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

Sicarii?” I said. “Don’t be silly.”
    “No, because my mother made a bargain to get Iban to convince the other Pharisees to go to Sepphoris and plead for the men’s lives.”
    “What kind of bargain?” Joshua asked.
    “I am betrothed.” She looked at the millstone again and a tear dripped into the powdered grain.
    We were both stunned. Josh took his hand from her shoulder and stepped back, then looked at me as if there was something I could do. I felt as if I would start crying at any second myself. I managed to choke out, “Who to?”
    “To Jakan,” Maggie said with a sob.
    “Iban’s son? The creep? The bully?”
    Maggie nodded. Joshua covered his mouth and ran a few steps away, then threw up. I was tempted to join him, but instead I crouched in front of Maggie.
    “How long before you’re married?”
    “I’m to be married a month after the Passover feast. Mother made him wait six months.”
    “Six months! Six months! That’s forever, Maggie. Why, Jakan could be killed in a thousand heinous ways in six months, and that’s just the ones I can think of right now. Why, someone could turn him in to the Romans for being a rebel. I’m not saying who, but someone might. It could happen.”
    “I’m sorry, Biff.”
    “Don’t be sorry for me, why would you be sorry for me?”
    “I know how you feel, so I’m sorry.”
    I was thrown for a second. I glanced at Joshua to see if he could give me a clue, but he was still absorbed in splattering his breakfast in the dirt.
    “But it’s Joshua who you love?” I finally said.
    “Does that make you feel any better?”
    “Well, no.”
    “Then I’m sorry.” She made as if to reach out to touch my cheek, but her mother called her before she made contact.
    “Right now, Mary, in this house!”
    Maggie nodded toward the barfing Messiah. “Take care of him.”
    “He’ll be fine.”
    “And take care of yourself.”
    “I’ll be fine too, Maggie. Don’t forget I have an emergency backup wife. Besides, it’s six months. A lot can happen in six months. It’s not like we won’t see you.” I was trying to sound more hopeful than I felt.
    “Take Joshua home,” she said. Then she quickly kissed me on the cheek and ran into the house.

    Joshua was completely against the idea of murdering Jakan, or even praying for harm to come to him. If anything, Joshua seemed more kindly disposed toward Jakan than he had been before, going as far as to seek him out and congratulate him on his betrothal to Maggie, an act that left me feeling angry and betrayed. I confronted Joshua in the olive grove, where he had gone to pray among the twisted tree trunks.
    “You coward,” I said, “you could strike him down if you wanted to.”
    “As could you,” he replied.
    “Yeah, but you can call the wrath of God down upon him. I’d have to sneak up behind him and brain him with a rock. There’s a difference.”
    “And you would have me kill Jakan for what, your bad luck?”
    “Works for me.”
    “Is it so hard for you to give up what you never had?”
    “I had hope, Josh. You understand hope, don’t you?” Sometimes he could be mightily dense, or so I thought. I didn’t realize how much he was hurting inside, or how much he wanted to do something.
    “I think I understand hope, I’m just not sure that I am allowed to have any.”
    “Oh, don’t start with that ‘Everyone gets something but me’ speech. You’ve got plenty.”
    Josh wheeled on me, his eyes like fire, “Like what? What do I have?”
    “Uh…” I wanted to say something about a really sexy mother, but that didn’t seem like the sort of thing he wanted to hear. “Uh, you have God.”
    “So do you. So does everyone.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “Not the Romans.”
    “There are Roman Jews.”
    “Well, you’ve got, uh—that healing-raising-the-dead thing.”
    “Oh yeah, and that’s working really well.”
    “Well, you’re the Messiah, what’s that? That’s something. If you told people you were the Messiah they’d have to do what you say.”
    “I can’t tell them.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t know how to be the Messiah.”
    “Well, at least do something about Maggie.”
    “He can’t,” came a voice from behind a tree. A golden glow emanated from either side of the trunk.
    “Who’s there?” Joshua called.
    The angel Raziel stepped out from behind the tree.
    “Angel of the Lord,” I said under my breath to Josh.
    “I know,” he said, in a “you seen one, you seen