Set at the head of a box canyon, Elizabeth and Zacharias' home was bordered on one side by corrals for sheep, goats and a couple of donkeys. Behind it all, up next to a sloping, ragged rock-faced cliff was the vineyard, the last of the grapes freshly picked. Wine from their vineyard was always the best in the land. Elizabeth was pleased with this year's crop. The weather had been perfect.
Tables set up out front of the house were covered with food. Daniel tended the oven of seasoned masonry, designed by his father, Joseph, when he was young.
Yeshua perched on the top rail of the fence and faced everyone. Family and friends thronged around him.
"It's good to be home, to see you all," he said. "It's good to be around what's familiar. The East is, well, different. I've seen fishermen using different methods than we use here. I've seen people struggling to get by, same as here. I've seen loving families who believe differently than we do, who are part of the Divine all the same. I've seen so much. The one thing I learned above all, is that the value of one is the value of all. The value of all is the value of one."
"Come on, Yeshua, have a little wine and stop sermonizing," his brother, James said. He handed Yeshua a mug. "We're all glad you're home. Let's celebrate."
''All right, all right," Yeshua said, reluctantly. There was so much he wanted to say, so much. It was brimming over. "Here's to all of you."
He took a drink. His brothers picked him up, carried him to the water trough and dumped him into it. The laughing and dancing began.
Mother Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth, returned to dinner preparations.
"I'm always amazed at how different your children are, like each has a different father," Elizabeth said.
"It seems like that, doesn't it? You ever wonder how the women of the street can stand to be with a different man every night?" Mother Mary said. "It must be disgusting, especially the fat ones that don't bathe."
"I know, ick. If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd done that kind of work." The older woman glanced at the annual gathering of people, alive with laughter.
"Thank God that's a lesson I didn't need to learn. I like to think my children represent all people everywhere, those we know about and those we don't."
"Nice thought," Elizabeth said.
She pulled butter cakes from the oven, put in another batch and set about drizzling topping over the hot ones. The wine sauce impregnated the biscuit-like cakes with a sweet tart flavor.
Still thinking about Mary's children, Elizabeth said, "Ruth and James do look somewhat alike, though. So do Mary Martha and Daniel. David doesn't look like anybody I know of. I know you named Elizabeth for me, but she isn't like me at all."
"Unfortunately."
"Jacob, of course, looks like your father."
"I don't see it," Mother Mary said.
"I remember Hosyia always being happy, too."
"Yes, but they don't look alike."
"We always did disagree on that and me being the older cousin, I am right, of course." Elizabeth patted Mother Mary's arm playfully.
"Oh, yeah," Mother Mary said, a sarcastic arch to her brow.
"With your eldest, it's odd how the whole thing is unfolding. He is destined for something special."
"Yes, and it's about to happen." Mother Mary often wondered if the visions she had for him were correct. She prayed they were wrong.
"And Ruthie," Elizabeth said. "There's something special about her, too. Do you think she'll ever get married? Mary Martha's been married two years. All you're boys are married except for Daniel and Yeshua."
"I'm sure Daniel will never marry. It's just not in him. I'm not as sure about Yeshua," Mother Mary said. "And Ruth keeps that kind of thing to herself."
"People are saying she's going to end up a spinster, with all the proposals she's turned down. My boy, John, says...." Elizabeth was interrupted by an employee.
Mother Mary watched Ruth, standing by the corral next to Yeshua and Daniel, her sickly son.
"You were saying something about John," Mother Mary said when Elizabeth turned back to her.
"He can be such a loner," Elizabeth said. "He spends so much time in the hills. He says he's looking for answers from God. He doesn't find what he needs in the synagogue like his father does. He finds God out among the rocks, trees and goats."
"That's easy enough to figure out. God, whatever God is, grew the rocks, trees and goats over a long period of time, in ways which have yet to be revealed. People made the synagogue. John's one of my favorite people. He's so feisty and independent. Religion teaches everyone to be like everyone else. I've always hated that."
"It does bring order."
"Sure, but it can kill each person's individual spark, that which makes them unique. We need those sparks to get us through the times ahead."
"True enough. I've missed your insights, Mary."
The women tended final dinner preparations and talked of the coming days. Across the yard Ruth signaled her mother, wondering if she needed help. Mother Mary declined.
Stepping away from the party Ruth followed the base of the cliff until she found the grotto set back in an enclave of rock. She climbed into the stone hallow and eased herself onto a broken boulder. She was tired, more than she had counted on. A rush of feverishness swept over her. Rarely ill, deciding she might need one of her mothers potions, she tried to stand. Dizzy, she wavered. The enclosure spun around her. She lost her balance and fell, hitting her head.
The trauma pulled her into another reality. Before her appeared a dusky light. In it stood someone who looked like an angel.
The mountain prophet, as the locals called John, left his cousins to their speculation about the Roman occupation and oppression of his people and searched the crowd. He'd waited all day to speak to Ruth alone. Now was his chance.
"Ruthie. Ruth...."
Colors of evening draped the land. The feasting and all-night festivities were getting rowdy. Normally he loved these times best, times with his family. It made him know the course he had chosen for his life was correct. Something Yeshua had said that morning confirmed it. He was eager to share his insights with his beloved. He headed for the barn in search of her.
