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Anne woke with a start. Something was wrong. She sat up in bed and looked around. Sun streamed through the window, lighting the chaise lounge and marble-topped mahogany dresser of her childhood bedroom at her grandmother’s house. Then she remembered the robbery. The pillow beside her was empty. The cats were missing. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and held her head in her hands. Her eyes felt heavy and her head ached. What herbs had her grandmother given her to make her sleep? She glanced at the clock and saw a note on the bedside table: Meet us in the library at 11:30. We have much to discuss. Grandmother The clock read quarter after ten. She would have time for breakfast. What else could her grandmother possibly have to tell her after everything she’d heard from Michael?
Anne pushed herself into the shower and stood beneath the hot stream until her head cleared. She quickly dried her hair, dressed in jeans and a turtleneck, then made her way to the breakfast room. No one was around. She pushed open the door to the kitchen and was greeted by the smell of pumpkin pies. Several faces looked up from their various labors.
“Miss Anne, you finally woke up.” Estelle was rolling piecrusts, her apron and face dusted in white. “I saved some breakfast for you.” Estelle nodded to a slight woman who pulled a plate out of the refrigerator and stuck it in the microwave.
“Thank you, but I don’t want to be any trouble,” Anne protested.
Estelle just shook her head. “You need your breakfast,” came the familiar answer. “The city is not safe, Miss Anne, if you’ll pardon me saying so.” Estelle’s face was the picture of worry.
“Well, I really can’t argue with you today, can I?”
Estelle just shook her head and went back to her dough.
Anne was amazed at the flurry in the kitchen. In one corner, loaves of bread were being crumbled and mixed with herbs smelling strongly of sage. Another helper chopped up onions, her eyes streaming. A young man stood at the stove stirring something that smelled intoxicating.
“What’s the occasion?” Anne asked.
Everyone turned to stare at her.
“It’s Christmas Eve, my dear,” Estelle answered.
Anne blushed. “I forgot.”
Estelle smiled indulgently. “That’s understandable. Now, tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please. But I can get it.”
Estelle shook her head. “We’re too busy to have an extra body in here. Go have a seat and we’ll bring you your breakfast.”
Anne walked into the breakfast nook and sat at the long table. She still hadn’t seen any of the family. All the extended relations would begin arriving in a few hours. Not to mention her mother. Anne dreaded another confrontation.
After breakfast, Anne went in search of someone to ask about her cats. The house was as busy as the kitchen, full of people polishing, vacuuming, and putting the final touches on decorations. But no one had seen Dr. Abernathy, Thomas, or her grandmother. She made her way to the library early.
When she opened the door, Thomas raised his head and gestured for her to join them. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a Yule log,” she said, frowning slightly at her grandmother.
“It was necessary, my dear.” Elizabeth dismissed the unvoiced objection.
“Have my cats been found?”
“There’s no word yet, but I sent Lawrence to gather your things. He’ll check,” Dr. Abernathy said briskly. “Now, we have business.”
Anne sat on the couch, looking from face to face. “Why so grim? It was a robbery.”
“We’re not so sure of that, Annie,” Thomas said.
“What do you mean?”
“No jewelry was taken, no silverware, no artwork. Only the case the crystal came in, along with Cynthia’s note,” Dr. Abernathy said. “And, as you discovered already, your Aunt Cynthia was murdered. We can’t take any more chances.”
Elizabeth leaned forward slightly. “We’ve decided the time has come for full disclosure. You deserve to know the risks of what you’re involved with.”
“And the importance,” Thomas added.
“Full disclosure?” Anne said faintly. “You sound like the CIA.”
Grandmother Elizabeth didn’t smile. Nor did Thomas or Dr. Abernathy. Anne looked from one serious face to another.
“Thomas, you begin,” Elizabeth ordered.
Thomas glanced at Anne, a worried look in his amber eyes. “I’ve asked you to do some reading. How much have you been able to ascertain?”
