Anastasia's Grail

by Mary Pearson

after Stacy had set them up with a completed bomb, only to be stopped five yards from the end zone. They needed a comeback. Too bad one member of their team was dead weight. Of course this could work to their advantage if he could be persuaded to come alive for just one play. They discussed this in the huddle and Darius agreed to try for one play. When the ball was hiked, Zeke faked a hand-off to Frank, instead completing a screen pass to Darius by the sideline. They managed to take the other team by surprise and it might have even gone all the way, except that Emily was too aggressive, grabbing Darius by the back mere feet from their end zone, and she actually tackled him, causing him to rip a hole in the knee of his sweats.

  Darius stood up, dropped the ball and walked to his car without a word.

  “What’s his problem?” Frank said with disdain.

  “I’d better go.” Stacy was apologetic, but she scampered after Darius, leaving her cousin’s team two members shy.

  Despite her attempts to talk him out of it, Darius got into his car and drove away.

  “Your boyfriend’s kind of a dud,” was Zeke’s flat statement that night at interval training.

  Stacy bent to tie her shoelace. “Not always,” she said. “In some situations, he’s really charming.”

  “Well, he didn’t bother turning on the charm for us.”

  Stacy had to agree. Darius today had been like a different person than the Darius she had previously known and been enthralled with. “Maybe he was just having a bad day,” she suggested.

  “Maybe.” Zeke shrugged. “I hope so for your sake, if you plan to continue to hang out with him.”

  There was more than a week left of Christmas vacation and Stacy had promised herself she would do a bit of work on her Grail presentation each day. Today she hunkered down to finish The DaVinci Code, which up to now she had only been able to read in snippets. The novel centered around an expert in symbology, Robert Langdon, and a cryptogragher, Sophie Neveu, who was working on a murder case, with which the Paris police were also involved. The curator of the Louvre Museum had been found dead with a symbol carved on his chest. Langdon was in Paris to give a talk and Neveu warned him that the Parisian police had him pegged as the prime suspect.

  Langdon and Neveu escaped the Louvre together and set out to decipher a series of clues left by the victim to determine who was his assassin. They were hunted by both police and a member of Opus Dei, who here had been hired to kill them before they uncovered a secret which the Catholic church had supposedly been covering up since it’s inception: that Jesus never believed Himself to be God; that the four gospels which were chosen by the church were only selected in order to further an agenda of male dominance; that, in fact, Jesus had been romantically involved with Mary Magdalene--together they had given birth to a daughter; and that the true gospel had been suppressed by the Council of Nicea in 325. The (so-called) Gnostic gospels better fit with the truth of the divine feminine, and Goddess worship, with which Jesus was actually involved. Physical union with a female was the sole means by which man could become spiritually complete and achieve gnosis—knowledge of the divine.

  So Mary Magdalene and her bloodline, the Sang Real, (passed down through the French Merovingian royal family) was the real grail. The secret was preserved for centuries by the Priory of Scion, whose military branch, the Knights Templar, had guarded not only the roads to the Holy Land, but this secret.

  Knights Templar… That was the second time—at least—that she had read about them. She remembered they had been connected with guarding the Grail cup as well.

  No Darius today—he was busy setting up gigs—so Stacy joined Zeke and Arthur in playing outside with Reecie. After a few hours of tag and snowball fights, they made a giant snowball with a smaller ball in front and placed it near the back door to Stacy’s house. Reecie would use the smaller ball to climb onto the larger, then she’d slide down the back side. The yard was sloped to begin with, so she could get a good long run out of it.

  “The snow slide is great.” Stacy smoothed a rough bit on the larger ball. “Reecie is really enjoying this.”

  “Wait ‘til tomorrow.” Arthur grinned at her.

  Stacy’s curiosity was peaked but neither of the guys would let on what they had in mind.

  The next morning she found them hard at work, hollowing out the balls. They were using trowels and mini-shovels. “We’re making her an igloo,” Zeke told Stacy when she leaned over to peer in at them. They had already hollowed the small ball for an entryway and were halfway through scooping out the larger one. Arthur was working on the inside, chipping away at the hardened snow, while Zeke, who was bigger, shoveled and removed the snow piles generated by his friend’s labor.

