Gold Dust’s hungry mouth searched for Rebekah’s nipple, intensifying the pain. Rebekah did not cry. She had passed through heaven and hell and had returned to save her daughter. She could not allow herself the comfort of tears.

Later she would think that because she did not scream out the pain, the poker had scorched her permanently, leaving a brand that turned hot or cold with her feelings, a padlock that imprisoned the ache in her chest, destroyed her faith, but in return supplied her with the spirit to fight.

3

Jacob the Fatherless gazed at his three-year-old daughter, searching for a resemblance to convince him she was the true offshoot of his blood.

For the last three years, he blamed Gold Dust for his inability to face the incriminating eye between Rebekah’s breasts, the curse that prevented him from touching her. The damning stare was so terrifying that after Gold Dust’s birth, the only way his passion stirred was through Rebekah’s dancing.

Rebekah fluttered around him, pretending to dust the furniture.

“This creature is not my daughter! Whose fair complexion did she inherit?”

Rebekah set a plate of mint on the table and wondered what his distorted mind was concluding now. It pleased her to watch him struggle with his tormented self, to survey his increasing obsession with gold and mint, to observe him recoiling from the crimson blush of the brand he bequeathed her that had triumphed in its own subtle ways. His fears and delusions were intensifying, stripping him of his last vestiges of power.

“Whom did you fornicate with?” he demanded.

“I hardly leave the house.”

“Whores find ways,” he replied, unable to look into the bottomless indifference in her eyes. “I’m tired of raising a bastard. One day I’ll pour liquid iron down her throat.”

Rebekah lifted Gold Dust from his lap and walked out of the room. Was Jacob capable of such atrocity? Would he kill his own daughter?

Rebekah went to seek the help of the Ancient Zoroastrian.

“Ancient One,” Rebekah said, hardly able to bear the heat between her breasts. “Could you devise a mixture to protect Gold Dust, if she were to consume liquid iron?”

The Zoroastrian did not lift her head, open her eyes, or ask questions. She had gazed into her fire and had seen Rebekah approach on her donkey. The old one had chuckled and had rubbed her palms in anticipation. She remembered a time when she had predicted amazing marvels in Rebekah’s life. Seven years had passed. Rebekah was seventeen now. Although she had lost her faith in the holy fire, she had not lost hope, and that fountain would give birth to many more miracles.

The syrup was brewing in a treated cow udder. The liquid, thick and milky, consisted of the outer layer of pearls and seashells crushed and soaked in the roots of cypress, myrrh, and agaric, which bonded the ingredients and made them indigestible. The Zoroastrian handed the udder to Rebekah. “This liquid does not mix well with alloys. For thirty days, feed it to your daughter through the teat, only one drop, then increase the amount to a palmful for another twenty-one days. It will coat her digestive tract, so that even liquid iron will not burn her.”