Ascertain?” Anne repeated, marveling at the official tone of the language everyone was using. “Last night I attended the Solstice Seminar lectures. I got a crash course in sacred geometry, half of which was over my head. And I heard Michael Levy speak. He claims many of the royal families of Europe were engaged in a secret spiritual war, that they were involved in passing on some metaphysical tradition forbidden by the Church. He said this knowledge they so jealously guarded can be traced all the way back to Egypt.” Anne watched the faces around her as she spoke. She couldn’t bear the heaviness any longer. She turned to Thomas. “That must explain why you worship cats.”
To her relief, he laughed. “Well, that’s a good start. Let me add some finishing touches to that basic outline and you’ll have some perspective on what we’re doing.”
Anne nodded.
“All ancient traditions—by ancient, I mean teachings from the Vedas, from the Maya, from Egypt, that sort of thing. Anyway, they all explain that the Earth goes through a long cycle in which humanity changes from being fully enlightened and in harmony with all natural rhythms to living in base ignorance and violence, a state in which humans have lost all connection to the principal intelligence of the universe. Then we go back again. We rise into enlightenment. Human consciousness rises and falls like the ocean tides, but the cycle is thousands of years long. The Vedas teach that these cycles are not equal in length, that the time of enlightenment is much longer than the darkness.”
At a slight rustling from Elizabeth, Thomas interrupted himself. “Well, I guess the details aren’t important right now. Simply put, now is the time of reawakening. While these cycles occur over thousands of years, the transitions are sudden and dramatic, just like the sunrise. You can see the sky lightening for a long while, but when the sun lifts over the horizon, the effect is transforming.”
“We have reason to believe that sunrise will occur very soon,” Elizabeth said.
Anne looked from her to Thomas. “Dr. Abernathy told me about this already, but I wonder if we aren’t deluding ourselves. The world has always been a mess. Now it’s getting even worse.” She sat forward. “We’re threatening our own existence. We’re destroying the ecosystem. War has reached into almost every continent. A few people enjoy luxury while many starve. How can you say we are entering some sort of age of enlightenment?”
Dr. Abernathy spoke up, “The times of transition are always the most difficult. Darkness has ruled for a very long time, and it has fully flowered by the end of its reign. The old saying is true, ‘The darkest hour is—’”
“‘. . . just before dawn,’” Thomas finished for him.
“Great. Now you’re quoting song lyrics,” Anne said.
“Just as the full flowering of enlightened civilization happens right at the setting of the sun,” Dr. Abernathy persisted.
“But where’s the evidence of this enlightened civilization?” Anne asked.
“Right in front of our eyes in the ancient monuments of Egypt, the pyramids in many places around the globe, Stonehenge, the Bimini road,” Dr. Abernathy answered immediately.
“In hidden documents,” Thomas said.
“Suppressed by the authorities,” Elizabeth said.
Anne stared at them all.
“You’ve had such a conventional education, my dear,” Elizabeth said in an attempt at a soothing voice. “That education shapes you to accept certain ways of looking at the world and automatically to ridicule other ideas without giving them serious consideration. All this is understandable given the intense effort that went into suppressing the truth, but when the yoke of the Church was finally loosened, scientists threw out the baby with the bath water. Instead of examining the traditions the Church tried to eliminate, educated men rejected all spiritual traditions and tried to start from scratch. Science has been helpful in many ways, but its underlying assumptions are flawed.”
Dr. Abernathy cleared his throat.
Elizabeth looked at him and raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “There is so much to teach her and so little time.”
Dr. Abernathy smiled sympathetically, then turned to address Anne. “Has nothing you’ve experienced in the last couple of weeks made you question your rational worldview?”
“Science can’t fully explain my affinity with the crystal, the dreams, the experience I had on solstice night.” Anne had to concede this point. “Even though some of it could be explained as posthypnotic suggestion, that doesn’t account for my sense that I must pursue this, that there’s something important in it for me. That feels genuine enough.”
