Another big change happened at the same time, and this one was much harder to believe. Both Eileen and Chad swear it’s true though. Erika’s eye color changed from the dark brown she’d inherited from Eileen and Henry, and now her eyes were bright blue.
If you saw Erika in sunlight, her gleaming eyes and that magical hair, mixed with the rich bronze of her skin made her a stunning sight, one that couldn’t be forgotten.
She never acted like she was prettier than any other girl when she was in high school, wasn’t vain or pretentious in any way. She didn’t have to be. She was beautiful, smart, and articulate. When she spoke, everybody listened. Erika could gain an audience whenever she chose, just by smiling and calling out to whoever was walking by.
It was a skill that would come in handy when she started to preach.
When she was six years old, Erika realized exactly who she was. It wasn’t a big surprise to her, but her young brain had needed time to process the underlying soul that had inhabited it.
Three months after her sixth birthday, it was like she’d tripped across the information: she was God’s child.
When she was a young teen, that knowledge formed her fundamental nature. If somebody had told her that people’s souls inhabited more than one body as time went on, she would have nodded in agreement. After all, once upon a time she had been Jesus.
She remembered her prior life in great detail. She knew the successes and the failures, and she certainly remembered the agony of the torture and crucifixion. That knowledge was fully-formed in her genetic code, the same as her eye and hair color.
“I will do your bidding, my Father.” That is the phrase she spoke every morning as she awoke. She waited to receive instructions, and until she did so, she would be a normal human girl.
She laughed with her friends, she teased the boys, she loved chocolate ice cream, and she watched YouTube videos. Her real self was always in the back of her mind, but for the first part of her life, she was a typical girl. She liked that.
This was her second life, though, and she looked forward to the day she could show the world who she really was.
Chapter 16
As I walked closer to Yeshua, his overpowering presence became insurmountable. Remember, he was tall. Maybe five feet eleven, maybe even taller than six feet. That might not seem tall in the 21st century, but two thousand years ago, we were a shorter species. Most of the men I saw as I moved closer to Jesus were about five foot five. To them, he was a giant, with blazing eyes, bright hair, and a killer smile.
The kid was a natural.
He continued to stare at me with that huge grin.
Shonda stayed behind me. I wasn’t sure if it was her normal sense of servitude or if she wanted me between her and this stranger as a shield of protection.
“I’m honored to meet you, Yeshua.”
“And why do you seek me?”
Why indeed? I couldn’t very well tell him that I’d hunted him for the past three days to murder him.
“News travels far, and I have heard stories about you. I wanted to see if they were true.”
“Really? What stories? Where did you hear them?”
I changed the subject. “Forgive me for being so rude. May I introduce Shonda to you? She has accompanied me on my journey.”
I gently pulled Shonda from behind me so that she could be beside me.
“It’s indeed a pleasure,” Jesus said.
Shonda tried to smile, but she was afraid. She’d mentioned seeing fake messiahs who had visited her master, and maybe they hadn’t all treated her well. Or maybe she was afraid of becoming a bargaining chip in whatever might happen next.
“Shonda is recovering from an injury, but she was kind to me and has joined me in our journey from Jericho.”
“Jericho? I passed through Jericho on my path to Jerusalem several year ago.”
“You were with your father,” I said. “You went to visit the Temple.”
“You seem to know much about me.”
In fact, that short conversation exhausted everything I knew about Jesus after his birth. The trip to the Temple was well documented. Nothing else concrete was known about his life until he started his ministry on the Sea of Galilee. That wouldn’t happen for another fifteen years.
“I was in Jerusalem at the time,” I said.
He stared at me with a knowing look, and I held his gaze, not wanting to flinch. He knew I was lying, but I had no idea how he knew.
Historians and religious leaders have wondered for millennia what Jesus was doing with his life for all those lost years between his birth and when he started preaching.
Many felt he stayed in Nazareth, which I could now verify, at least for this part of his life. There’d been wild speculation that he’d spent years in India or in Rome or England, but nobody really knew.
Until now.
“Yeshua?”
A woman came from across the dusty street toward us with two young children in tow.
“Yes, Mother.”
I was looking at Mary, who had experienced the virgin birth.
She was rather short, certainly under five feet, wore a full-length yellowing robe that covered her from head to toe, and so all I could really see was her face.
She looked to be about thirty years old, but it was hard to tell for sure. Her forehead was etched with several fat wrinkles, and when she spoke, she had few of her teeth left. None of that was unusual, but somehow I’d expected her to be a beautiful, radiant queen. It felt odd that the mother of Christianity should be so pleasantly ordinary.
“Are you going to introduce me?” she asked.
Jesus smiled and nodded. “My mother can be quite forward. It has gotten her into trouble from time to time.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” I said as I bowed to her. “My name is Adlai. This is Shonda. We have traveled from Jericho to meet your son.”
Mary nodded, as if that type of thing happened every day. Maybe it did.
“He is somebody worth knowing,” she said cryptically, “but he still has a job, like everybody else.”
Jesus added, “I have taken over my father’s business.”
“Joseph?”
He nodded. “He died recently, but fortunately he taught me his trade from when I was very young. He trained me as a woodworker. I am busy building fishing boats for the Sea.”
Jesus gently moved the two small children to the front. “I have four brothers and two sisters. These are the two youngest, Judas and Simon.”
I smiled at the two young boys. I hadn’t realized Jesus had any siblings, let alone six.
“You’ll need a place to stay,” said Mary to me. “We don’t really have an inn or anything here. Our village is very small as you can see.”
“We are used to sleeping in the open,” I said. “We are nomads, and our lives are dedicated to wandering. We have no need for walls to sleep in.”
I wasn’t sure Shonda would have characterized herself as a nomad, but she didn’t contradict me.
I turned back to Jesus. “The Sea of Galilee is far from here.”
“Yes, but I build sections here. They are carried by donkey to the water.”
Shonda’s face was lowered, but I could see her trying to catch glimpses of both Jesus and Mary.
Jesus saw it too, which told me how intuitive he was. “Perhaps you would like to join me while I work?” he asked me. “Mother, could you show our little village to Shonda?”
“Of course I could.”
Shonda glanced up and looked at me. I couldn’t tell if she was happy with the idea or hated it.
“I’d love to see your work,” I said. To Shonda, I added, “I won’t be long.”