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“Not my Phillip,” I tell her. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” she asks. “Sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.”
The pain returns and I can’t think anymore, and all thoughts drift away. Phillip comes back, and he murmurs in my ear.
“My love, my Salome. It will be over soon.”
“I’m not Salome,” I tell him, and his eyes glimmer and shine. “I’m not Salome.”
“Aren’t you?” he asks simply and I clutch my stomach and it’s time, it’s time, it’s time. The pressure is too much to bear and my legs part and my stomach contracts contracts contracts.
I scream
And scream, and push
And push.
I feel my baby coming
Coming
Coming.
It claws its way into the world, sliding into the light, and I push it push it push it.
He cries a great sob when he enters this life, and I cry because he’s here, because I did it, because I don’t know what will happen now.
He lays on my breast and he looks up at me, and he’s bloody and red and his eyes are black black black as night.
Black as Phillip’s.
Phillip looks up at me, his hand on his baby’s breast, and he smiles.
“My Salome,” he croons, and the world goes black,
because the pain
the pain
the pain broke me.
Chapter Nine
Once in a far away land and time, a man, Judas Iscariot, a betrayer of all men, dwelled. Judas had a friend, the savior of the world, and he betrayed the Savior with a kiss for a mere handful of silver. Thirty simple pieces was all it took for him to betray mankind. Guilt overcame Judas, and he killed himself, but not before his infamous betrayal.
Salome located one of the silver pieces and had it made into a ring, to symbolize her power to sway men, her power to do whatever she pleased, her power to even control death. She wore that ring until she died, and then it was passed to her son, and his son, and his son, and so on.
She called herself the daughter of death, and she wore her ring proudly.
That ring is mine now,
And my son,
And his son,
And so on.
It is in the middle of the night when I open my eyes, and Richard is not in my room. The fireplace flickers and the flames lap at the stone, and I feel like I’ve been here before. My mother sits next to me and she rocks and rocks, her hands full of two bundles.
