Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

They were definitely dancing together.
    I retreated to a corner where I saw Maggie’s sister Martha watching as she nibbled at some bread with goat cheese. She was twenty-five, a shorter, sturdier version of Maggie, with the same auburn hair and blue eyes, but with less tendency to laugh. Her husband had divorced her for “grievous skankage” and now she lived with her older brother Simon in Bethany. I’d gotten to know her when we were little and she took messages to Maggie for me. She offered me a bite of her bread and cheese and I took it.
    “She’s going to get herself stoned,” Martha said in a slightly bitter, moderately jealous, younger sister tone. “Jakan is a member of the Sanhedrin.”
    “Is he still a bully?”
    “Worse, now he’s a bully with power. He’d have her stoned, just to prove that he could do it.”
    “For dancing? Not even the Pharisees—”
    “If anyone saw her kiss Joshua, then…”
    “So how are you?” I said, changing the subject.
    “I’m living with my brother Simon now.”
    “I heard.”
    “He’s a leper.”
    “Look, there’s Joshua’s mother. I have to go say hello.”

    “There’s no wine at this wedding,” Mary said.
    “I know. Strange, isn’t it?”
    James stood by scowling as I hugged his mother.
    “Joshua is here too?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh good, I was afraid that you two might have been arrested along with John.”
    “Pardon me?” I stepped back and looked to James for explanation. He seemed the more appropriate bearer of bad news.
    “You hadn’t heard? Herod has thrown John in prison for inciting people to revolt. That’s the excuse anyway. It’s Herod’s wife who wanted John silenced. She was tired of having John’s followers refer to her as ‘the slut.’”
    I patted Mary’s shoulder as I stepped away. “I’ll tell Joshua that you’re here.”
    I found Joshua sitting in a far corner of the courtyard playing with some children. One little girl had brought her pet rabbit to the wedding and Joshua was holding it in his lap, petting its ears.
    “Biff, come feel how soft this bunny is.”
    “Joshua, John has been arrested.”
    Josh slowly handed the bunny back to the little girl and stood. “When?”
    “I’m not sure. Shortly after we left, I guess.”
    “I shouldn’t have left him. I didn’t even tell him we were leaving.”
    “It was bound to happen, Joshua. I told him to lay off Herod, but he wouldn’t listen. You couldn’t have done anything.”
    “I’m the Son of God, I could have done something.”
    “Yeah, you could have gone to prison with him. Your mother is here. Go talk to her. She’s the one that told me.”
    As Joshua embraced Mary, she said, “You’ve got to do something about this wine situation. Where’s the wine?”
    James tapped Joshua on the shoulder. “Didn’t bring any wine with you from the lush vineyards of Jericho?” (I didn’t like hearing sarcasm being used by James against Joshua. I had always thought of my invention as being used for good, or at least against people I didn’t like.)
    Joshua gently pushed his mother away. “You shall have wine,” he said, then he went off to the side of the house where drinking water was stored in large stone jars. In a few minutes he returned with a pitcher of wine and cups for all of us. A shout went through the party and suddenly everything seemed to step up a level. Pitchers and cups were filled and drained and filled again, and those who had been near the wine jars started declaring a miracle had been performed, that Joshua of Nazareth had turned water into wine. I looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Having been free of sin all of his life, Joshua wasn’t very good at dealing with guilt, so he had gone off by himself to try to numb the guilt he felt over John’s arrest.
    After a few hours of subterfuge and guile, I was able to get Maggie to sneak out the back gate with me.
    “Maggie, come with us. You talked to Joshua. You saw the wine. He’s the one.”
    “I’ve always known he was the one, but I can’t come with you. I’m married.”
    “I thought you were going to be a fisherman.”
    “And I thought you were going to be a village idiot.”
    “I’m still looking for a village. Look, get Jakan to divorce you.”
    “Anything he can divorce me for he can also kill me for. I’ve seen him pass judgment on people, Biff. I’ve seen him lead the mobs to the stonings. I’m afraid of him.”
    “I learned to make poisons in the