Cover

Title Page

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Kristen Wolf

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wolf, Kristen.
The way: a novel / by Kristen Wolf. —1st ed.
      p. cm.
I. Title.
PS3623.O547W39 2011
813′.6—dc22                       2010041025

eISBN: 978-0-307-71771-9

JACKET DESIGN BY DAVID TRAN
JACKET PHOTOGRAPHY BY DREAMSTIME.COM

v3.1

Dedication

For the two miracles I live into—
my love and
my son, born on Christmas Day

Epigraph

I AM ANDROGYNOUS. I AM MOTHER (AND) I AM FATHER …

I AM THE WOMB THAT GIVES SHAPE TO THE ALL …

AND I AM INVITING YOU INTO THE EXALTED, PERFECT LIGHT.

—The Gnostic Gospels

PART ONE
ANNA

CHAPTER 1

A village on the outskirts of ancient Palestine—7 A.D.

“Be a good girl and cover your face,” her mother counseled.

Anna draped a shawl over her head and bound it halfway up her cheeks. She watched her mother arrange bowls of dates, cheese, and olives on a tray. She then placed a pitcher of milk among the bowls and capped it with a square of linen. As her mother did these things, her hands came to rest on her swollen belly then flew off, repeatedly, like frightened doves.

“Hurry to Grandfather and be home before morning meal,” she said. She lowered the tray into her seven-year-old’s waiting hands. She pulled back the camelskin hide that hung across the front door. Anna’s head brushed the underside of her mother’s belly as she slipped around her and stepped, blinking, into the light.

Early morning had bathed the village in its usual peach wash. Thirty or so dwellings huddled together as a liquid glow dripped down straw roofs and reddened clay walls.

Anna walked past the manger her father had built. Its thatched roof balanced sturdily on hand-carved wooden beams. Beneath, two cows and a small flock of goats sprawled about crunching mouthfuls of hay. When the smaller animals caught sight of the young girl, they nickered and trotted in pursuit. Anna clucked gently as they nibbled her elbows. Her father said goats were the most foolish creatures the Lord had created. But Anna found their antics and stubborn friendliness amusing. And she laughed at how their upper lips curled in pleasure whenever she scratched their chins.