“You’ve already experienced that human consciousness is more than science has so far understood. The universe is not the result of some accidental crapshoot. Matter is not inert, as science says. Quantum physics is now beginning to guess what metaphysics has understood all along. That everything has consciousness, everything is interactive. The universe is alive, guiding us forward on our best path.”
“It’s a comforting thought,” Anne said.
Thomas said, “When consciousness begins to wane, those who are most conscious try to save the knowledge. They formulate teachings that are passed from generation to generation, often within certain families or groups, hoping that some light will still exist, some small candle will still be burning at the end of the long night.”
“And we’re such a family.” Anne shifted impatiently. “I sort of gathered that already.”
“When the dawn begins, certain souls are born to shepherd humanity through these transitions. Our family is a conduit for these souls because of our DNA. We do teach basic metaphysical truths. We try to offer enlightened leadership. That’s been one of our primary functions through the ages. But we also have a very particular task. Our family is a Keeper of one of the six keys.”
“Six keys?” Anne asked.
Thomas nodded.
Anne slowly lifted the crystal from beneath her shirt. “Is this it?”
Thomas nodded again.
“So what is it a key to?”
Dr. Abernathy spoke. “We aren’t entirely sure. As I’ve already told you, the tradition states one will be born who will remember how to use the key. The exact wording is that this stone will be used to ‘restore the flow.’ We think the crystal is a key to something in Egypt, since that is where it came from originally.”
Suddenly, Anne remembered a dream, walking through a narrow hall with a low ceiling, looking for a place to hide something precious she’d just been given.
“We are certain of one thing, Anne.” Dr. Abernathy waited for her full attention. “You’re the one we have been waiting for all these years. You’ll unlock the stone’s secrets and use it to shift the balance of power on Earth. You are a vital part of ushering in the next age of enlightenment.”
Anne stared at Dr. Abernathy as if he had taken leave of his senses. “What the hell—me? Bring in the age of enlightenment? Are you crazy? I can’t even enlighten myself.”
Dr. Abernathy just watched her.
Anne looked desperately around at her grandmother and brother. They both studied her earnestly, obviously in full agreement with Dr. Abernathy.
“You’re all mad.” Anne stood up and started to walk out of the room. Then she whirled around. “If it’s so important . . .” She held the crystal aloft. “. . . what the hell am I doing with it? I haven’t been trained for any of this. I’m just an ordinary person.”
“No, you haven’t. Katherine tried to turn you from your destiny, but now you are training,” Elizabeth said quietly.
“You’re a Le Clair,” Dr. Abernathy said.
“So what?” Anne spit out. Then she remembered something Thomas had just said, and something Michael had mentioned about the Knights Templar. She remembered the stained glass window in Dr. Abernathy’s house and the red cross on his robe the night of the ritual. She looked at Thomas. “What do you mean, ‘because of our DNA’?”
Thomas smiled. “The Le Clairs are descended from another person whose job it was to bring in the age of enlightenment, to save the world from darkness, a man himself descended from a long line of teachers.”
Anne had a sinking feeling she didn’t want to hear this.
“Our ancestors can be traced back to the Merovingian dynasty who ruled in southern France prior to the rise of Charlemagne. They were descended from a man who restored the ancient Jewish line of divine kings.”
Anne remembered Michael’s words from last night just as Thomas said, “They were the direct descendants of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, the Christ.”
Anne felt as if she had been hit in the stomach. “No.” She sat down heavily on a chair near the door and stared at the floor. After a long moment, she looked up. “You’re trying to convince me that our family is related to Christ? What kind of fanatics are you?”
“Surely, Michael Levy spoke about this in his lecture last night,” Thomas said.
Anne nodded. “Yes, but it sounded just like the kind of myth that springs up about royalty. The Stuarts went to a lot of trouble to construct a bloodline all the way back to Adam. But it’s nothing to be taken literally.”
“It’s true, Annie.” Thomas’s eyes begged her to believe him. “Not the Adam and Eve bit, but Mary Magdalene escaped from Israel with her children and settled in the south of France. Her descendants and their followers formed a country, Septimania, which was later conquered by the Catholic Church.”
