Song of the Magdalene (18 page)

Abraham's cart was full of dry sycamore leaves, three autumns' worth. I dug a small hole in the center of the leaves. Then I took the stone from my belt — that stone that had been the color of pomegranate when I first found it, but was all milk and moonlight now. I remembered patting the pomegranate juice from Abraham's chin when we were children. I remembered the stain on my fingers, on his fingers. I buried my polished stone in the cart. I needed no solid token of the loves behind me. My past was with me, in me. My past would carry me forward.

I walked back toward Lucia. I hurried, for there was nothing to keep me here any longer. And there was no time to lose in finding Joshua. I
thought I'd circle around the well and then take the alleys. That would be shortest, quickest. But when I came out upon the well, I realized my mistake. There were many women at the well. They talked heatedly. I learned why there were so many crowds in the streets of Magdala that day: Joshua had come to town. Joshua was here in Magdala at this very moment. He was outside the house of prayer. Perhaps his hand was already cooling the fever in Martina's forehead. Oh, yes. It was. I knew it was! I felt the flush race to my cheeks.

I turned to go back into the bushes and make a wider arc around them. But I turned too late.

“Who is that?”

“It's Miriam! Look!”

“Why has she returned?”

“Yes, why?”

“She slept with the idiot!”

“I heard that, too.”

“The whore!”

Something hit me in the shoulder hard and I stumbled to my knees. That one pause was enough to give them time to surround me.

“Get away from here.”

“You bring only trouble!”

“I'm looking for the healer,” I said. I stood up.

“The healer? What illness do you have?”

“Why are you at our well? Do you spill your poisoned spirit in our waters?”

More women came. Their eyes held righteous indignation.

I ran then. I ran through their circle and straight down the road toward the town center, toward the house of prayer. I heard shouts behind me. Shouts of men now. I felt the fury of a people confused, a people prepared to fend off evil.

The crowd threatened to turn into a mob in an instant. I was fast and strong, but I was also tired from my long journey. My dress held me back. I tried to get away. I did my best.

The hand that grabbed me by the shoulder dug in. I spun around to face a blow in the stomach. Someone ripped at my hair from behind. Hands shredded my clothes from all sides. And the fit came. The seventh fit. My final fit. Oh, blessed fit, that marked the passage from one way of life to another. The whole world shimmered in divine light.

A woman's voice screamed out above the crowd. “Stand back for Joshua. Stand back!”

And then a man said, “Let her be.”

I felt their hands no longer. I heard nothing more. I saw nothing I could recognize. I was beyond this world.

Then it was over. Just like every other time. Gone. My chest heaved with coughs. Then silence. I lay on the dirt road and looked at the sky. The blue, blue sky.

I turned my head. In the crowd I saw Martina standing beside Lucia. The girl on her feet, looking steadily at me. I felt the joy of my future even then. I stood slowly.

A hand took mine. The man attached to this hand was small and thin and ugly, an unlikely man for the mission the Creator had given him. His eyes contrasted boldly with his rich, dark skin, for they were the color of the Sea of Galilee. The color of the heavens. His hand was strong — a hand with useful fingers like my own — a hand with purpose. He was the Jew I had come to help, the healer who needed my help. “Welcome, Magdalene.” Joshua turned to the crowds and announced the wisdom that Abraham had tried his
best to teach me so long ago: “This woman has no devils within her. Not seven, not one. None.”

•  •  •

I traveled with Joshua, the healer that the Romans called Jesus, all the way to Jerusalem. Just as I had told Uncle and Rachel I would do. We gathered beggars everywhere. And we gathered the infirm. And I kept an alabaster jar of ointments always ready, for there were many bodies to comfort. And I kept a song in my mouth always ready, for there were many souls to heal.

Mary Magdalene first appears in the New Testament with Jesus, either anointing his feet or coming forth among the afflicted, asking to be healed. Biblical scholars disagree over this. But the one thing scholars agree on is that the New Testament tells us nothing of the life of Mary prior to meeting Jesus. I worked backward, starting with every biblical episode I could find that might possibly involve Mary Magdalene (a challenging task, since there are several Marys in the early New Testament), and then creating for her a history that would prepare her for and help make sense of the actions she takes in the New Testament.

The excerpts from the
Song of Songs
are adapted from the King James Version of
The Holy Bible
with minor modifications.

About the Author

Donna Jo Napoli is the acclaimed and award-winning author of many novels, both fantasies and contemporary stories. She won the Golden Kite Award for
Stones in Water
in 1997. Her novel
Zel
was named an American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon, and a School Library Journal Best Book, and a number of her novels have been selected as ALA Best Books. She is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband. Visit her at
DonnaJoNapoli.com
.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Simon Pulse edition May 2004

Copyright © 1996 by Donna Jo Napoli

SIMON PULSE

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CIP data for this edition is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0-689-87396-4

ISBN-13: 978-1-4814-6378-2 (eBook)