll do it to you, too."

  "I already have myself."

  "Do you?" Felipe asked. "He offered me a job designing a system to interface two arms of one of his interests. The White Rose Connection, he called it. It's a front for what we do here."

  "And?"

  "It bothered the hell out of me--the whole mystery he wouldn't reveal, 'until we were in a place with no ears.'"

  "He said that to me, too."

  "And to Jessie, as it turns out. Anyway, then I met Maya and Simeon."

  "So she isn't your mother?"

  "Isn't she?"

  "Now I'm really confused." I sipped more wine, grateful for the floaty feeling it had given me already, and gazed directly into his eyes. They were nice, very nice.

  "Confusion is the author of brilliance." He scratched his Adam's apple and gave me another grin.

  "In that case I'm totally brilliant."

  "Good, because that's exactly what you're going to need, that and protection."

  "So what I'm here to do is dangerous?"

  He shrugged. "That's what Zak says. I never know if he's being over dramatic to make a point or what. Why don't I walk you back to your room? The first two weeks I was here I was constantly heading down the wrong tunnel. We don't want you to start out irritated."

  "Too late."

  "Really?"

  "It's just that everyone is expecting miracles from me, and I'm fresh out."

  "Think again."

  "Oh, sure. One set of miracles coming right up."

  "Very good."

  ~~~***~~~