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and she begs my forgiveness. “It had to be done, Liv,” she tells me, and I hate her, I think. “I had to do it, my mother had to do it, your son will have to do it. We all have to choose, we all have to pay for the sins of our fathers.”
    Of Salome.
    I remember now, a final piece of Salome’s story. Her mother had pulled the strings that night, her mother had wanted John the Baptist’s head. She had used Salome’s wiles to get it. She had used her daughter, just as my mother has used me.
    “Leave me,” I tell her, and when I dream that night, I scream, but no one listens, and no one cares.
    My baby, my beautiful Adair, sleeps through the nights so peacefully and he grows and thrives, and has no idea what the world has become, or who he is, or who I am.
    I rock him and sing to him, and when he sleeps, I scream.
    Sanity is lost on me,
    And I’m lost in an ocean.
    Phillip doesn’t come to me anymore, and without him, I don’t understand the point. I miss him, he was my heart, and without him, I don’t want to live.
    I manage to hang on, though. I eat a few bites every day for my son, because I have to protect him from this world, from the black beings that walk upon it.
    Days still pass because the world still turns, and each day turns into a week, which turns into a month, which turns into a year.
    It is when my son is three that I begin to have vivid dreams of the past, and of the future.
    I dream of a hooded boy, and his eyes are as black as night, as black as Phillip’s, as black as my son’s.
    I dream of blood.
    I dream of treachery.
    I dream of bad, terrible things.
    I dream of treachery and betrayal and deceit.
    I try to tell my mother, and the Savages, but no one listens, and they think I’m crazy and maybe I am.
    Laura comes to visit me one day, and she holds Dare in her lap as he tugs at her fiery hair. “You have to be strong for him, Liv,” she tells me, and her eyes are sad and I instinctively know why.
    “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I ask in sorrow and she nods.
    “I’m not safe here,” she tells me and I know it’s true and I cry. She holds my hand and when she leaves, I cry again, because I know I won’t see her again.
    But I’m wrong.
    I roam the halls that night,
    Because I think everyone else is sleeping.
    But I’m wrong.
    I turn the corner quietly into the library, and what I see startles me into freezing, and I press my hand to my mouth.
    Richard and Laura are on the floor in front of the fireplace, and the flames lap at the stones, and Laura’s red hair glows as Richard moves above her, sliding into her. Her hands are grasping his back and her knuckles are white, but she doesn’t fight him. Her pale legs are limp and she’s limp and Richard is like an animal ravaging her, but she doesn’t fight.
    Her eyes meet mine and she’s not afraid.
    She’s accepting her fate,
    Like I must accept mine.
    “One for one for one,” she whispers and she’s whispering to me, and no one can hear it but me.
    Eleanor stands in the shadows, watching this unnatural, heinous thing, and my mother is with her, her hand on Eleanor’s arm. They are surrounded in a haze and is this a dream?
    I don’t know.
    I don’t know.
    I don’t know.
    All I know is, in the morning, when I wake, Laura has gone, she’s fled Whitley and I can’t blame her. I would flee too, if I could.
    My dreams persist and I dream of Mr. Savage.
    He calls me his daughter.
    But that can’t be right. If he’s my father, then I’m Laura’s half-sister. And Richard’s half-sister. But then Mr. Savage jumps from the cliffs and I don’t know what is real, all I know is that I dream it over and over and over. When I ask my mother, all she will say is that our sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.
    My dreams continue
    And continue
    And continue,
    Until
    One
    Day,
    I dream of something different.
    Instead of Salome or Phillip, I dream of the betrayer, I dream of Judas. I see his lips moving, I see him kiss the