"Ruthie!"
"I haven't seen her, John," Father Joseph said, emerging from the building where he had been tending the animals. "Not for a while, anyway."
"I need to speak to her," John said.
Father Joseph kept a grin to himself. For years he'd seen the way the young man admired his daughter.
"Maybe she's in the house watching Elizabeth's youngest," Father Joseph said.
"I doubt it." John gave a thoughtful rub to his whiskers. "She's not into babies the way her sisters are, thank God. She'd rather be with someone talking about the coming upheaval. I like her mind."
"So do I. Maybe she's out with the donkeys. That new foal is mighty cute," Father Joseph, said.
John checked the corral. He found a group of children petting the foal.
"Have you seen your auntie Ruth," John asked them.
"No," said Sarah, Elizabeth's eldest. "She promised to start teaching me to write soon. I wanted to ask her about it. Mother said I don't need to know how. But Auntie Ruth says I do. She's my favorite. She treats me like a grown up. Can I help you look?"
"That'd be good. She's my favorite, too. Why don't you try the house? I'll check the bluffs over there," he said, pointing in the direction of the sunset.
He headed through lowering shafts of light, skirted an abutment and followed the crooks until he came to the grotto. He recalled going there with Yeshua when they were Sarah's age. Yeshua would pretend to be Moses about to part the Red Sea, and John led pharaoh's army. Then they would switch and John would be Moses.
In two steps he climbed into the alcove. He spotted Ruth sprawled on the sandstone, her neck bent against a boulder. Alarmed, he checked for injuries, ignoring rules that said a man must not touch a woman
unless she was his wife. He'd seen women die because of the ignorant custom. He had learned many things from his cousin, Mary. This was one of them.
What if Ruth died?
Some kind of sickness was sweeping the land. On his recent return from the coast he had seen many fall ill. Some had since died. It was that way everywhere. The sickness came from the East carried by caravans, he'd been told. A caravan had been found in the desert with all the traders and their servants dead, their animals milling about.
Ruth might have the sickness. She was always tending the sick, going alone when her mother had commitments. She could have caught it from a trader at the market.
He poured water from his goatskin flask onto his sleeve and dabbed her face. It felt hot. This was not good.
"Ruthie," he whispered, "I love you so."
Her eyelids flickered.
"I can't have anything happen to you, Ruthie. I was hoping to ask your father for your hand, today."
She moaned.
"Oh, Ruthie." He bent down and kissed her forehead.
Her eyes lids fluttered open. She gazed up at him with the look of sweetness that was her trademark. Her body went limp. Her eyes rolled back.
"Ruthie?"
Frightened, he picked her up and headed for the house. Halfway there he decided against it, went to the barn instead and lay her on a mound of hay. Thankful the children had cleared out, he raced to find her mother. Mother Mary was the best healer in Judea. It was Father Joseph he found.
John told him about Ruth. "I put her in the barn in case it's the sickness."
"Why don't you get Mary? I'll tend Ruthie," Father Joseph said.
"You shouldn't expose yourself. You haven't been well for a while now."
"She's my daughter, John. I promised God before she was born that I'd take care of her no matter what. Go get my wife and Yeshua. Hurry."
Father Joseph found his daughter on a stack of hay. The interior of the building was getting dark. He hoped John would bring a lamp. Kneeling beside Ruth he brushed her forehead with his fingertips.
"Father?" Her voice sounded warbley.
"John's gone to get your mother and Yeshua. Before they come back I have something to tell you. I've been waiting for the time to be right. See," he cleared his throat, "when I was born an angel came with me. When I was old enough to understand, he made me aware that a number of us agreed to come on this mission together."
"You mean be born at the same time?" She had a hard time keeping her thoughts centered. But what he was saying sounded important.
"Kind of. Thirty of us gathered before the committee and made the commitment."
"Who?" she managed.
"Your mother, myself, you, your cousin, John, his mother--Elizabeth, your brothers--James and Yeshua, the women in your new group and a number of others. I still don't know who they all are. My task, the angel told me, was to provide the home, love, support, teaching and protection. Your mother's task was the same, save one. She was to teach healing. There's no need for illness to be so debilitating."
"What about the rest?"
"The goal is to make life better for everyone."
His daughter's consciousness wavered. He wished Mary and Yeshua would hurry.
In a moment of iridescent clarity Ruth saw an angel. The female-looking being was joined by the golden man.
"You are two," the man said. "One now, one later."
"What?" Ruth said.
Father Joseph heard her mumbling. Thinking she was hallucinating, he was alarmed until he, himself, saw the golden man, his hand extended. In it was a cup made of gold.
The man said, "Drink. It is key."
Father Joseph drank, feeling the sweet liquid radiate inward. All trace of infirmities and the aches of age left him. He felt better than he had since he was a boy.
"Ruth," Father Joseph said, "I need to give this to Ruth."
"Yes," the man said.
Ruth's eyes opened. Her father helped her sit up and held the cup to her lips. When she was finished the golden man took the cup. He and the angel wavered from sight.
On the hay above Ruth's hair lay a rose, a white one with thirteen thorns.
Chapter 11