Valley of Dry Bones

by J. F. Penn

  “I’m glad you’re here, Martin. I’m still not really sure what Jake wants with this Toledo Bible.”

  “I don’t think he knows either, but let’s have a look. I arranged permission with the Librarian here. There should be someone to meet us by the choir and take us to the Bible.”

  They entered the door into the cathedral, walking into chilly darkness as they stepped over the threshold. It was freezing, and as Morgan looked up to the arched ceiling high above, she could see why.

  The cathedral was massive, an enormous space. It was the very definition of the Gothic style, built in the thirteenth century and extended in the fifteenth, on the foundations of the Visigoth basilica. Stone pillars towered above, meeting in soaring arches. Stained glass windows let in a little light, but as the rain poured down outside, it sent the cathedral further into shadow. Morgan shivered. In some places of faith, she felt warmth and welcome, but here, she felt only numbing cold.

  They explored inside, looking around at the five naves that covered a vast footprint over the heart of the ancient city, a determined effort to build over the former mosque and sahn, Islamic courtyard, from the reign of the Moors. Chapels dedicated to various saints lay between massive stone pillars and an ornate choir dominated the center of the cathedral. The atmosphere was somber, as faces of tortured saints gazed down on unhappy pilgrims.

  They passed one chapel with a surprising mural above the altar – the siege and capture of Oran, a famous Spanish victory in North Africa against the Moors of Algiers. The glorification of war ever present in this house of God.

  “They celebrate a Mozarabic rite here,” Martin explained. “An early liturgy that dates back to the Visigoths and used by Christians who lived under Muslim rule. Quite unusual.”

  They rounded the front of the main chapel. Morgan stepped past a gilded gate and up into the ornate choir, every inch of the stone carved with saints and prophets, every walnut-wood seat decorated with Christian images. At least that’s what they looked like at first glance, but as Morgan examined them more closely, she noticed unusual figures within the carvings. A dragon eating its own tail in a figure-of-eight, the symbol of infinity. A misshapen man with a face in his chest, one of the fabled creatures who lived off the edge of maps in medieval times. A dragon fighting a man with the head of an elephant. It was a curious collection, and Morgan wondered what hidden meanings might be laid out in this place. At another time, she might have looked for them, but they were only here for the Bible today.

  Morgan and Martin stood together next to the choir gate, looking around for anyone resembling a librarian. Tourists wandered past, phones raised high, taking pictures of the martyred saints around them.

  Eventually, a monk with the face of a crumpled gargoyle approached them. He beckoned with one spindly finger.

  “Come.” He spun around and walked off.

  Morgan raised an eyebrow at Martin. He shrugged, and they both followed like errant schoolchildren.

  The taciturn monk led them through a tight corridor of towering stone, zigzagging around corners until they emerged into the cloisters, a covered walkway around a courtyard where geese waddled through a grove of orange trees. A surprising oasis in the heart of the freezing cathedral.

  On one side of the quadrangle, a row of wooden doors led into rooms beyond. The monk pointed at the end one, nodding toward it.

  Morgan and Martin walked over, pushed the door and entered. Two doors led off either side of a stained glass window in the large room. Glass cabinets around the walls contained objects from the cathedral’s history – ornate candelabra, panels of painted saints, ritual cups and liturgical texts. In one case, a series of Toledo steel knives lay nestled in black velvet. Morgan leaned over to look more closely at the swirling pattern on the blades.

  “These are beautiful.” She could almost feel the satisfying heft of the weight in her hand. A memory rose of training in the Negev desert with the Israeli Defense Force, learning how to wield a knife, how to defend with one. The sharp blade of memory cut through her as she recalled Elian’s laughing face as they tussled in the dust in the days before everything changed.

  “Toledo steel has been used in sword-making for almost two thousand years,” Martin said, interrupting her thoughts. “The Roman legions used it from the time of Hannibal.” He walked to the heavy wooden table in the middle of the room. “But this is what we really came for.”

