Free Blood Secret by Kathryn Lasky Page A

the place where Don Solomon had lain dead. Mama would be so angry if she knew I was down here. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Does anything really matter anymore?
    I cannot taste violet crinkles in my mouth. I cannot even remember their taste on my tongue. I feel a warm, sick feeling rising in the back of my throat. I swallow hard and feel my forehead turn hot. Thereis no holding this in. And now I stand in my own vomit in the very place on the floor where Don Solomon died. Not five hours ago.
    I’ll go sit in the chair by the window. In the distance I can hear the town crier. He is calling for Jews, any Jews still alive, to come immediately to the church. There will be another group baptism. Suddenly my eye catches the piece of lace Mama had thrown away in disgust after our baptism. I’m going to keep it. I don’t know why, but I need to keep this scrap of lace stained with the blood of Don Solomon. I find a strand of my hair is still entwined in the threads. Maybe this will always connect me with Don Solomon in some way. My head still burns where Mama rubbed it with this lace. I keep touching the place on my head. I can’t get rid of the burning feeling. I am going to keep this lace forever and ever. I swear it.
    I will never forget this night of holy water and blood and vomit and oil and the friar with a smile like a knife’s blade. Just because they call me Maria does not make me Maria. And I’m not just a New Christian because they told me so. No. Not at all. No, you know what I have become? An old woman. Can’t get rid of that burning feeling on top of myhead. From the window by Mama’s lace-making stand I can see a star rise over a rooftop. This morning I was ten years old. Tonight I am older than the stars.

Chapter 9
    J ERRY PRESSED HER hands against her eyes as she climbed the stairs out of the cellar and into the frail light of the dawn kitchen. She would come out into this new morning and everything would somehow make sense. She wasn’t sure what had happened down there. But it certainly didn’t make sense, and there was no room for nonsense in her world. Silence defined the world of Jerry Luna. This had to have been a dream. If it were a dream, it would not scare her, not really. She would just consign it to that place of scary dreams. And this was definitely a scary dream. That was all. But she had no desire to explain it.
    She closed the door to the cellar firmly behind her. She even pressed her fingers along the edges as if to seal the crack between the door and the frame. She knew it was stupid.But those things that she had heard needed to be buried. They needed to remain down there. She was up here. Up here in her aunt’s kitchen. The can of putty that she had brought up for her aunt the previous day, when she had last gone to the cellar, stood accusingly on the counter. How could she have forgotten to take it back down after her aunt had used it! Well, tough. She wasn’t going back down for a stupid can of putty. Let Constanza do it. She walked over to the kitchen sink and washed her hands. Her fingers had a light film of dust. She held them under the faucet, watching the amber swirl down the drain. But she had left streaks on the bar of soap. So she rinsed that and then her hands once more. There, it was all gone.
    She glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly five o’clock. She would take a shower and get dressed. She would go out in the cook yard and help Aunt Constanza. She would try to say words. Yes, she was going to be normal. In the shower Jerry scrubbed herself hard. She wanted none of that amber dust clinging to her. And she tried to practice saying the few words she had spoken. I hope they never get into your bread . And she had gasped Aunt Constanza when her aunt had said that shocking thing toSister Evangelina. But the words wouldn’t come out. Her throat began having that funny weak feeling again. She felt a blackness rise in her stomach as if she had just been punched hard in the gut.