Anne shook her head. “But he was celibate. He never married.”
“Is it so crazy to believe a rabbi was married? Or would you prefer the perfectly rational belief that a virgin gave birth?” Elizabeth asked. “They’ve even tried to erase Jesus’ siblings.”
“But there’s no evidence,” Anne shouted.
“So says the Church, the same group of men who declared that women don’t have souls, who tortured and burned alive any who disagreed with them, who taught primitive people that their gods were devils. It was this group of men who decided which books would go into the Bible and which would be destroyed. But they didn’t get everything.” Elizabeth’s eyes burned through her. “Our family and others have preserved the true teachings of Christ, teachings older than two thousand years, teachings that can be traced back to the end of the last age of enlightenment. And we have preserved certain archives that prove what we are saying is true.”
Anne sat stunned. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t voice the shock she felt. What her family was suggesting was unthinkable, beyond any fantasy she could have imagined, yet clearly they believed every word of it. Finally, she gathered her wits and said, “I want to see the archives.”
Elizabeth nodded. “So you shall.”
Anne turned and ran out of the library, heading for the back door. She grabbed an old overcoat hanging in the mudroom and walked quickly across the lawn. When she reached the end of the grass, she broke into a run, not really seeing where she was going. All she knew was that she had to get away—away from these crazy ideas, away from the eyes watching her every reaction, away from the dreams and visions, away from the expectations.
Out of breath, she stopped and looked around. She was standing in the rose garden she’d so meticulously described to Dr. Abernathy during her hypnosis. She sank onto the seat under the trellis.
What have I gotten myself into? she wondered.
She stared at the bare garden surrounding her, the trimmed brown bushes, the mulched leaves piled on the beds. The bare branches of the climbing rose laced the trellis. The bower gave little shelter in midwinter.
Anne tried to piece together everything that had happened to her since she had inherited the crystal. She thought if she could just lay it all out, somehow it would make sense. Dr. Abernathy’s guidance had been a light touch. He’d always given logical answers to her questions. Her decision to follow this path had seemed reasonable. The dreams, the visions, the experience in the solstice ritual had all been real, undeniable in their power. So how had it all ended in the ludicrous assertion that she was going to bring on an age of enlightenment by using a crystal necklace in a yet undiscovered way? She was a lawyer, not a mystic, and certainly no savior.
The rest of it was simply beyond belief. Her mind kept circling back to her brother’s claim that they were descended from Mary Magdalene and Jesus, the Christ. If that weren’t outrageous enough, Elizabeth had topped it off with the wild claim that the family knew the true teachings of Christ and the rest of the world had it all wrong. This sounded like the ravings of a street prophet, not the words of the matriarch of one of the country’s most powerful political families. How could she make any sense of this mess? Who could she talk to?
Michael’s face appeared in her mind’s eye, but she rejected this idea immediately. She doubted that he’d be objective. Clearly, he believed she was descended from the son of God as well. He had said as much in his lecture, although she hadn’t grasped the full implications of his words until her brother’s announcement. But Michael was Jewish. Why would he care about her alleged family line? And he had a doctorate from a prestigious university. How could he believe such nonsense?
Anne picked up a stick from the ground and prodded the brown grass. She sat lost in thought for a long time.
☥☥☥
A violent shiver shook her from her reverie. Her breath was visible, a cloud of vapor in front of her face. The temperature had dropped significantly. Looking up, she saw the shadows had crept out from the grove of cherry trees to the west of the rose garden and were stretching across the lawn.
She wanted to call a cab and go home to her apartment, get away from her family, but she knew she wasn’t safe there. Even if she returned the crystal to her grandmother, as she’d half decided to do, whoever was searching for it would think it was still in her possession. Her aunt had been murdered over it. She couldn’t take the risk of going back to her apartment now. She’d have to stay here, at least until after Christmas. Then she could find a place to go for a while. She needed to get away to think, to reconsider her life. Perhaps she’d move, take a job with a firm that had no family ties. But one thing was certain. She would not continue the training. She would not allow herself to be drawn into the family delusion. Anne knew the moment had come to stand up to her family once and for all.
