Salome: Episode 3.

"The easiest way to discover if the vampyre is real is to question its existence. The proof will be swiftly delivered.”

Welcome to chapter 3 of Salome, a Muldoon spin-off story. This is set in the late 1880s and introduces Sister Salome, a young Italian nun who will appear in the 3rd Muldoon book. I started this serial to help you get to know her before the events of the next novel.

Last week, Salome travelled to Genoa and then on to the Vittoria as she began her journey to Liverpool. This week, she talks with Father John about demons and their spawn: the vampire.

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I only knew one book: The Bible. I knew it well from childhood. It had been read to me. I could recognise the names of each gospel, and all my life I had tried so hard to memorise each passage but now I carried with me a new book; one I must know well as I soon learned that my very life would depend on it. I knew Latin and my native Italian, but only by the grace of my ears and my tongue. My eyes had never been able to pin down the words as they darted off the page, refusing to return when I demanded it.

I prayed to La Madonna, the once-hot tears long since dry and burning the skin beneath my eyes. I prayed several times, and washed for supper.

“You look tired,” Father John said when I joined him in the dining room.

“I am afraid,” I said quietly, the rhythmic clinking of the cutlery around the room unmarred by my whispering revelation.

“That is understandable,” was all he said, placing a piece of goat’s cheese on a slice of ciabatta, handing it to me. “You must eat, though.” A faint smile stretched out from his thin lips. “We can’t always be courageous when we’re hungry.” He was drinking grappa, but he poured out some wine for me.

“I haven’t slept for days,” I said.

“Then you must sleep.”

“The fear keeps me awake.”

“Then you must pray.”

I did pray. I said every prayer in my rosary but I supposed that without it, the insomnia and dread could have been unlivable. I ate my food and pondered, sipping the wine to wash it down.

“Enjoy the wine,” he said. “Where we’re going, you won’t get wine like this again.”

Another thing to live without, I thought. His inquisitive old eyes bored into me, as though he knew what I was seeing. The spectre of Cecilia stood against the back wall of the dining room, watching me. She did not smile, nor she did her face bear any particular look of emotion. She remained as still as the furniture. I focused on the meal before me, letting her fade into my peripheral. “How did you find your cabin to be?”

“Comfortable,” I said. The ciabatta was soft and warm, but the meal went down with a finality. There were many of us who left our homeland for a higher purpose, and I wondered if they had all felt the same as I did now.

Father John was a Spaniard by birth. He told me that his name was Juan Fernandez Ruez, but he chose John when he was ordained. “Most of my work is in England,” he said. “It was simpler to be John.” He was an old man, but I did not know how old. I had not known my father beyond the age of four. I had never met my grandfather, so I assumed he was somewhere in between them in age. He was a reserved man and what the English would call a man of few words, but I felt safe in his company. “You must also learn to speak English,” he said, tearing bread.

“That is all they speak?”

“Yes. The Irish in the workhouses will pretend that they don’t speak it,” he said, taking a bite of his bread. I waited for him to swallow it and continue. “But everybody does.”

“Is it a simple language?”

He laughed wryly. “No, but you will manage.” Father John knew many languages: Spanish and Latin of course, but also English, Italian, and French. I admired his skill, and I felt that I was so far behind in proficiency, I would never catch up. Languages and the pronunciation of words were exciting to learn. Reading and writing were not.

I buried the panic of facing yet another fortress to penetrate and ate some more food.

“What do you know of Liverpool, Sister?” he asked.

“I have never heard of it before this week. I know very little.”

“Then I must prepare you.”

