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“Was it sweet or sour?”
“Sweet.”
“You’re sure it was your own?” But my mother’s voice lacks hope. She knows what I will say.
“Yes.”
She sighs, and it’s a forlorn sound and it echoes through the rooms.
“My girl, my girl. What have you done? You are a daughter of Salome. It was never supposed to be you.”
I wince at the name, the name I’ve heard from the time I was born. Salome, the mysterious ancient woman of whom I’m supposed to be a descendant. My mother wears that fact like a badge of honor, but to me, it’s nothing. Salome was a woman, and that is that. But my mother takes the stories seriously.
“It never had to be you,” she repeats. “If only you had listened to me. He wasn’t good for you. He has caused this.”
By he, I know she means Phillip, and her words anger me.
“He was the only good thing in my life,” I tell her, and I see red with my rage. “He never asked me for anything. He loved me for me, he didn’t love me for what I could provide him with, or for what I could do for him.”
My mother actually flinches at my words, because she sees the barb for what it is. She knows that I was born for a purpose, and while she has loved me my whole life, that doesn’t change the purpose.
“I love you, girl,” she croaks. “Nothing can change that.”
“I will die,” I tell her firmly and li
mply and matter-of-factly. “That changes everything.”
My mother can’t argue because she knows that much is true.
Chapter Eight
The stories
The stories
The stories.
The rich stories that I’ve been told since I was small swirl in my head and I see the vibrant words and rich tapestries come together in front of me.
Salome.
The step-daughter of the ancient and great King Herod.
She danced for him one fateful night, a dance so full of seduction that he’d told her that any wish she had was hers, that he’d give her anything. She’d demanded the head of John the Baptist, and Herod had delivered it on a silver platter.
She was a seductress, she was wily, she was brilliant.
Her blood is my blood.
She dabbled in black magic and necromancy, and she became powerful and great. She had a line of great descendants, and I am one of them. Her blood would always avenge her, she said. I am her blood.
I am her blood.
Am I crazy?
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and ponder the stories and feel my child under my hand, moving moving moving, and I don’t know if I’m crazy.
Was the story of Salome real? Or have I imagined her?
