The Rome Prophecy

25

There is whispering in the womb.

Hushed voices.

Confidential tones.

But I hear them.

I lie curled up, pretending to be asleep, but I hear all their secrets and their laughter.

Mother and the special one – the favoured one – are together. They are out of sight, hidden in the darkness, but their sentences fly like birds and nest in my ears.

It is easy for me to picture them there.

Easy but painful.

They sit side by side and Mother has her arm fondly around her. She strokes my sister’s hair and tells her how beautiful she is.

The most beautiful of all of us.

She tells her how clever she is.

By far the cleverest among us.

And She tells her how like Her she is.

And how She likes her the most.

The others want me to run away.

Escape.

They say they know how and can set me free.

They tell me they have done it before – in Phrygia, in Crete, in Anatolia, in Etruria, Hellas and Rome.

They can do it again.

But I know Mother will stop them. She will stop them and She will stop me.

And deep inside I feel that I don’t want to escape.

I want to belong.

I want to be the one to sit beneath Mother’s outstretched arm and be cherished and confided in.

I strain to listen.

I wait patiently for the word birds to nest again in my ears. They are coming now, their beaks heavy with secrets carried from centuries long ago.

They drop them gently and I pick through them.

Precious stories about the kings of Rome, the Seven Hills of the Eternal City, the Prophecies.

And more.

The Tenth Book.

The secrets of the Tenth Book.

These are the scraps I am left as the voices fade in the darkness of the womb.

Now there is only silence, darkness and one thing else.

The silent screaming of my mind.