He told me of the industrial cities of England, and how they were some of the poorest, most deprived parts of the modern world. I pitied the people. Unlike the poor farmer, they did not have clean water or fresh air, or have space between houses for sanitation. Through him, I learned that Catholics had been persecuted there for centuries, only recently gaining emancipation a few decades before. He told me all he knew about this country; of the Protestants and the Catholics and how they differed when it came to education provision, how Benedictine nuns came to the city to educate and support the Catholic community there, and how there was still much more to do. “It is no longer a Catholic country like yours or mine,” he explained. He told me of the factories and the child workers, the influx of the Irish, and others from around the continent, of the fallen women and the opiates. It sounded like a troubled place. My heart was heavy, bringing my mind back to the beaten woman on the streets of Genoa.

“Like Genoa?” I asked, trying to envisage the port in my mind.

He shook his head gravely. “Genoa, it is bad. Liverpool… much worse.” He smiled apologetically. “Much more sin.”

And it appeared that there was much more to talk about. Much worse to talk about.

We decided to walk around the deck for half an hour before bed to speak of the things we couldn’t say in front of the other passengers. “Sister Salome,” Father John said in a soft, lowered voice, “Tell me about the demon that possessed your friend.” We stopped for a moment, letting two other passengers walk ahead. My friend, as far as I knew, was behind us. I did not look at her.

“She changed.”

“Around everyone, or only you?”

“I think she thought she was the same in front of everyone, but she did not know what I could see. I saw it in her face. Her eyes. Her manner.”

“How so?”

I thought about it. It was hard to explain, especially given that there were no obvious outward changes. It was as natural as identifying that the wind had changed direction, but it was only evident to me. “The voice she spoke with was not her own. The light around her had changed colour. She would talk at length to herself in her room.”

“Talk about what?”

“I could not always hear. It was more that her voice changed, depending on who was speaking. She spoke often to this demon, and it to her. I suppose she became quite withdrawn from us. Cecilia was amiable. She could talk to anyone, and make them feel welcome.”

“And what about you? Were you amiable?”

“No,” I said bluntly. Father John laughed and shook his head.

“Honesty. It is refreshing.”

“Father?” My confusion made him laugh even more. Until then I had believed that everybody was honest. Then I felt the guilt set in when I remembered I hadn’t confessed my illiteracy. I was honest about what I’d done to Cecilia, but that did not atone for the fact that at that moment, I was still a liar.

“Does she haunt you still?” he asked.

“Always.”

He gazed up at the starry sky as I turned to look back in the direction of Genoa, but it was gone. I could see the last of Corsica to my left, its black silhouette outlined by the full moon, though at the time it could have been anywhere, my geography was so poor. I listened to the hum of the propellers below as they thrashed at the water, leaving white trails of foam in the Ligurian sea. The wind was calmer now, giving my skin a chance to recover from the strain of the elements and the salt of my tears. We moved on and continued strolling across the deck.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I could sense that a demon had taken over,” I said. “I do not know its name, but I assumed it was the Devil himself.”

“Why?”

“It knew my name.”

“It could have known that from your friend.”

“No, Father,” I said, my pulse quickening. “It knew my name from before I became a nun.”

“Your Christian name?”

“Not even that. The name my mother called me. I was baptised Maria Salome, but she never called me that. She called me Lucciola.”

“Lucciola… I am not familiar with that name. What does it mean?”

“Firefly.”

He paused. “The Devil and his agents know us just as God and his angels do. That is how they tempt us, and lead us astray. They act as an ear who will listen, and they know you intimately. How else can they get under our skin? Do you tell strangers of your innermost desires, your fears?”

“No.”

“Do you tell them all about your life and your family?”

“It depends, Father.”

He waved his hands. “Begin again, Sister. Pretend for a moment that we are not clergy. Pretend we are simply two lay people, and you are not fortunate enough to have a family priest. Try, even if it is hard to mentally remove the habit for a moment. You are not a nun, but you are troubled and alone. If you are surrounded by strangers, do you go to them with your problems?”

“Probably not, no.”

