Anointed

By Helena Christos

For the anointed, death is not a threat. It’s a promise.

In the complexly ethereal and dangerous place that is Israel, boys and girls are afflicted by poverty, power and politics. Life is difficult for many and there are no easy answers. It is within such struggle that hope emerges.

When thirteen-year-old Zanna migrates to the Middle East, she sees it not for its exotic beauty, religious diversity and archaeological splendour, but as a formidable life sentence. And she couldn’t be more correct. She too has become one of the anointed; a gifting that could cost her that which she treasures most. Life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781925353051

Helena Christos

Helena is an Australian high school teacher and mother to two little boys. She has a Bachelor of Education (Hons), a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Geography and Anthropology, has completed a Master of Arts in Theological Studies and has travelled to the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, Central and South America.With a heart for justice, her passions are politics, religion and education.

Book preview

1

‘I am coming with you.’

Eden clung tightly to her American Airlines boarding pass. Awkwardly holding the khaki satchel that hung from her shoulder, she leant forward, to collect her backpack. Luke didn’t want her to go, but she refused to be left behind. Their father had been murdered. Their mother was dead. She didn’t dare let her beloved brother out of her sight.

‘I’m coming too, Luke!’ she called to him, obstinate. ‘Aunty Pearl bought me a ticket.’ Moving forward she handed her documentation to the flight attendant and proceeded to approach the door of the plane. She had to get on that plane. She had to travel to the Middle East with him to find answers.

‘No, Eden!’

‘You can’t leave me here.’ Without her brother, she’d be the only one left in their small town. She knew that she would gain much attention – unwanted attention – from the local townspeople. Eden was a shy girl. She could scarcely handle life on the outskirts of Raleigh since their mother had passed, being mollycoddled by every friend and stranger within a fifty-mile radius.

‘Fine,’ Luke huffed back at her. ‘I don’t agree with what you are doing, but I guess I’ll have to accept it.’

‘Thanks, Luke.’

‘It could be dangerous,’ he responded gruffly. Grabbing her satchel, Luke helped her lift the baggage into the overhead locker. Though he could not fathom why his little sister would want to travel to Israel with him, he knew that she would keep him grounded. She’d stop him from taking the sort of risk that nearly got them killed in Iraq.

‘Luke?’

‘Yes, Eden?’

‘Why are we going to Jerusalem?’

‘I need to visit the morgue, to identify Dad’s body.’

Eden paused awhile before she asked anything more of her brother. Now the breakfast and following lunch service had been provided, and the attendants were coming by to collect the rubbish and trays. She had spoken little to Luke. He was busy at work reading over copious amounts of notes, examining diagrams and lifting his head every so often to gaze out of the window and think.

‘Luke?’

‘What is it?’

‘We’re landing soon. You need to return your tray to its position.’

‘Oh.’

Eden looked out of the window as the plane made its descent. Beneath them the sea shone like a piece of freshly kilned glass. The land was built up, yet the horizon blurred away into a distant and dusty desert landscape.

Israel.

‘Customs will ask many questions. Too many for my liking to be quite frank,’ Luke began.

Eden nodded.

‘Say nothing. Nothing. Nothing about Dad’s work or his findings; nothing about Dad’s murder or the investigation. I’m here on a work visa. I’m here to work as an archaeologist.’

‘Sure thing, Luke.’

‘What did I just say?’

‘Say nothing.’

Making their way very slowly through Customs, answering question after question after question, they found themselves waiting for the transfer to their accommodation. They would be staying in the Austrian Hospice in the heart of the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. It would be comfortable, but not extravagant, and just close enough to navigate the entire city on foot. Though they did have a access to a car – one of Luke’s closest friends from college had been studying his PhD in the city for almost a year now, and owned a beat up old wreck – he much preferred to walk.

‘Where will we go after?’

‘After what, Eden?’

‘The morgue.’

‘Work. Here, this will keep you busy. Read it.’

Luke handed her a book that he had purchased on a whim at one of the shops at Tel Aviv airport. She doubted that he had read the cover. If he had, he most likely would have kept his money in his wallet, for the title read The Menacing: A History of Angelic and Demonic Sightings in Israel, and wasn’t exactly an easy digest. But because she was bored and jetlagged, she began to read through it. Sliding her fingers down the yellowed pages of the old hardcover book, Eden began to read of the menacing, an ethereal element in Israel that sought to destroy the souls of the meek by any means possible. Any means.

