Faith Like Wine Page 4

  The dazzle of his love broke through, glowed like the sun on my skin, and I knew he was not turning me away, only lighting me to another path. Even so, I tasted ashes at the thought of walking away from him, from all of them.

  "You will always be with me," I said, and touched my fingers over my heart. "Here."

  He leaned close and kissed me on the forehead, a brief brush of light and love against my cool skin.

  I thought about the horror in Judas' eyes, the desolation. Had he also received this kiss of peace?

  "I'll go tomorrow," I said. He shook his head, frowning. "Tomorrow. I'll stay for Judas."

  He looked at me for a moment, then smiled through the sorrow and said, "Yes. He will need you."

  ***

  The pain of loss was so extreme that for a moment the world went gray, lifeless, and hunger was shocked into silence. I could only stare at the darkness, where the bowl had fallen.

  Sister Aimee grabbed my shoulders and shook me, crying out. I wrapped my hands around her wrists and pressed. When I turned my eyes to her she saw the beast staring, and fell silent. Her face went the color of cold ash.

  "Never do that again," I said, as calmly as I could. "It's not for you to touch. Ever. It is mine."

  Her wrists pulsed with life under my crushing fingers -- red, warm, easy to find. How long had it been since I'd tasted mortal flesh? Long enough that it had been in that expensive, long-lost house outside the Jerusalem walls, among the cedarwood tables and gold lamps.

  Simon Magus had stood watching while I'd fed, his smile gentle and protective. He'd loved the beast well. The memory of his beautiful smile sickened me, and I let her go and crawled slowly, painfully, into the shadows where the bowl had fallen.

  It had struck a stone, but there was only a small chip on the rim, a raw, rough gouge in the ancient finish. I lifted it in both hands and closed my eyes, heard my beloved master's voice, felt his touch around me.

  I lifted the bowl and drank until the beast was drowned in honey and flowers, only the taste left rich and heavy. I drank so much that it spilled red over my lips and down my chin to patter dark on the grass, and even then I could not stop taking it in. So close to him, so close.

  This is my blood, which is shed for you. Only for me, this blood. None other.

  I was senseless with the ecstasy and hardly felt the brush of Sister Aimee's hands against mine. When I blinked and the world came back in dusty blacks and shadows, she was holding the bowl and backing away from me. Her eyes had a dangerous shine. I tried to reach out, to tell her, but she stepped back and I was too weak to follow. As she cradled the bowl, her face came alight with understanding.

  "His," she breathed. "Communion. This is my blood, he said. And it is. It is."

  She did not understand. Miracles were personal. They could not be traded, like unused tokens at the county fair. That way lay defeat, and madness. That way lay Simon Magus, and the false glitter of easy faith. Her face took on the fever of passion, the hunger of lust, and behind her Simon Magus stepped out of the shadows, as if I'd somehow conjured him, shimmering with beauty and treachery, that sad smile, those angelic eyes.

  "Drink," Simon whispered. His voice was the shadows, the wind, the leaves. "Drink, woman, and live. Live forever."

  Impossible. It was not Simon's dark, poisoned bowl, it was holy, it was sacred. Surely she could take no harm from it.

  But damnation, like miracles, was a personal thing, and I was not sure.

  ***

  The house was cold, the fires all burned to ashes. I sat in the gray dawn and listened to the chaos outside on the street. Running feet, now, and screams in the distance. The house was deadly, deathly silent.

  I heard his footsteps outside in the courtyard before he entered -- slow, clumsy, stumbling. He pushed aside the curtain to my room, gripping the fabric in one white-knuckled hand as he stared.

  "I betrayed him," Judas said hoarsely. "They took him at the garden. I betrayed him."

  He sank to his knees there in the doorway, all strength bled away. I took him in my arms and rocked him gently, back and forth. His skin was cold and gray, and he shivered. I put my blanket around him and held him in silence while the noise continued on the street. The followers of Simon Magus would be rejoicing. There might be rioting before the day was out. I could not guess where the rest of the Twelve had gone -- fled, most likely, before the devastating betrayal.

  "I warned you to go," he said, and he sounded so tired. I rested my cheek against his and felt his tears run hot on my skin. "They will come here. They will kill you if they find you."

  "He asked you for this."

  "They'll show you no mercy."

  "He asked you to betray him," I said again. Against my cold silent flesh, his heartbeat continued, a strong, desperate beat like fists on a wall. "You bear no shame."

  "I love him," he answered, and turned his face against my neck and wept like a sick and grieving child. "I have never loved anyone so much."

  I kissed his forehead, gently, as the master had kissed me. I had no tears, only a great hole in my heart where tears would have been. All roads branch from here, he had said. But he had not said the roads would be so short, or so bitter.

  In the distance, a cock crowed.

  "Time," Judas whispered. "Time to go."

  I walked with him into the courtyard. He stripped off his robe in silence, folded it carefully and put it aside. Over his shoulder the sun rose, as glorious as the eye of God.

  I knelt there on the hard stones while the sun burned me, and watched as he hung himself from the tree, with the silver coins scattered at his feet like a gleaming fallen halo. He never spoke, not even a prayer.