Feeling like a recalcitrant member of some lunatic cult, Anne made her way back to the big house and snuck up the stairs to her bedroom. She didn’t see anyone. Once safe in her room, she locked the door and took a long, hot shower. On Christmas Eve, the family usually attended the celebration at King’s Episcopal, then came home for a gathering. No one was likely to corner her in the middle of services. Deciding this would be the best course of action, she dressed for church. The family gathering afterward would be the challenge. She braced herself and walked downstairs.
Luckily, her distant cousin Christine from California was just loading up a station wagon with her brood. Anne took the diaper bag from her, kissed her cheek, and said, “You could use some help. Shall I come along with you?” Without waiting for an answer, Anne climbed into the back next to the car seat. On the way, she listened to Christine’s family news and entertained the youngest by making faces. The baby strained in her car seat, trying to reach Anne’s dangling earrings.
But when they arrived and settled in the family pew, there was one thing she hadn’t thought of. It was Christmas Eve and she was going to hear about her alleged ancestor all night. Evergreen boughs tied with red velvet ribbons hung from the ceiling of the familiar old church and tall red candles surrounded with holly burned on the altar. The beautifully painted nativity scene to the side of the pulpit had intrigued her as a child. Anne had loved Christmas then. In this church, she’d lost her sense of the modern world and floated away on the sounds of hymns. She’d always waited impatiently for the candle lighting at the end of the service, when golden beeswax candles draped in red crepe paper were passed down the aisles by women dressed in red and green. When the minister had described the significance of lighting a candle of faith and holding it aloft to the world, Anne had stretched her small arm as high as she could reach.
Now she wished for the simple faith of that little girl. She listened with an acute sense of loss to the familiar Christmas story and softly sang the hymns that had fueled her childhood devotion. She tried to reason with herself that it was a faith she’d lost long ago, that she hadn’t thought seriously of this story in years, yet the ache in her throat turned into a burn and her head began to throb with the strain of not crying. She lowered her eyes to gain control of herself and saw the eyes of her cousin’s children large with wonder. Then the tears fell. Anne bent down, pretending to pick something off the floor to hide her face.
The congregation sat and, under the cover of the noise, Anne blew her nose. The choir stood and a lone soprano voice sang out the first line of the next hymn, “O Holy Night.” Anne’s head came up abruptly. The solstice ritual with her family flooded her memory. That night, Anne had marveled at the beauty of how the two beliefs intertwined like the Celtic knots of old. She’d enjoyed the depth of the atmosphere created by that ritual, much as she’d reveled in the Christmas Eve service as a child, and had felt a surprised joy that she’d recovered a lost part of that childhood on a different path. Now she felt flat.
Anne was relieved when the service ended. She rode back with Christine and helped her herd the children into the large living room. When Christine asked if she was all right, Anne said she thought maybe she missed John, her ex-husband. Christine accepted this at face value. Elizabeth, Thomas, and Dr. Abernathy seemed to sense her need for silence. None of them spoke to her. In fact, they avoided her, and she relaxed. The hustle and bustle of the family’s Christmas Eve was a welcomed relief. She sat in the background and enjoyed her nieces, nephews, and younger cousins, all dressed in crushed velvet dresses or suits with bow ties, as they stared at the enormous tree and speculated about their presents, so colorfully wrapped and piled high under the tree. Estelle brought in spiced cider and paper-thin ginger cookies, a specialty from her German family.
When the children were finally being put to bed, Anne walked into the now-empty ballroom. She gazed out the wall of windows onto a quarter moon shining its waning light on the rolling hills. The noise of a door opening behind her drove her into the shadows. A wave of familiar perfume told her who had followed. She heard footsteps cross the room, then stop.