Flicking through the pages, Eden stumbled across something that made her feel ill. According to the author, the menacing was still active in Israel, and sightings of angels and demons in the Old City were not uncommon. In particular, the menacing targeted children, the weak and afflicted, and the anointed ones.

Holding her palm at the page she was reading, she gently closed the cover of the book and looked out of the window. They had advanced a fair way up the highway now, and the signage indicated that the Old City was less than ten minutes away.

‘Luke, have you heard of the menacing?’

‘No. Is it important?’

‘It’s demonic. It targets the anointed ones, tries to kill them and possesses their souls,’ Eden continued.

‘There is enough evil in the world, Eden. We needn’t worry about spiritual realms too.’

‘But it talks of the anointed ones, Luke.’

‘The anointed ones, eh?’

Biting his fingernails, and pulling at them with his teeth until they tore, Luke considered what Eden had said. Originally he had suspected that their papa had been murdered because he had stumbled across an ancient Christian artefact, that zealots had ascertained knowledge of this, and that he’d been assassinated as a result. He believed that his father might even have found the True Cross, buried in secret before the medieval Islamic capture of Jerusalem.

He also knew that their father had been an anointed one. Doctor Judas Abel was anointed with the fruit of knowledge; he was a gifted archaeologist and researcher like his son. In fact, just like their father, Luke and Eden had inherited the gift. An anointing. Luke momentarily considered that the book he had so hurriedly grabbed, coursing through the airport, could have been an accidental clue in the search for his father’s assailant. Then he thought nothing more of it.

‘It says more, Luke. The menacing uses whatever means possible to pursue the anointed ones: fallen angels, demons, people.’

‘Read more, Eden.’

‘The only way to elude the menacing is …’

The van pulled up outside of the Austrian Hospice. Beautiful limestone chiselled walls towered above them, and a collection of youthful Israeli soldiers stood at the entranceway, cradling large black M16 guns. Luke grabbed their luggage from the back of the vehicle while Eden walked past them, nodding and smiling nervously as she made her way up the stone steps.

Pushing past her as she wandered toward the reception desk, Luke walked through the entranceway and placed their baggage gently onto the floor. Once the receptionist had cordially greeted him, he chattered back in some foreign language before offering his credit card to another gentleman.

‘I’ll take you to the room, Eden. You can settle in. I will go to the morgue … without you.’

‘Yes, Luke.’

Eden did settle in. And Luke did identify their father’s body at the morgue that day.

Some months passed as their investigation into his murder continued fruitlessly. Although they did consider that there was some merit to the local folklore regarding the spiritual menacing, they were desperate to have closure and move on with their lives. Finding work had become a struggle, and Eden was aware that her brother had become a tutor to international students residing for short increments in Israel. It had gotten them by financially – but only just – and he desperately needed to recruit a new student to adequately supplement their income.

Moreover, Luke couldn’t bear to return home to Raleigh without any answers. He knew that his father had uncovered something big, an archaeological discovery that would turn everything on its head. Hard evidence that Christ had existed, that He was a man and that He had resurrected. Luke had mulled over every document, map and journal that his father had ever kept, studying his work well into the early hours of the morning until the Adhan[i] resounded through the Old Jerusalem streets.

And there was evening and there was morning.

One morning upon waking, Luke realised that his father’s work was leading them to Galilee, Bethlehem, and the formidable Gaza Strip. Somehow, visiting each of these places would be necessary in revealing the Truth. For Luke, the immediate difficulty would be resourcing and funding these trips from an already meagre income. The second was the likelihood that he and his little sister would become targets, just as their father had been, and that they themselves could very well end up facing the same challenge.