  The Toledo Bible lay propped up on a wooden slatted base, two pairs of white gloves next to it. The monk stood by the door, watching while Morgan and Martin put the gloves on. He nodded once in satisfaction and went to sit under the orange trees with the geese. For the first time, Morgan saw the faint beginnings of a smile on his face. She turned back to the Bible.

  “There are three volumes,” Martin explained. “This is the one with Ezekiel in it.”

  He gently turned the thick pages, each one illustrated with extravagant lettering and detailed images that brought the verses alive. Finally, he reached Ezekiel, chapter 37, where the prophet stood with arms stretched out over the dead as they rose from the grave.

  Morgan compared it to the image Jake had sent of the Bible in St Louis Cathedral. “That’s strange.” She showed the picture to Martin. “The symbol in the corner is different between the two copies.”

  Martin bent closer to look.

  Suddenly, the sound of footsteps came from the cloisters outside. A brusque voice called to the monk in Spanish. “Where’s the Bible?”

  8

  Morgan turned at the sound, frowning as she heard the words. Martin looked up, fear in his eyes. This was meant to be a research trip, not an active mission. He wasn’t cut out for fighting. Morgan took two swift steps to the door and looked around the edge, catching sight of a group of five men in the cloistered walkway.

  It would only be seconds until they reached the room.

  She remembered the fight in the church of St Mary in Tabriz, Iran. She and Jake had fought their way out with the Pentecost stone, but Martin wasn’t Jake, and she wasn’t the fighter she had been back then. The burns on her legs slowed her down, and even though a part of her itched to pull a blade of Toledo steel from the cabinet and give in to the rush of combat, Morgan knew that the best option was to run.

  She turned back. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  The monk’s voice outside directed the men to the room.

  Morgan quickly snapped a picture of the Ezekiel page on her smart phone and together, she and Martin slipped out of a side door, pulling it quietly closed behind them.

  A couple of monks sat writing in the next room. They looked up at the intrusion, frowning at the unwelcome noise in their sanctuary. Morgan smiled apologetically and hurried to the door, Martin following close behind.

  Morgan peered out, glimpsing the men as they walked with determination toward the inner room. The man at the head of the group appeared Spanish or Latino, with dark cropped hair, dark eyes, and skin the color of burnished autumn leaves. He had the muscled body and military bearing of someone who had served, who knew how to handle a weapon.

  As the man led his group into the room where the Bible lay, Morgan and Martin ducked down the side of the cloisters and walked quickly back into the central nave of the cathedral.

  "We need to get away from here,” Morgan said. “There’s no way that miserable old monk will keep our presence here a secret.”

  They left the church and crossed the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, losing themselves in the crowd of tourists that thronged the square. The rain had stopped, but it was still overcast, the sky a gun-metal grey that made the cathedral look even more forbidding.

  Once they were well within the crowd, out of sight from the door of the cathedral, Morgan pulled out her smart phone and opened the picture from the Ezekiel page. It showed an open right hand with an eye in the middle, illuminated with iron gall ink and touches of gold leaf.

  “It’s a hamsa, a sign of protection against evil, dating back to e
arly Mesopotamia and the goddess Ishtar or Inanna.” Morgan looked up at Martin. “She descended to the Underworld and returned.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “A kind of resurrection.”

  Morgan nodded. “It’s known as the Hand of Fatima in Muslim culture, but it’s also prevalent amongst Sephardi Jews. In Kabbalah, the symbol of the hand can represent the letter shin, the first letter of Shaddai, one of the names of God.” She frowned. “It seems strange that the hamsa would be in a medieval Bible, especially given the history of the Catholic Church here.”

  “At the time the Bible was created, there was a synagogue here in Toledo,” Martin said. “There’s still one, well, now it’s a museum, but it's not far from here. Only ten minutes’ walk.”

  Morgan thought back to the man in the church, wondering what Jake had gotten her into. She had refused Director Marietti when he had asked her to officially join this mission, but now it seemed she was involved anyway.

  She texted Jake with the picture and for a moment considered finishing her involvement here and now. But her curiosity was piqued by the hamsa. She smiled to herself, picturing Dinah’s face. The knowing look her friend would give her as she headed off on another mission.