“Mother, now is not a good time.” Anne turned to fend off the argument she expected.
Her mother, however, didn’t speak immediately. She stood studying her. Anne dropped her eyes under the close scrutiny. Katherine set her eggnog down on the window ledge and took Anne’s face in her hand. She turned it up to the light. After a moment, she said, “They told you, didn’t they?”
Anne jerked away. “Told me what?”
Katherine didn’t answer her directly. She pulled a chair out and sat down heavily. Shaking her head, she said almost to herself, “Oh, Mother, why? Why did you do this to my baby?” She looked up at Anne. “I tried to keep it from you.”
“What?” Anne’s voice was urgent.
“The family albatross, our two-thousand-year-old ancestry, the loneliness of knowing what no one else knows, what other people would never believe.” Katherine’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so sorry, darling.” Tears glistened in her eyes.
Anne reached out for something steady, but found only the glass behind her. She sank to the floor next to her mother’s chair and sat staring up at her. Her mother’s confirmation had driven all doubt from her mind and left an empty spot where all her old certainties had stood. This woman would not believe in nonsense. Abruptly, she leaned her head on her mother’s knee and sobbed.
Katherine stroked Anne’s hair until the tears were spent. Minutes later, Anne sat back and looked for a tissue. Katherine handed her a cocktail napkin, and Anne blew her nose loudly. She took another napkin and wiped her eyes, then picked up her mother’s eggnog and took a drink. Finally, she spoke, “How can this be?”
Katherine shrugged. “It is. I’ve seen the documents. And that woman . . .” She pointed her finger at the door behind her. “She never let me forget it. The stories she told us. And the secrecy. ‘If you ever tell anyone, Katherine, you will be endangering the safety of all your family. You cannot jeopardize the sacred mission.’ Always the sacred mission. And who could have told anyone such a thing?” Katherine looked out the window, but saw only the past. “Imagine trying to date, trying to have ordinary friends. I constantly had to be careful not to say something about the family rituals.” She looked at Anne now. “People would have thought I was a freak.”
“When did she tell you?”
“When I ‘became a woman,’ as she put it. After the first menses, the girls are told the full story. The boys at thirteen. But we’re prepared before that with family stories. Just listen to the little Christmas story she tells the children tomorrow morning. For immediate family, there’s more. I was told I had to marry only from a select group so as not to weaken the bloodline or risk an outsider revealing the secret.”
Anne shivered.
“I swore I would protect you from all that lunacy. And I did. You were a happy teenager, weren’t you, darling?” Katherine’s eyes begged her.
“Yes, Mother,” Anne answered gently. “Except for the divorce, I was happy.”
“But that is something many children bear. It’s not some dark secret lurking in the shadows.” Katherine waved her hand in dismissal.
“I suppose not.” Anne felt as if the stone to her mother’s heart had been rolled away and she’d found standing there, not a dragon, but a frightened child trailing her teddy bear, needing to be picked up and comforted.
Katherine visibly gathered herself. “So what is it they want you to do?”
Anne was momentarily startled by the sudden businesslike tone. “Learn to use the key.”
Katherine sniffed. “Nobody knows how to use that damned thing, nobody. I lost my sister to it. I will not lose my daughter.”
“But,” Anne put a hand on her mother’s knee to stop her from rising, “I’ve had visions.”
Again, Katherine waved her hands as if clearing clutter off a table. “Of course you’ve had visions. All Le Clairs have visions. So what? They don’t have to run your life.” She smoothed out her skirt.
“I didn’t have visions before I got this crystal.”
“Of course you did. I just—” Katherine realized what she’d said and looked down, unable to meet Anne’s eyes. “I just told you they were bad dreams. After a while, you stopped paying attention and they subsided.”
Anne stared at her. “You mean to tell me—”
“I did it for you, don’t you see? I was trying to free you, to let you live in the modern world, not be shackled to some medieval oath to save the world. For God’s sake, Annie.”
