Read Online The Cruel Ever After by Ellen Hart - Free Book Online Page B

champagne was already chilling. Because of her father’s heart scare last year, this birthday felt like a gift. She wanted to do it up right. “How many RSVPs have come back?”
    “Forty-nine. Most are couples, so plan on around a hundred. If moi had been in charge, we would have needed to rent the Metrodome.”
    Thirty yards away, the preacher was reading from what looked like a personal journal. The crowd wasn’t large, maybe a dozen people, but they seemed attentive. His voice was deep, and it carried well.
    “What are you wearing?” asked Cordelia.
    A question like that usually came with heavy breathing. “Right now?”
    “Earth to Jane. No, dingbat, at the party.”
    “Oh. A tux and a tiara.”
    “Entirely brilliant. I believe I said something in the invitation about dress being optional, though essential. Oh, drat. The tuba player is throwing a hissy fit. I’ve gotta go. Later.”
    Jane trotted down the steps to the footpath, curious what the preacher could be saying. Keeping her distance from the crowd, she sat down cross-legged in the grass, her back against a sturdy elm.
    The preacher lifted his head and made eye contact with each member of his audience. “ ‘Blessed is the man who has suffered and found life. Jesus said, What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it. Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return.’ ”
    He turned a page. “ ‘Jesus said to them, When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female; and when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then you will enter the kingdom.’ ”
    “That’s not in the Bible,” shouted a gray-haired man sitting astride a dirt bike.
    “No?” said the preacher.
    “Not in any Bible I’ve ever seen.”
    He closed the book and held it down at his side. “Let me ask everyone a question. How many of you have read The Da Vinci Code ?”
    Almost everyone raised a hand.
    “Why doesn’t that surprise me. Now, how many of you have read the Bible? Not just passages but cover to cover.”
    One woman raised a hand.
    “I find that fascinating, don’t you?”
    “ The Da Vinci Code had a better plot,” called a teenaged girl.
    A few people laughed.
    The gray-haired man shot the girl an angry look.
    “How many of you believe in God?” asked the preacher.
    This time, everyone raised a hand.
    “And how many believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God?”
    “What’s ‘inerrant’ mean?” asked a woman standing at the front.
    “Incapable of error,” said the preacher. “Perfect in every way.”
    Only one young man in the back didn’t raise his hand.
    “Then tell me this,” said the preacher. “If you really believe the Bible was written by our creator, why wouldn’t you want to read it? I honestly don’t get it and would like someone to explain it to me. I would think people would be falling over each other to find out what the Lord of the Universe had to say.”
    “But that stuff you read,” said the gray-haired man. “It wasn’t from the Bible, right?”
    “It’s from the Gospel of Thomas.”
    “There is no Gospel of Thomas.”
    “Sure there is. There’s also a Gospel of Mary, a Gospel of Peter, a Gospel of the Savior, the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Philip. All these books were understood by many early Christians to be sacred texts.”
    “That’s garbage,” said the gray-haired man. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but if you people want my opinion, that guy is the devil in disguise.” In a huff, he pedaled off.
    The preacher’s gaze traveled to Jane,