  I had no prayers left in the ashes of my heart, only a vast, aching silence. I took one of the coins, only one, to remember him.

  Oh, Judas, my love.

  ***

  "She is already doomed," Simon said to me. Was he really there, or only my own doubt and fear given form? Did she see him? Sister Aimee only had eyes for the bowl, the ecstasy she had so loved and lost that glimmered dark in its depths. He only offered what we most wanted, of course. What we most had to have. "If you save her now, there will only be another time, and another. She is no carpenter from Galilee, Joanna. And people cannot bear so much arrogance without smearing mud on it. Eventually, she will fall."

  "She is stronger than you know," I whispered. The beast had sapped every ounce of strength and left only the grief, only the pain. "Stronger than I was."

  "You only wanted your life," he smiled, and walked a half-circle around her. His sandaled feet left no mark in the dewy grass. "Her pride is much greater. She thinks she can drag the whole world to heaven, if only she found a big enough net to fish them in."

  Strange, but I had missed him, missed the casual cruelty of his smile, the graceful contempt in the way he looked at me. One needs enemies, I found, in order to feel alive. And he was my enemy, my last and truest one, closer than any lover, any friend.

  Simon's smile turned deadly.

  "You choose bad companions," he said. "Men of dishonor and treachery. Men so faithless their names become curses. Tell me, has the world forgiven him yet, your Judas?"

  Trust him to strike at my weakest point, at my most precious, most hidden memory. It had not mattered, really, whether the world cursed Judas, or even whether the master had. It was Judas who had been unable to forgive himself.

  Sister Aimee raised the bowl toward her lips, and I remembered a thousand things about her, good things, bad things, moments of pridefulness and arrogance, moments of love and kindness. She was strong, but he was subtle. It might destroy her.

  All of us, trapped by our own greatest sins. Judas, unable to forgive. Aimee, too proud to admit her faith was incomplete. Me --

  Me, too selfish to die. What had the master said, that evening when I'd sat so close to him? It is not my place to take your life. No.

  I had stolen my life. Only I could give it back.

&nb
sp; All these years I had looked for healing, believing that I deserved another chance at mortal life. All these years, and I had not learned from my errors.

  Now my pride dragged her down. I knew where our healing lay, if only I had the courage.

  He knew I did not.

  I knew I did not.

  "Mine," Simon sighed in satisfaction, as the bowl touched Sister Aimee's lips.

  I stumbled to my feet and grabbed the bowl away. She stared at me dull-eyed, mouth dripping red, and I had no time for thought.

  I found the rock that had chipped the edge of the bowl, my salvation, my precious miracle.

  And I brought the bowl down on it.

  The sound of it breaking was lost in Sister Aimee's cry, in my own gasp. Three sharp pieces. The edges slashed my fingers like steel. I smashed them again and again, mixing my own blood with the red clay.

  When I was done, there was nothing but rubble left of my dream.

  In the silence, Sister Aimee whimpered and dropped to her knees. Behind me, Simon Magus said, "I never thought you would have the courage. Welcome to the end of your road, Joanna."

  The world was empty and quiet. Dawn blushed the horizon. I felt an easing in my chest, as if some long-tightened spring had begun to unwind.

  "You have not saved her, you know," Simon continued. He sounded very far away, one of the fading shadows. "She cannot last."

  "I know," I said. So quiet, the world. My cut hands ran ruby now, a thick continuous stream. My stolen life escaped. "None of us can last, Simon. That is the lesson."

  When I looked back he was gone. As my strength bled away I curled on my side, where the grass was soft. The dew touched my cheek like teardrops.

  For the first time, the sun warmed me without burning.

  A hand stroked my cheek, and I opened drowsy eyes to see Judas' face, his kind, sweet smile.

  "Time to go home," he said. I sat up and looked at Sister Aimee, lying asleep nearby. "She will be safe. Time to go home."

  There was another man standing over me, holding out his hand. Luminous eyes, smiling now, no longer sad.

  "Master," I said, and felt his fingers closed over mine. "It's good to be home."

  - end -

  ABOUT THE STORY:

  Aimee Semple McPherson was a real person, although I’ve undoubtedly taken liberties with her here. She began as a preacher in the early 1900s and quickly progressed to a nationwide phenomenon as she led startling, charismatic tent revivals in cities all across the country. Her mission led to the founding of the Foursquare Baptist Church, which exists to this day.

  In 1927, Sister Aimee disappeared for almost a month and was later found wandering alone. She insisted that she had been kidnapped and held for ransom, and managed to escape her abductors. Rumors claimed that she had run away with a lover, but though several inquiries were staged, nothing was ever proven. However, she was convicted in the court of public opinion, and that was enough.

  Though she continued to preach until her death, Sister Aimee never lived down the scandal of that event.

  Joanna, wife of Chuza, servant of Herod, is one of the women mentioned in Luke 8:3. Really. Any other heresies are entirely my own.

  PUBLICATION HISTORY:

  This story was originally published in 1996 in the anthology Time of the Vampires, edited by P.N. Elrod. It was later reprinted in the anthology Women of the Night.