Anne stood up suddenly. “I have to be alone.” She walked toward the door and, for once, her mother did as she asked. She did not follow.
Anne walked toward her room without seeing. Her mind was dark and silent, bruised by too many revelations. She opened her door and sat on the edge of the bed. A tray stood on the bedside table. A mug of warm milk still steamed, and beside it were three gelatin capsules filled with her grandmother’s sleeping potion. She immediately swallowed the capsules with a glass of water and then drank the milk. She set down the empty mug, then stood and stripped off her clothes. Without washing her face or brushing her teeth, she climbed into the bed where she had lain as a child so many Christmas Eves, waiting for Santa to bring her presents. Tonight she waited for the gift of understanding. And forgiveness.
After a minute, out of the dark came the sound of familiar meows and the pad of soft feet. Two cats jumped on the bed and snuggled down on the pillow beside her.
“My darlings.” Anne gathered the two sleek bodies in her arms. “I thought I’d lost you.” Two sandpaper tongues licked the tears from her face and then settled down next to her. They fell asleep together.
☥☥☥
With Christmas day came the chaos of opening presents and the fanfare of the family feast. Elizabeth thanked Anne for her new brooch, and it sparkled from the head of the table where she sat. Anne went through the motions of the day without any real enjoyment. Thomas and Elizabeth still left her alone, but Katherine was chummy in the way of those who share some kind of suffering. Anne found it comforting and annoying at the same time. She finally escaped in the afternoon for a long horseback ride alone, skipping her grandmother’s special Christmas story for the children. She’d heard it a dozen times. Now that she knew, it was obvious. The private story of Christ coming to England with a special secret with a group of children who would carry on his teachings.
When Anne returned from her ride, she found a stack of documents in her bedroom. On top was a note: If you’re interested. Thomas. An old manuscript lay on the table in a plastic envelope to protect it from the elements. The front was illustrated with an old Celtic capital letter, intricate with intertwined birds. The colors were still brilliant. A copy of another old manuscript and a collection of gospels and history books were stacked beside it. Some she had heard of: The Gnostic Gospels, The Gospel of Thomas, and The Dead Sea Scrolls. Others were unfamiliar: The Talmud of Immanuel, The Gospel of Mary, and another attributed to Mary Magdalene. She saw Michael’s new book along with others she wasn’t familiar with. All the books bristled with her brother’s yellow sticky-notes. It was a good thing she was a lawyer and used to reading stacks of material at one sitting.
She took the manuscript from its plastic envelope and spread it in her lap, hoping the cats would take a long time with the turkey she’d brought them from the kitchen. It was written in Middle English, but Anne was able to pick out the main story. It was an early Arthurian manuscript, and told the story of how Morgan le Fey, the Queen of Avalon, was descended from Elaine Du Lac, the French matriarch. These women were called priestesses in the story and referred to as the Keepers of the Grail, the vines of Christ. It appeared they were connected by blood to the Magdalene and were carrying on part of her priestess duties. Anne had thought Morgan was from the Druid tradition, a pagan tradition of the Celts that the Christians had opposed.
The cats, full from their meal, curled up next to the hearth and fell asleep, so Anne felt safe leaving the antique manuscript out while she read through the photocopied one. It was a family history, penned in different hands, beginning with Mary Magdalene and going through the now familiar progression. Much of it was unreadable because of the variations in old French and then English. She turned to the pile of books. One by one she opened them to read the marked passages. Gradually, the whole tale unfolded. Some details were disputed, like whether Joseph of Arimethea was Jesus’ uncle or a wealthy merchant, or if it was Jesus himself or his son, Jesus the Younger, or even Joseph who had come to England and founded the Celtic Christian Church, but all the books told basically the same story.
Jesus was a rabbi from the Nazarene sect, which was a group working to overthrow Roman rule. The city Nazareth hadn’t even existed during his lifetime. He was connected to the Essene mystics, whose teachings formed the basis of his message. He’d most probably been born in March, perhaps 7 A.D. Centuries later, when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, December 25 was chosen to coincide with the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Also, the whole manger scene had been a fabrication.