  The Jews of this city had few to hold their memory high. Morgan would be one of them.

  “Let’s go to the synagogue now. If those men find the symbol too, they might be heading in the same direction. We need to get ahead of them.”

  New Orleans, USA.

  Jake woke with a start as his phone vibrated with an incoming text from Morgan. A picture of the Ezekiel page of the Toledo Bible with an unusual hamsa the only difference between the Bible pages. Jake knew that Morgan would follow the clue to wherever it might lead next. Part of him wanted to be there with her, memories of their last Spanish mission flickering through his mind. But there were more than enough mysteries here in this blended city of many cultures for him and Naomi to investigate.

  He sat up, fighting the heaviness of jet lag that threatened to pull him back under the blanket of sleep. The slats of the shutters let sunlight into the room and outside, Jake could hear the excited chatter of tourists, the clip-clop of carriages as they passed, the strident tones of tour guides explaining the dark history of the French Quarter. He had a quick shower, then headed downstairs to the lobby.

  Naomi sat at one of tables, frowning at her laptop. She looked up at his approach.

  “I’ve been researching the links between Catholicism and voodoo, trying to understand how a friar like Père Antoine could have agreed to perform the marriage ceremony for the Voodoo Queen.” She raised an eyebrow. “Louisiana voodoo is fascinating.”

  “You mean there are different kinds? I thought voodoo was just one thing.”

  Naomi shook her head. “Not at all. Like all religious and spiritual traditions, there are different strands. Louisiana voodoo, or New Orleans voodoo, is different from Haitian voodoo, or Deep Southern hoodoo, although they have aspects in common like ancestor worship and faith in spirits. They all stem from West African beliefs brought over by slaves.” Naomi turned her laptop around so Jake could see some of the pictures on screen. Women in trances dancing around a fire, arms raised to the sky. Men with skull-painted faces slashing at their skin, eyes white and bulging. “Like so much surrounding my ancestors, voodoo has been portrayed as evil. Witch doctors casting curses and women possessed by spirits, dancing and singing with abandon.”

  “Sounds a lot more fun than Christian droning,” Jake said.

  Naomi frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Imagine a church full of white South African Protestants. A culture that doesn’t sing for fun, unenthusiastically intoning bad hymns every Sunday. I used to sneak out to the black church down the street for some joy, even though I knew I’d get a beating for it.” Jake shrugged. “Sometimes the strongest faith comes from the oppressed.”

  Naomi smiled. “Amen to that. These days, many of those practicing voodoo are also faithful Catholics. Singing is common in both traditions, and you’ll find the current Voodoo Queen at church on Sunday for Mass. The two beliefs have become entwined over centuries, with voodoo spirits associated with Catholic saints, similar to the way the early church incorporated pagan deities. It’s possible Père Antoine appreciated the similarities more than the differences.”

  Jake thought for a moment. “If Père Antoine was in possession of a relic, something that the Brotherhood protected, and it threatened his community, could he have given it to voodoo practitioners to keep safe? Perhaps something holy to both their Catholic faith and voodoo roots?”

  Naomi shrugged. “It’s certainly possible. Best to ask those involved in the community. I’ve tapped into some of my local connections, and we’ve got a meeting at the Voodoo Museum just a few blocks away.” She looked at her watch. “We’d better get going.”

  They walked out of the hotel along Chartres Street on the edge of the French Quarter, past houses with balconies of wrought iron in faded shades of green. Tall slatted shutters opened over long windows, giving the houses a sense of openness, despite their small size. Some were built in the ‘shotgun’ style with doors at opposite ends, letting the air flow through during hot summer days.

  Jake felt curiously at home amongst the narrow streets, the different languages and the variation in people’s faces. He was as mixed-up culturally as any of the residents here, in his beliefs and allegiances, if not his blood.

