James Rollins - Innocent Blood

Not a mirror, she realized.

It was the still surface of dark water.

She glanced to Arella. “It’s a well.”

The woman smiled, stepping closer, growing visibly stronger, more radiant, her body responding to some essence from this well.

Arella knelt reverentially at the edge and plunged her arm down. When she drew it back, silvery water spilled from her hand.

It must be a natural spring, possibly once a part of the neighboring oasis.

Arella moved to Tommy and dripped water from her fingertips into the wound in his neck, then gently washed his throat. The blood cleared from his skin, stopped seeping from the cut, and even the wound’s pink edges began to knit together.

Erin stared in amazement. The scientist in her needed to understand, but the woman inside simply rejoiced, sagging to her knees in relief.

Arella returned to the well, cupping her palms full of water. She lifted the double handful over Tommy.

Erin held her breath.

When the clear water splashed onto Tommy’s pale face, his eyes startled open, as if suddenly woken from a nap.

He sputtered and wiped his face, looking around. “Where am I?” he croaked.

“You’re safe,” Erin said, moving closer, hoping that was true.

His eyes found hers, and he relaxed. “What happened?”

Erin turned to Arella. “I can’t explain it, but maybe she can.”

Arella stood and wiped her hands on her shift. “The answers are writ in the glass. The story is here for any to see.”

“What story?” Erin asked.

The woman swept her arm to encompass the entire crater. “Here lies the untold story of Jesus Christ.”

Rhun turned in a slow circle, gaping at the sand-washed crater, picturing its foundation of mysterious glass. Even as he’d helped Erin and Jordan clear the opening to the well of healing waters, he had felt a slight burn from the glass. He wanted to dismiss it as heat from the sands, from the baking sun, but he recognized that familiar sting, from his centuries of gripping his cross.

The glass burned with holiness .

He felt the same from the well… and from this strange angelic woman. When she brushed past him to heal Tommy, water dripped from her fingertips, splashing to the sand with such holiness that he had to take a step back, fearing it.

Christian clearly felt the same, eyeing her with a glance of wonder and awe.

Rhun trembled, sensing the sheer weight of the crater’s sacred nature.

His very blood, tainted as it was, burned against the godliness of this place.

“We must clear the sand away!” Erin called.

She was already on her knees brushing away a test patch, revealing the edge of something etched higher on the glass. She waved them to spread out in a circle around the well.

Everyone set to work, even Tommy.

Only Arella hung back, showing no interest in digging. Then again, she already knew the secrets buried here for ages. Instead, her eyes remained on the ash-tinged skies, staring to the north, almost expectantly.

“It’s easier if you don’t fight the sand,” Erin said. “Work with its natural tendency to flow down .”

She demonstrated, shoving sand between her legs like a dog, pushing it to the lower slope. Rhun and the others followed suit. The grains of sand burned under his palms with a heat that came from more than the sun overhead.

Rhun dug down to the glass bedrock of the crater. More of the design that Erin had revealed appeared, incised deeply into the exposed surface. He brushed grains away, recognizing an Egyptian style to the artwork. He pushed aside more sand to reveal a square panel holding a single scene.

The rest of the team unearthed similar tableaus, etched into the golden surface. They formed a ring of panels around the wellspring, telling a long-hidden story.

They all gained their feet, trying to understand.

Seemingly drawn by their confusion, Arella stepped to the panel closest to Erin. She bent down and gently brushed dust off a tiny figure. The small body faced them, but the face was in profile, typical of Egyptian design.

“Looks like hieroglyphics,” Tommy mumbled.

But the tale here was not of Egyptian kings or gods. On the glass, a boy with curly hair wandered up a stylized dune with a pool of water waiting on the far side.

But it was not any boy.

“Is that Christ as a child?” Erin asked.

Arella lifted her face to them. “This tells how a young boy went alone into the desert to find a hidden spring. He was not yet eleven years old, and he played among the sands, among the pools, as boys do.”

Rhun’s blood stirred at the thought, of Jesus as a boy, playing in the desert like any other innocent child.

Arella stepped to the next panel, drawing them with her. Here the curly-headed boy reached the pool. A bird rested on the opposite bank, with etched lines radiating out from its body.

Erin studied the drawing, a crease pinching her brow. “What happened?”

“You are the Woman of Learning,” Arella said. “You must tell me.”

Erin dropped to a knee and traced the lines in the panel, picking out further details. “The boy is carrying a sling in his right hand, stones in his left. So he was hunting… or maybe playing. Acting out David’s fight with Goliath.”

Arella smiled, radiant with peace. “Just so. But there was no Goliath here in the desert. Just a small white dove with brilliant green eyes.”

Tommy let out a gasp, staring over at the woman. “I saw a dove like that in Masada… with a broken wing.”

Her smile wilted into sadness. “As did another long before you.”

“You’re talking about Judas…” Tommy dropped next to Erin, taking a closer look at the bird. “He said he saw one, too. When he was a boy. The morning he met Jesus.”

Erin glanced at Tommy, then Arella. “The dove has always been the symbol of the Holy Spirit for the Church.”

Rhun struggled to understand how this one bird could possibly bind the three boys together. And more important, why?

Arella simply turned away, her face impassive, moving to the next panel, making them follow.

On this square of glass, a stone flew from the boy’s sling and struck the bird, leaving one wing clearly broken.

“He hit the bird,” Erin said, sounding shocked.

“He had meant only to strike near it, to frighten it. But intentions are not enough.”

“What does that mean?” asked Tommy.

Erin explained. “Just because you want something to happen a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean that it does.”

Rhun heard the grief in the beat of Tommy’s heart. The boy had already learned that lesson well.

As did I.

The next panel told a grimmer end to this childish play. Here the curly-headed boy held the dove in his palms, its neck hanging limply.

“The stone did more than break its wing,” Erin said. “It killed it.”

“How he wished he could take back his action,” Arella said.

Rhun understood that sentiment, too, picturing Elisabeta’s face in sunshine.

Tommy turned to Arella, one eye narrowed. “How do you know what Jesus did, what he thought?”

“I could say that it is because I am old and wise, or that I am a prophetess. But I know these things because the child told them to me. He came rushing back from the desert, covered in sand and soot, and this was His story.”

Erin turned wide eyes upon the woman. “So you did more than lead the holy family to Siwa. You stayed here, looking after them.”

Arella bowed her head.

Christian crossed himself. Even Rhun’s hand went unbidden to the cross around his neck. This woman had known Christ, had shared His early triumphs and sorrows. She was far holier than Rhun could ever hope to be.