Chapter 15: Art and Magic

Chapter 15: Art and Magic

“You need to write all your troubled whimsies in the Book of Black Dreams.” My mother, God forbid when I knew her, would always chide me, but never really follow through. It was just that, for me, the pages were black, and maybe too dark, to even begin to compose.

“Beautiful.” With a singsong air, Daddy would admire me from afar, waiting for the worn day that I would graciously accept his invitation to attend, perhaps on a day that she was free, his Holy Sanhedrin meetings.

“But why do you do this, Daddy?” I hummed a tune that maybe he had heard once or twice or even many an occasion, but he simply did not know.

“Oh dear, if you haven’t gathered it already, your father is more than a little eager to have you attend. You’d better, sooner rather than later, make your choice, lest you disappoint him even further.” I could hear the disapproval in my mother’s voice, even if it was a faraway, distant memory of her only.