  Born and raised in South Africa, Jake’s family had European roots, but he was proudly African, even if people looked at him and denied he could be so because his skin was the wrong color. He had left his homeland after the massacre of his family, joining the military to work for peace, eventually recruited by Director Marietti into ARKANE. In the years since, Jake had seen things that forced him to accept different versions of belief. He had experienced the supernatural over and over again, and now he wondered whether there would ever be a day when he would be able to stop fighting those who wanted to take the world into darkness. He felt a keen desire to know more about voodoo, sensing its practitioners navigated the line between the seen and unseen, as he had done before.

  “This is one of the famous haunts of New Orleans.” Naomi’s voice interrupted Jake’s thoughts, and he turned to look up at Saint Mary's Catholic Church with its large building and gardens. Latin words stood out above the door: Virgini Deiparae Dicatum. Consecrated to the God-bearing Virgin. “The Ursuline convent. Some say it’s responsible for the vampire myth of New Orleans.”

  Jake looked through the gate into the clipped gardens beyond. “How could a vampire myth possibly come out of a convent?”

  “Back in the 1720s,” Naomi explained, “this place would have been a hot and mosquito-infested swamp. Not a fun place. There were French settlers, but unsurprisingly, not enough women. So the city's founders asked for prospective wives for the colonists and a series of young women were sent over from the motherland. Each brought a casket with them. When they arrived, several of the girls were pale and gaunt, coughing up blood. Some say they brought vampires from Europe, others say the girls themselves ventured out to suck the blood of the city’s residents.” Naomi pointed up to the top floor. "The caskets – or coffins – are still up there, the windows nailed shut to stop whatever is in them getting out.”

  She looked at Jake, and for a moment, Naomi’s face was serious. Then she laughed. “Of course, the girls could have just been sick from the journey and ill with tuberculosis.”

  Jake shook his head. “This place seems to attract both religious and occult energy, mingling the supernatural in new ways. In only a few blocks, you have vampires and zombies, religious relics, and some of the greatest cemeteries in the world.”

  “Not to mention some seriously nasty murders.” Naomi pointed down Governor Nicholls Street as they walked on. “Madame LaLaurie was a Creole socialite, born here in the Spanish colonial period in the late eighteenth century. When a fire brought the authorities to the house, th
ey discovered slaves chained in her attic, their bodies broken by torture. Eyes gouged out, fingernails bloody and torn, flesh sliced away from their skin, their lips sewn together. They say if you sleep there, you can hear the slaves moan in agony.” Naomi’s eyes were haunted. “But then, you should hear them moan throughout the south. That wasn’t exactly the worst injustice carried out down here.”

  “You certainly bring me to some lovely places,” Jake said.

  They walked on for several blocks, turning into Dumaine Street toward the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. The entrance was barely noticeable, just a wooden sign hanging above what looked like a modest house. It was rundown with peeling gray paint, rusting railings and boards over the windows.

  As they stood outside looking in, one of the shutters creaked open, a thin curl of smoke winding up from the shadowed figure inside.

  9

  Toledo, Spain.

  Morgan and Martin walked through the narrow streets of the old city, emerging behind the El Greco Museum. Tiles on the ground cemented between stones, fixed to walls, or hidden in corners marked the edges of the Jewish Quarter. Tiny menorahs on blue porcelain, and chai, the Hebrew word for life, inscribed on smooth white tiles that stood out against the cobbles of the old streets. Tourists walked by, looking in the shop windows at mezuzahs and Star of David pendants, but those who knew the history of the area looked down at the ground searching for the tiles as a reminder of the vibrant community who once lived here.

  They passed down an alleyway with walls made from fragments of Roman bricks built into new foundations, eventually arriving at the Sinagoga del Tránsito. Morgan and Martin paid the entrance fee, picked up an information leaflet and walked inside.

  Morgan stood in the main hall, looking up and around her. The front wall featured a delicate carved frieze with slender columns and a floral pattern in the Nasrid-style reminiscent of the Alhambra palace in Granada. High windows above allowed light to touch the carved Hebrew phrases that ran around the walls. Words from the Psalms, a promise that those who had died here would never be forgotten.