Internet Angel

Chapter One

Jerusalem

1AD

Late at night

The young girl woke with a start. Her dark eyes were wide with fright.

For a moment she felt confused but then she remembered her dream. She dreamt often and vividly but this dream was much more like a premonition.

A shocking premonition that had forced her awake with a cry frozen on her lips. A premonition about a dear friend.

She shivered and pulled her bed covers up under her chin. Her dark curls were damp on her forehead and her nightshirt was unpleasantly stuck to her small body.

The tiny room where she slept with her two sisters was dark. It must still be the night she thought.

How long until dawn?

Her dream came flooding over her again and suddenly she knew what she had to do to save her friend. Whatever it cost.

The steady clang of hammer on iron came from her fathers workshop at the back of their small house.

She knew he was working late on the commission for the Pharisäers of Sanhedrin that he had received that morning. It wouldn't take him long to complete it. He had been in a foul mood all day because of it.

The Pharisäers were unpleasant men and always seemed to take great pleasure in flaunting their position and authority over her gypsy father. Her father was a proud man and an excellent blacksmith. He had taken the commission because they needed the money but even he had been unhappy about it.

And so he had been in a bad mood all day.

Shivering again, she pulled a shawl over her bed shirt and slipped out of bed into the darkness.

Chapter two

Jerez de Frontera, Spain.

Palm Sunday, 1926

Early evening

The night sky was velvet black but the small town of Jerez de Frontera was lit in celebration. The bright stars studded the night's midnight black cloak which swept down on the narrow cobbled streets providing a festive backdrop for the unsteady procession that was making its way down the Calle Merced.

The small, stone houses which opened directly out onto the streets were lit with lamps and the small balconies hung with flags in celebration of Holy Week. The soft red glow from within the wide doors of the few blacksmiths forges on the Calle Merced and the Calle Crista mingled curiously with the pale green lights from the lanterns held by the many people in the procession.

There was an atmosphere of tension and excitement in the crowd. A vast image of Christ, the size of an ordinary man and bowed under the weight of a heavy wooden cross seemed to stride through the streets high above the crowd, leading the procession towards the church.

His agonized eyes bore ahead under his tortured brow and his pale lips were drawn in pain. His torn robes fluttered and shimmered like a broken purple butterfly in the moonlight as he strode on.

The people gathered around him appeared hypnotized by the incredible vision. The procession wound through the narrow streets behind him as he strode masterfully on towering above the crowd. Some hundred meters behind him and bringing up the rear of the procession, floating above her adoring followers, the Virgin Maria danced and swayed. A golden crown shone out from on top of her head.