The books revealed that the Church of Rome developed its own version of Christianity, and from the fourth to fifth centuries, the gospels and documents disputing the new dogma were ruthlessly suppressed, almost entirely destroyed. Various mistranslations of the scriptures, coupled with the political domination of the Roman church, all led to the story of Jesus told today. The Celtic Church and the Cathars, among others, held to different versions of Christianity, but these groups had almost been eliminated. Many alternative gospels had been hidden, and several had been uncovered in the twentieth century, such as the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Gospels.
According to this alternative history, Jesus was of the royal house of David, son of Jesse, a descendant of Judah, the rightful king of the Jews. His ministry was political as well as spiritual, an attempt to overthrow Roman domination and to make Judaism less legalistic and more experiential. All the books agreed that Jesus was married and left descendants, and the new Roman church went to great pains to hide this lineage. The evidence of his marriage, once Anne overcame her automatic rejection of such an unfamiliar idea, turned out to be convincing. Jesus married Mary Magdalene. The famous story of her washing and anointing his feet, then drying them with her hair, was a description of a well-known royal betrothal ritual. In this way she proclaimed him publicly as the Messianic heir. Mary had used a particular oil, spikenard, reserved for royalty. She was supposed to carry this oil with her until he died, at which point she would use it to anoint his body. That was why she was called to his tomb. Authors argued that the wedding feast at Cana, when he made wine out of water, was likely his own. It was the responsibility of the bride’s father to offer such a feast. One book claimed that the facts about this marriage and subsequent lineage had been well known into the Middle Ages and had once been part of Catholic liturgy.
Most of the books agreed that Jesus continued to walk the Earth for years after the crucifixion. Some said the crucifixion had lasted only three hours and Jesus had then been put into a tomb that symbolized a spiritual death or excommunication. His “resurrection” was simply the spiritual leader forgiving him for his offenses and allowing him back into the community. Others argued that the drink given him on the cross contained a powerful potion that produced a state simulating death. Once he was in the tomb, the Essene healers administered the antidote and mended his wounds. One writer stated that Jesus had died, but then achieved what the Tibetans called the Light Body Enlightenment, a state in which the consciousness of the individual, joined with the Universal Mind, transmuted the body into pure energy. Thus he could manifest his physical body any time he wished to do so.
These alternative histories traced the movement of Jesus, the Magdalene, and their children. Most agreed that they’d separated, Jesus going to India, she to Gaul, to avoid being hunted down. The books verified that several great cathedrals in France—Notre Dame, Rheims, Chartres— had indeed been dedicated to Mary of Magdala. One claimed that the red mantle she was often depicted wearing showed she was a bishop, a fully functioning priestess, able to preach and administer rites—an equal in all respects to the other disciples. One writer provided a long list of the female disciples who were priestesses in this same way.
Apparently, the plan had been to hide Jesus’ bloodline. To do so, the roles of women in his ministry and life had been hidden or the women themselves discredited. In fact, the evolving church decided to silence women altogether, denying their power and role in spiritual life. Over and over Anne read that when the role of female power was denied, the resulting spiritual teaching would inevitably be severely imbalanced. Finally, Mary Magdalene had been turned from a royal wife, a queen, and a priestess into a common whore. Jesus’ mother, Mary, was changed from a spiritually advanced woman with a normal family life into a literal virgin, and the role of any other women involved with Jesus’ teaching distorted or completely obliterated.
Anne piled the books on the table beside her chair and replaced the antique manuscript in its plastic cover. She stretched out on the chaise lounge and stared into the fire. What she had read was logical and well documented. After she’d overcome her initial resistance, Anne found herself more and more persuaded. This version of Christ’s life made more sense than what she’d been taught in church, and this vision of women’s roles fit her own convictions. Her ancestors were priestesses and leaders. She could see how the Le Clairs were upholding this practice, even in a small way today. She would take her place in that tradition.