“No,” he agreed. “And you would not go to them first for help if you knew there were people more familiar to you near, would you?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Now pretend you have no one you know around you, and you are troubled. You have many sins in your heart, and you cannot seem to stop yourself from committing more. They are so plentiful now that you fear judgement if you go to God. Let’s say that you are desperate, and you do come across someone. They are kind and they listen to you, then they promise they can help. They accept you for who you are and what you’ve done. They can take your troubles away. They seem to care and ask for nothing in return. They would be easy to talk to, would they not?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Are you more likely to talk at length to someone like that about your troubles?”

“Yes. They would be like a friend, or a family member.”

“Yes. That is when the Devil strikes. What I said about asking for nothing in return: Sister, if you lend your ear to someone suffering, you ask for nothing in return. You give, because God has given you his love and you use it to bring his love to others. That is where the demon is different. After the demon has given so much, they lay out their fee. They have ensured that you only go to them, because you could not possibly put your trust in someone else. They know your secrets, your sins, and your shame, but they do not encourage you to repent. They let you indulge them. They make you feel justified in your decisions, excused for your behaviours. They tell you what you want to hear. You don’t need anyone else when you have them. Why go to God when this demon knows you better than you know yourself?”

“But God… God is there.”

“God is not. If you can only put your trust in a demon, you have shut God out. You gave in to fear and shame and self-pity instead of speaking to God. You didn’t turn to him first. Do you see?”

“I think so.”

“The Devil is the master when it comes to finding our weaknesses, our shame. But if we turn to God first, we are stronger, because he will give us his strength whenever we need it. He loves us unconditionally. Did your friend lose her trust in God?”

“I don’t think so.” I realised then that I didn’t know. I only knew of her what she had told me. “I don’t know.”

He grunted. “Where did she come from?”

I stopped. “A town in the south called Montepadoro.”

“No such place exists.” He tilted his head sympathetically.

As I said, my geography was poor. I gasped and held on to the rail. “It was not your fault,” Father John said. “You were tested. The test was particularly difficult, and you still chose God.”

“I murdered a woman.”

“A demon.”

“No.” I shook my head, the tears falling again. “She was possessed.” It sounded more like a plea than a statement.

“She was not.” He cleared his throat. “The young woman she claimed to have been was Monica Modigliana, who committed self-murder in Alessandria. The year was 1879. Her grave was never occupied.”

I stared at him, open mouthed and trying to find the words to say. A demon, not a woman. Not a sister I befriended and loved. I looked around, trying to find the ghost of her on the deck. It was gone. The spectre of my guilt.

I slumped against the side of the ship. Father John caught my arm and escorted me to a bench. “When that young woman rejected God’s gift of life, she offered herself as a vessel for a demon. A demon that found its way to you.”

“Why? Why did it want me?”

“You have a gift. A gift that is a great threat to them. They need to be rid of you, for you disrupt their chaos.”

“And you?”

He nodded. “Me also, my child.”

“Are you not afraid?”

“No,” he said calmly, smiling. “God is with me.”

I felt weak. My friendship had been a lie. “I told her so much.”

He shook his head. “Do not fret about that. She would have known all about you anyway. People like us are on a list somewhere… I believe it.”

“But she took communion?” I couldn’t accept the truth.

“It is only the blood and body of Christ to those who accept God. To her, it will have simply been bread and wine. If she was even affected—which I don’t believe is possible—she would have earned a mere blister on her gullet for coming so close, but it will not have had much impact. They are fallen angels or the spawn of them, remember. Made by God, just like us.”

The realisation of how close we came every moment to our own destruction pressed on my mind. A flitting paranoia coloured my thoughts; had I known demons all my life? Were there demons around me at that moment? I looked at Father John and back at the wooden planks of the deck. There was nobody around, but I understood then that there could always be, if I wanted that.

“Father, she had a crucifix in her room. Does that not hold power over the fallen?”

“Sometimes.”

The myth of vampyres and werewolves blurred with what I’d learned of demons, and my mind was overflowing with questions. “What happens to them when they are near a crucifix?” I asked.

“The demon can last a surprisingly long time in the face of a crucifix.”

