Page 103 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘You rescued yourgloves?’ said Mirren.
‘I’m here in a professional capacity!’ said Theo. ‘Are you?’
And Mirren blushed, even as he grinned at her to let her know he was only joking.
Under the utilitarian bare bulb of the lighthouse common room, Jamie donned the gloves and unwrapped, carefully, the layers and layers of bubble wrap. Inside, there was a small, crumbling, ancient book. On the wooden cover was the rough outline of a bearded man, in what had clearly once been gold, and some lettering Mirren couldn’t make head nor tail of.
None of them touched it; they just looked at it. It was beautiful, the lettering carefully placed and stamped, even though faded to a dull dried blood colour; the cover ancient painted wood. It was clearly terribly, terribly old. The drawn man’s face was serious; hooded eyes looked out from down the centuries.
‘I don’t even want to . . . ’ Jamie started, obviously loath to open it.
‘Don’t touch it,’ said Theo suddenly, his voice stricken, all his playfulness gone.
They all turned to look at him.
‘What is it?’ said Jamie.
‘I don’t know for sure,’ said Theo. ‘I don’t know, but . . . ’ He pulled out his newly charged phone. ‘I think . . . it can’t be.’ He did some frantic Googling. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Ooohh! No. It can’t be.’
‘What?’
‘The Protoevangelium,’ he shook his head. ‘No. No. I don’t believe it.’
Mirren looked at the incredibly ancient thing, amazed it could cause such a reaction.
‘The proto what?’ said Esme.
‘The Protoevangelium,’ he looked at them. ‘It’s a gospel.’
‘What, like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?’
‘Yes’ breathed Theo. ‘But not by them. By James.’
‘WhichJames?’ said Esme. ‘Grandfather?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Theo. ‘I mean James. James, the brother of Jesus.’
There was silence.
‘Jesus had . . .?’
‘It’s controversial,’ said Theo, ‘to say the least. It’s a nativity gospel. The story of Jesus’s birth.’
They all stared at it.
‘From that time?’
‘No, no, we don’t have . . . this is a printing. This is it printed. It was printed . . . in 1552. The Church suppressed it. Too much Mary in it. There is one – one – extant in the entire world. It’s in the Musée National du Moyen Âge in Paris. It’s a Greek translation from the original Syrian, from a long, long time ago. Which is – well, people think it’s very like what they might have spoken in Galilee. It might be as close to a contemporary account as we have.’
They all stared at it.
‘It’s from1552?’ said Mirren.
‘We don’t know,’ said Theo. ‘But it’s very important that we get it to someone who does.’
He swallowed hard. Bonnie patted him.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you emotional,’ said Mirren.