Death.

~~~

Fifty-one hours, thirty-four minutes, and twenty-nine seconds. The steadfast Jerusalem streets bustled with activity. It was teeming with life, the ancient city of old. Feral. Disgusting. Foreign. Suffocating. The stench of unkempt and well-worn leather overwhelmed the street.

‘Hosanna?’

‘Wait up!’ she called out to her father, her voice an echo of the frustration that she wrestled with deep in her heart. She cared little for religion; too many that she had held so close had been taken from her. Yet now she was surrounded by it, the walls and streets oozed the zeal of the faithful. It could not be eluded.

But she was meant to be there for a reason, to walk the narrow path. She had been chosen, though any such reminder of this only angered her further. She was young, foreign and naïve. Lacking any prophetic capacity, she didn’t know that Sariel would be watching them, moving them, destroying them. Hunting and healing, no one ever knew what to expect of the angel.

Her angel.

Sariel had been assigned as her guardian. Strong and ancient, Sariel had existed since the time of the fall in Eden. He had known Adam and Eve well, had preserved the Israelite people before they had embarked on their journey in search of the land of promise, and recently had been responsible for the preservation of the souls of unborn children. He literally had a heart of gold, evident in a strong sense of justice and a deep longing to maintain a steadfast connect between human death and delivery into eternal life.

Seldom was Sariel considered to be a friend, however. Many a human had spat and cursed his name as their loved ones had passed on. Yet he had been assigned to Hosanna. A confused choice on God’s part, one might suggest, as he was the angel of both healing and death. He had been given the duty of guiding her. Though, given his track record, it could only be anticipated that their journey together would be somewhat of a precarious one.

Across the way, a humble shopfront presented itself from behind the crowd. Hung carelessly from the brightly painted wooden doorway was a soft pashmina textile: scarves. They were an odd choice of commodity to sell, given the stinking Middle Eastern heat. But everything here was odd.

Opal encrusted amulets twinkled in the sun. Rosary beads and misbaha[ii] spewed from the lintel. She had no use for them, although they were pretty looking, shimmering there in the light. It was as though they were there for the taking, displayed in a curiously vulnerable spot. Strangers could have pocketed them as they strolled by and the vendor would be none the wiser.

‘Amulets for protection,’ the Arabic man called out from behind the counter. Surely that was what he said, though he could not be seen beyond the heavily jewelled doorway.

Protection? Not surprising in a place such as this: riddled with terror, bombs going off, that sort of thing. The people seemed to be so concerned by it, though none of that really fazed her. There were more pressing things to worry about. She had been sent to the dust bowl by her parents; plucked from all that was familiar to her. It wasn’t fair. But life is seldom fair.

The sun hit the gold filling on the man’s teeth as he licked his tongue across his upper lip and smiled. Picking up one of the less desirable of the selection of charms, he held it up to her and then placed it into her hand. Then he looked at her tenderly adding, ‘For the anointed one, to protect you from the menacing.’

Very broken English, it was barely recognisable beneath his thick Palestinian accent. He was trying to be polite. He had helped them move their luggage into St Augustine’s as they had struggled past his shop toward their accommodation. Surprisingly he’d left the business unattended, but he didn’t seem too concerned. He’d said that Allah would keep it safe for him. Must have been his god, she thought, though she could not fathom that such a place was ethereal.

Israel. September. For some reason her father had been so determined to get them there. Of all the places on earth, of all the places, he’d chosen a place that was as harsh as it was barren. The sun beat down tirelessly. Cloud rarely lingered long enough to cast shade. It was almost as if the land of promise had never seen the rain.

Now sitting on the worn, polished step outside on the Via Dolorosa, the waft of fermented fruit filled her nostrils. In the distance a green tractor fumbled its way up the cobbled street. The medieval stronghold was a strange place and home to everything alien to her. Christianity. Judaism. Islam.

She looked up and drew her feet in toward her chest as the tractor jerked past. The boys smiled down at her as they clung to piles of rubbish that had been stuffed onto the machine. As it passed it spat out a putrid dust, a trickle of filth-filled liquid spilling from its rear, and then it disappeared down the old stone street.

If they stayed too long, living here would kill her.

‘Hosanna?’

Fifty-one hours, thirty-four minutes, and twenty-nine seconds. That’s how long they had been settled here. And she hated it more than she cared to consider.

2

Life was something that they could no longer take for granted.