It was upside down in her room when no one was looking, but she let me see it. It was the way she needed it to be, but she could stand near it. She could touch it.

“But… I thought it could ward off evil?”

“I know what you are thinking of,” he said. “Prayer and our symbols of the faith can indeed push back the dark…” He looked around, his expression solemn, his voice lowered even more than I thought was possible, “And there is one creature a single crucifix can weaken.”

“Father?” A number of names made their way to my mouth, but none ever stepped onto my lips to make the leap.

“Sister Salome,” he said, “what do you know of the vampyre?”

“The vampyre?” I asked, dumbfounded. I had heard of the myth, as had everyone in the world, I supposed.

He offered out his hand and helped me back onto my feet. I accompanied him for another slow walk around the top deck, inhaling the sea air deeply as though it would wash out the dread in my bones.

“You have learned of vampyres, yes?”

“What are they, exactly?” My voice was surprisingly high-pitched from the adrenaline. “I believe that they exist, but I do not know them as well as I ought to.”

“Good.” He looked at me sternly. “You must never question the existence of the vampyre. The easiest way to discover if the vampyre is real is to question its existence. The proof will be swiftly delivered.”

I stiffened. “Then, what should I know about them?”

“They are creatures of the night. Born in the darkness. In a way, they are the offspring of the demon.”

“How so?”

“Demons make them.”

“How?”

“By giving a mortal man their blood,” he said, “and taking their soul in return. They are different from their sires. The vampyre cannot step foot on hallowed ground, or enter a church, or see the sun. A crucifix or holy water can render them to nothing more than dust. The demon can play the human for as long as is needed to achieve its goal, but the vampyre is simply the monster that stalks us in the dark. It has no power in God’s light, or against those who carry His light into battle. But it is very much like the demon in the way it tempts us to become its prey or worse… one of them.” He looked around at the cool, clear night. “They are cruel, and some are so powerful that they can torment the mind of any mortal. Just think of what they could do if they turned a mortal like you into one of them.”

The thought chilled me. “They drink blood, do they not?”

“The blood of men, women and children, yes.” He sighed. “This is the most common kind of vampyre I am telling you about, of course. There are other, rarer kinds in your book.”

“I see.” The book again. I memorised as much as I could about the origin of the vampyre and why they existed, but I was going to have to address the pressing issue sooner or later, I felt.

“If there are vampyres, why am I not going to…?” I couldn’t remember the name. “Up in the east… Carpathian mountains.”

“They call it Romania now. And there are plenty of us already in that part of the world.”

“Us?”

He nodded.

“There are more like us?” I do not know why I was so reluctant to believe it. Father John had been clear about his own powers, and I accepted that; however, I had been the only one with my abilities for the last eighteen years of my life. Reverend Mother could not see more than the average eye, even though she was sympathetic to my experiences. She knew of my second sight, and accepted it, much as she would have accepted one had had a visitation from La Madonna or presented her with bleeding stigmata.

“Many,” said Father John. “Though they are not all in the clergy. And not all who fight demons need to be able to see them.” He looked ahead. “There are many like you, yes.”

“But why Liverpool?”

“I believe that all will be explained to you when you arrive, but you must know that every one of us with these powers are in danger, all of the time. You can no longer hide behind the ancient walls of Turin. The world is a dark place, and they are waiting for us.”

“Who are they, Father?”

“Agents of Evil, my child.”

Not only did I have to fight for my life, but also my soul.

Father John, even if he was with me in conversation, seemed to always have an eye and an ear elsewhere. I noticed it now that he was standing in front of me. I wanted to ask him what he heard. What was out there? But I did not want to hear the answer.

“Are we going straight there?” I asked.

He nodded, his eyes cautiously looking around. “Yes.”

Good, I thought. I did not want to see any more ports until we got to this mysterious city on the River Mersey. We continued walking as I asked more questions about the order who were stationed in the city. “I have not been there for a few years, but Sister Hildegard van den Berg will be your head tutor.”