  It was splendid. Reecie loved it. She insisted on eating her lunch in there and it was like pulling teeth to get her indoors when she needed the bathroom. She even invited Stacy inside for a tea party. There was just enough room for two. (Truthfully the larger of the two was a bit cramped.) When Darius arrived for a surprise visit in the mid-afternoon, he received a tour of the place. He was only willing to poke his head in and look, but even he was forced to agree, it was a wonderful fort.

  Since Reecie still refused to go in the house and there was loads of available snow, Stacy, Darius and Reecie decided to make a snow man to guard the entryway. This time they would have access to a proper carrot nose and button eyes. Even scarf and hat were available, but since he was policing the place, perhaps helmet and club would be more appropriate. They were just in the process of rolling the three balls for his body when Stacy was called away to help her mother bring some supplies from the basement of the bread shop into the work room.

  “Do you mind watching Reece for a minute while I get that?” Stacy asked him.

  Darius agreed,so she left him in charge of her little sister.

  When she returned there was no one in sight. Maybe they went in to warm up.

  Entering the kitchen she found Reecie sitting at the table, eating a cheese sandwich.

  “I found her alone in the back yard.” Emily’s tone was clearly disapproving.

  “Where’s Darius?” Stacy asked them. When no one answered she took Reecie by the shoulders and looked in her eyes. “Reecie honey, where’s Darius?”

  “In a fort,” Reecie said, her mouth still full.

  Stacy ran back outside. This time she noticed that one of the snowman balls had been rolled in front of the entrance. Stacy kicked it to the side and peered in. “Oh, hello,” She smiled at Darius. “What are you doing in here?”

  “What do you think…?” Darius’ tone was acidic. He crawled out, stood up and shook the snow off. “Freezing and cramping up.”

  Stacy knew it wasn’t really cold in there. “Well, why did you go in then?”

  “Your satanic sister told me to. Then she rolled a damn ball in front of the entrance.”

  Stacy suppressed a smile. “Why didn’t you just kick it away?”

  “Every time I tried my butt would slide.” He faced her, frankly irritated. “Well…?”

  “Well, what…?”

  “Aren’t you going to punish the brat?”

  Stacy shook her head. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to block you in, Darius.”

  “The hell she didn’t!” He pulled his gloves back on. “You people spoil that child.” He strode to his car and got in.

  What was his problem? Anybody else would have thought it was funny. Stacy sighed and went inside.

  “Did you guys have fun in the igloo today?” Zeke bent to pick up a tray of bagged bread.

  “Mostly.” Stacy told him how Darius had been trapped inside by Reecie.

  “For how long?” Ezekiel seemed much more concerned than Stacy would have expected.

  “No more than fifteen minutes.”

  Zeke breathed out. “We should have made some air holes. It didn’t occur to me that the entrance could get blocked off.”

  Stacy pounded a glob of dough. “What’s the big deal? I went in there with Reece. It was f
ine.”

  “You went in when the entrance was open. Have you any idea what it’s like when it’s not?” At her bewildered look, Zeke explained, “Pitch black, kind of wet, and with diminishing air supply, it would be petrifying.”

  “So then why didn’t he just yell. We would have let him out.”

  “If you heard him—which I doubt you would. Snow makes very good insulation.” Zeke regarded her gravely. “If Reecie hadn’t told you where he was, well… it’s not that I’m all that fond of the guy, but he couldn’t have lasted for long.”

  Stacy took five to call Darius and apologize for having been cavalier about him being trapped in the igloo. She explained she had no idea how dangerous it was. He had every right to be upset. He accepted her apology and they cemented their plans for the Downhill Nikki concert which was coming up Sunday night.

  The next morning found Stacy back at work, this time studying the history of the Shroud. Earliest mention of Jesus’ burial linens was in the Gospel of John. The disciples entered the tomb, saw the linens – and the separate cloth which had covered His face folded up in a different place—they saw, and were amazed. Why…?

  The next record of these linens was when they were brought to Edessa in fulfillment of the promise made by Jesus to the ailing King Abgar. They were brought by Thaddeus, described as one of the 72, and for Abgar the Image shone like the sun as Thaddeus approached: he was enveloped in the light emanating from It and was instantly cured of