Hosanna sat there for what seemed to be an eternity, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for Luke to arrive. Perhaps he had been held up at the Lions’ Gate? It was Friday morning and Muslims often congested the area as they hurriedly rushed to the Dome of the Rock to pray. Maybe the police had blocked the thoroughfare? Waiting.

Her phone rang in a shrill tone. The electronic sound did not befit the ancient place.

‘Hosanna?

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, Luke – stuck at the Lions’ Gate. Could you?’

‘Sure.’

She got up and started to walk. The murmur of Catholics praying their rosaries filled her ears as they wandered about in large groups and headed down the street. Some of them sang hymns whilst others navigated their way with map in hand toward the Holy Sepulchre.

Just as she passed St Anne’s she looked up and saw him.

‘Are you Hosanna Christolevizopoulos?’

‘Yes. Please call me Hosanna Christo.’

‘Sure. They finally let me through. I’m Luke Abel, jump in.’

Luke was covered with sweat. His chequered shirt was drenched. ‘What are you looking at?’

Hosanna choked as she tried to find the words. She had been gawking at him quiet rudely. ‘Nice shirt – Ralph Lauren?’

‘Yeah. They’re a dime a dozen in North Carolina.’

‘Huh?’

‘The Bible Belt?’

‘The what belt?’

‘America?’

The car continued down the street toward the Austrian hospice. It was a beautiful stone building. Outside, its steps were cluttered with many young Israeli soldiers with large M16 guns. They laughed in jest at each other, nodding their heads as Luke awkwardly manoeuvred the car into the small space. In contrast, bewildered pilgrims ambled by unaware of the vehicle, their counterparts expecting him to wait. The Old City was a pedestrian’s paradise, riddled with the juxtaposition of archaeology and technology.

Once the car had been turned, Luke cocked his head out of the window and waved to the soldiers, calling out his thanks in Hebrew. Hosanna rolled her eyes. She sat on the vinyl passenger seat, ever more uncomfortable as its surface stuck like duct tape to her thigh. It was now stiflingly hot and the smell of sweat that had filled the car was almost unbearable. In desperation, she leaned toward the handle to wind down the window.

‘Yuck.’

‘Don’t bother. It sticks’.

‘Air con?’

‘Nope. Hey it’s better than a motorbike,’ Luke chuckled.

In her mind Hosanna found that hard to believe. If she’d had a motorbike she could at least have ridden it alone. She could have weaved her way through the impetuous crowds and bad drivers. She could have ridden somewhere – else. Nothing about the place was pleasant. The heat sucked the moisture out of your skin. The sun was so blindingly bright that sunglasses were rendered almost useless.

Synchronously, Luke looked at Hosanna and sighed. She was just another spoilt child to try and educate. Being Australian, which was even worse, she was so easy going that she had no street sense. He felt cheated. With great optimism he had come to Jerusalem to work as an archaeologist, not a tutor.

‘Luke?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘History.’

Hosanna found his lack of an explanation offensive.

‘What do you mean?’ she retorted.

‘Y’all see,’ Luke sighed to himself.

Now he was irritated. Even if he had told her she wouldn’t have had a clue what he was talking about. So, continuing onward he carefully drove down the steep hill, the asphalt burning at the rubber of the wheels as they proceeded. Then he stopped at an intersection.

As the light turned green for Luke to turn right onto the next street, a large white tourist coach pushed its way in front of the car. The near miss infuriated Hosanna. To her horror, and despite being manned by a police officer and traffic lights, there did not seem to be much order to the flow of traffic, or anything else in the country for that matter.

‘Where are the rules?’ she cussed.

‘Is everything alright, Hosanna?’

Such chaos was so characteristic of the roadways that made their ascent toward the Mount of Olives. Apathetically, Luke shrugged and continued onward for a short time. Then he parked in front of a church. Arguably it was magnificent looking, and undeniably beautiful, but it was a church. Hosanna shook her head. She wasn’t too interested in Catholicism.

‘Boring. Where are we?’

Her tutor was underwhelmed by her ignorance. Having been very well educated, his intellectual knowledge of the place was far too advanced to share with a girl of her age.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No?’

Perhaps he had forgotten that she was only thirteen years old.

‘Gethsemane,’ he exhaled.

‘Oh.’

He opened the car door, climbed out and slammed it shut. The vehicle rocked. Now hurriedly proceeding toward the steps, he turned to see Hosanna struggling with the door.

‘Look, it’s not an Audi but it does the job. Don’t be so precious with it,’ he muttered grabbing the door. Then he slammed it shut.

Blisteringly the sun pummelled and radiated the tarmac. Looking up, Luke lifted his forearm over his eyes to shield the light. The building towered before them. Overcome with great naivety, he thought she would like the place.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Hosanna grumbled.

The defining moment that Luke had hoped for had finally come to pass. Her question sparked the lingering flame that he suspected had been snuffed out by her traditional schooling back in Australia. Thank goodness, he thought. It’s possible she might be educated after all.