I wondered what she was like, and whether she would be as kind as Reverend Mother back home. Home. That word again. It made me feel sick with longing. I wondered when the pain would end.

He stopped, putting a hand out to stop me also. The wind had dropped. “We must now retreat to our cabins, Sister.” He turned to look at me. “Are you wearing your crucifix?”

“Always.” It was cold against my skin. I lifted it out and placed the chain beneath my collar. He nodded in approval. “You wear it above your habit at all times.”

He escorted me to my cabin, looking over his shoulder once or twice in a way that made me sense something was wrong. “If there is anything else that you need, you call for me.”

“Goodnight, Father.”

I closed my cabin door and locked it, removing my veil, hanging it on a hook. I moved the book to the small table beside the bed, changed into my nightdress and sank beneath the woolen blanket. I lay looking at the ceiling for some time, the creaking of the strange ship as it rocked side to side delaying sleep while the whirr of the propellers encouraged more thoughts. I heard footsteps patrolling the deck outside and I realised that Father John had not said to go to his cabin. He simply said, “Call for me.”

The reassurance of his patrolling presence made my eyelids heavier than they had been for some time. I drifted off to the calming rush of the waves against the ship.

In the same stretch of luck that I had had in being able to sleep, I was fortunate enough to dream. I enjoyed waking from a dream, even if the dream did not particularly evoke feelings of joy or security. I suppose that even though life had not gone as I had hoped it would, I was grateful to be alive. I was grateful to serve a purpose beyond fulfilling my own sad, unachievable desires.

I dreamt I was with my mother. We lived in a small village not far from Turin. My parents kept a small farm, rearing goats and sheep in the Italian Alps. In this dream, it was a summer morning and my father was alive. These dreams were often bittersweet, as no amount of hope could bring any of them to life, but I enjoyed being with them again, if only for a dream. I basked in the warmth of my mother’s arms as she held me and sang to me. I felt my father’s rough hand stroke my cheek as he kissed me goodnight or wished me good morning. I smiled every time I heard my brother’s laugh. I could still feel the wiry hairs of the goats as I went to milk them in the yard, my tin bucket rattling against my little legs. They would try to eat everything, even my little dolls. Once, when milking a nanny goat, I knocked a bucket over by accident. My mother scolded me, and my clothes were soaked in spilled milk, the new scent on them growing worse as the warm day went on.

Our little hamlet was a happy home, until disease came.

It took my father first.

Then after some hard winters, it returned for my mother.

I was eight years old when she lay on her deathbed, begging the Church to take me and my brother, the white bones of her hands protruding through translucent skin as she clutched the priest’s hand. I remember the look of sorrow in his eyes as he read her her last rites. He said he would do all that he could, and he did.

He was able to find a place for us, but not together. Francesco was eleven, and—they argued—old enough to be at work. They would find him an apprenticeship in Turin, they said. I would go to an orphanage.

I walked down the little lane behind the elderly nun who had come to collect me with her donkey and cart that waited at the foot of the hill. My small bag with everything I owned in the world lay half-empty on my shoulder. I turned to look at our little stone house one more time. Francesco stood on the doorstep, his bag also packed and ready to go with his new guardian. He raised one hand, his sun-tanned face taught and his lips narrow and pale. I did not recognise it then, but now I see that he was trying not to cry. I never saw him again.

When awake, I would always experience these memories with sadness in the pit of my stomach, but this was a dream, and in this dream there was no sickness. My mother wasn’t thin and weak, coughing blood into her handkerchief. My father’s body did not lie cold in the churchyard on the hill; he was alive and strong, herding his goats and sheep up and down the craggy hillsides until it was time to come home for supper. I hoped that this is how they were up in Heaven. I hoped that they were waiting for my brother and me to join them one day. That was how I coped with the memories. That was how I woke from the dreams without despair.

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