Salome: part 1.
An Origin Story: The Muldoon Mysteries.
A little treat for you. First of all, thank you for your patience while I took a much needed rest over December and January. I just didn’t have it in me, and it turns out that after hundreds of fiction posts over the course of nearly two years—you can get a bit tired!
I’ve been working on book 3 of the Muldoon Mysteries and it has absorbed me so much that I even have character backstories here. You haven’t met Mary Salome yet, but you’ll see more of her in both The Thirst and The Covenant later this year. For now, here’s a story that will be told in parts.
I had not slept before that day.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” My words left my mouth effortlessly. The ritual. The routine. The monotony. It was reassuring.
“How long has it been since your last confession?”
I did not have to go far to find the answer, but the guilt I carried seemed to ensure that time moved more slowly, just for me.
Father John waited. He was a patient man.
I dared not close my eyes. If I did, I would see her again.
The sound of my slowing breath steadied me until I waited in suspense for my own words. Just my voice. Just my breath. I sat in the solace of the dark abyss that was my half of the box, wondering if any of this was true. Once when I was no more than a child, this was a space that felt like a coffin entombing me. Now it was a wooden womb that promised to protect me in exchange for my confession. My mother. My saviour. My hope.
The final frontier between me and eternal damnation.
I thought of her again. What she was, and what she was not when I condemned her to hell.
What she was before the demon within her revealed itself to me.
First, let me tell you about my dear friend.
She chose the name Cecilia, because she could play piano beautifully. She wanted to teach poor girls how to play, too. An orphaned daughter of a ruined pawnbroker, she possessed an otherworldly wealth that had me green with envy. Her mouth, full of tiny even pearls, the hair she tied away beneath her habit as gold as the thread in a fairy tale; the jewels in her eyes, and the purity of her soul. I both hated her and loved her.
I loved her as I held her and let her blood soak into my skirts.
When she discovered what I had done, Reverend Mother did not chastise me. She remained silent, and disappeared within her study for some time. The others, their tongues as heavy as stone, did not even look at me as they removed her body from her room.
I waited in the garden, my hands clutching the secateurs though I did nothing of use with them. Swollen scarlet blooms hung over entwined thorns, unable to lift their vibrant heads to look at me. To judge me.
I did not belong here. They knew it. Everyone did.
I felt their eyes on me as they passed along the cloistered path, their voices hushed. My instinct was to smile in defiance, but I fought it. I lowered my head. Submission.
Reverend Mother returned to me some time later, and asked me to go to my chamber. “Speak to no one. Wait for confession, and God will decide.”
God would decide now. God would decide what to do with me as I confessed my sins to Father John.
“I took another life,” I said. There was a pause.
“The life of Sister Cecilia.” His voice was level, simply stating the fact as it was.
“Sister Cecilia, yes.”
My spoken confession was born flailing and it would suffocate within this box, but everyone with eyes knew the truth. I was a murderer.
What little point there was in this ordeal! My cheeks flushed with the fury and frustration that brought me to a life of servitude in the first place. Father John absolved me—what else he could do, I knew not—and left the box.
I waited for God, but he did not speak to me.
My next conversation was with the Reverend Mother in her office.
“Sister Salome, you will have to leave this priory now.”
The noose was as good as knotted and tightened around my neck as she said it. I wanted to throw myself at her feet and beg for my life, my face red and swollen from the crying as I buried it in the hem of her skirts, but I remained still.
“You will be collected in the morning. You will say no goodbyes.” Her pale eyes found their way to me, but they were as impenetrable as a steel door. “They would not want to speak with you anyway, but,” she attempted a weak albeit reassuring smile, “that cannot be helped.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice hoarse from the dehydration. “If I am to be ex—”
“No, no. No such thing.” She approached me quietly. “While you have committed something akin to murder, you have done God’s work.” She looked out to the garden. If she was thinking of the flowers, I was a terrible gardener and I agreed. I could not sew, and I could not cook well. I did not befriend the others as easily as I perhaps should have. I wrestled with my failures while she pondered. “Do you still have the visions?” she finally asked. “Is that what helped you… see her?”
“Yes.” I saw her alone. I saw the way the crucifix turned downwards above her head. I heard her moans as she received pleasure in return for her actions. When she was herself, she cried on my lap and told me of the impossible choices she had been forced to make. She’d signed the covenant, and she could not go back.
I saw her for what she became, and she begged me to destroy her for it.
Then the voice came for me.
Touched by God, the priest said. Those who meet the Devil are closest to God. He reminded me of Christ’s temptation in the desert. He warned me that my powers were what he desired most, and if I used them for selfish gain, I would become his.
He wanted me now. He wanted me all the time. That’s why he did what he did to Cecilia.
I understand now, that this is what I was being protected from. As a child, my poverty made me vulnerable. Perhaps my late mother knew this. Perhaps it was the cross she bore too.
A lost child brought to the priory as a last resort. A mad child who needed God’s guidance and solace within walls far from civilisation. A wicked thing who spoke to the dead, dancing with demons. Though by the laws of nature, Reverend Mother was not my mother, I know now that she did care for me as a mother would. I was simply too stupid to understand.
I did still see the visions. I did still struggle to discern the reality of our world from that of others. She never questioned it, and this was why I trusted her.
On that final day, she gave me a gift. She rummaged in the top drawer of her desk and produced a large, leather-bound book. She held it out to me. It was not the Bible. It had no discernible cover to speak of, just a crucifix and gilded edges, but I knew that it was not the holy book.
“St Scholastica,” she said quietly. “There is much you need to learn from her. Everything you saw… everything… it is God’s work that you did.”
“I imagined it.”
“No, you did not.” She seemed exhausted, sighing and leaning against the sill of the latticed window. “You did not.”
“What will happen now?”
I did not want to go. I was not ready to leave her, or my home.
“Father John will collect you and take you to… Liverpool.” She must have sensed the shock. “I know it is far away, but that is where you must go.”
It was far away. I’d have to cross the sea.
“I will do God’s work.”
“You will. Be not afraid, dear Salome.”
“He speaks to me.”
“Then fight him. You have the power to, and right now… this is the weakest you will ever be, my child.”
Only Reverend Mother waved to me as the cart left the gates of the priory. Father John said not a word. The air, thick with morning mist and apprehension, weighed heavily on my mind and my heart.
No sign of rust here, Hanna. Excellent writing!
Fabulous! Look forward to learning more.