‘Sure, what would you like to know?’ he bubbled.

‘Where can I get a drink? I’m dying.’

‘Huh.’ He was disappointed. They had only been in the car for five minutes. Most people would have walked to Gethsemane from the St Augustine’s convent. Filled with regret, he rubbed his hands through his thick golden hair. Her disinterest pained him. He had been employed to look after an urban princess. ‘Oh. There.’

Reluctantly he directed her to the nearby drink stand. Dark and tanned, the frail looking attendant at the stall smiled beneath his overgrown silver moustache. Grinning back at him, Luke pointed to a metal crushing machine and the gentleman reached his dirty fingernails over a basket of ruby red pomegranates.

‘Oh, I want a Coke.’ Hosanna pointed eagerly toward the refrigerator. Luke smiled, embarrassed, and fumbled with his wallet to find some change. The snobbish teen had unwittingly caused upset. Buying the juice might soften the offence, he thought.

‘Here.’ Luke handed the change to the gentleman as he pushed the warm Coke can into his new student’s hand. He then stuck a straw in his cup of raspberry coloured juice and started up the steps, drinking quickly. By the time he had climbed the stairs he had emptied the cup and was waiting impatiently for Hosanna.

Oblivious to the happenings around her, and opening the can, Hosanna gulped the warm frothy Cola. It was sickly sweet and awful. As horrid as it was, it was a narrow escape from a pulp filled pomegranate drink. She wasn’t game to risk her life drinking a poorly prepared juice. So dusty and dirty was the place, she thought, that there were surely maggots infested in the fruit.

‘Coming?’ queried Luke.

‘Coming.’

Now, Hosanna found, the warm fizz of the soda was sickly and intolerable. In an effort not to be rude, and because he had bought it for her, she wanted to finish it.

‘Hey! Wait up!’

Another voice called from the back of the car. Intriguingly the girl had been sitting in the back seat the whole time but had not uttered a word. Exiting the car she ran to Luke with great spontaneity and then cowered behind him shyly.

‘This is my sister,’ Luke explained, gesturing for her to introduce herself. The girl stuck out her hand, shook it with Hosanna’s and pulled it back as quickly as she had offered it. Weird.

‘Your name?’ Luke prompted her.

‘Hi, I’m Edie.’

‘Edie?’ he frowned in disapproval.

‘Eden, I’m Eden.’

‘Eden, you have such a lovely name. You shouldn’t be so embarrassed about it,’ her brother mumbled.

It had always upset Edie that Luke so adamantly called her Eden. So bothersome and irritating was it that she leaned forward to correct him before pausing and retreating again. Her mother had fondly called her by that name: Eden. Yet she scarcely remembered her, having died when Eden was very young.

‘It’s Edie, Luke.’

‘We are not having this conversation again, Eden,’ he replied, obstinate.

‘Luke!’

Hosanna found her quite odd. Just as quirkily as she had emerged she was gone again. Soon after, her brother found her gazing up at the rainbow stained glass panels of the church with a blank expression on her face.

‘Eden, stop daydreaming. We need to show Hosanna inside.’

They moved forward through the crowd. In a vain attempt to maintain order, a man stood at the entranceway and directed people through the lintel. Edie vaguely wandered past pilgrims through the exit. The doorman stepped forward to block her path, then shrugged in defeat. There were so many people. Some were praying, others singing. Hosanna felt very uncomfortable. She was expecting to learn about archaeology, not biblical studies.

‘This is not archaeology,’ she sighed, her head drooping.

‘Yes it is, y’all look here.’

Luke pointed to the front of the church and started walking toward the altar. At that point in time, Hosanna was so glad that her friends in Australia were not there. The place was spooky and overwhelming and not in the least of interest to her. She was an Aussie. Her religion was rugby. Her god was Kurtley Beale. The only thing remotely religious about her was her name – Hosanna. She had been named after her big yia yia, her Greek grandmother. Yia yia was the matriarch of her family. She was a humble heroine who had made the epic voyage across to Australia to escape Nazi occupied Greece.

‘Look here.’

The scruffy young American motioned the girls nearer to a section of the floor. Beaming with anticipation he crouched down to touch the mosaic, his face disfigured by the coloured light of the stained glass windows beating down on him.

‘What’s so special about a bunch of cracked old tiles?’

‘It’s a part of the original church.’

Hurt by his student’s cool reception he turned to Edie who smiled and spluttered at him, ‘Nice, Luke.’

‘I’ll give y’all some time to look around.’

Luke walked to the opposite side of the church and sat down alone on a long teak pew, pulling a black notebook from his back pocket. Carefully he documented his findings pertaining to the potential locations of the True Cross. At Gethsemane it was not.

Unsupervised, the two girls stood there looking at one another. Nervous, Edie walked around the dark and vast space with her new acquaintance. Surrounding them the rose