The Black Rose

Victor William Presco married an extremely treacherous woman. Never able to best her, he attacked her innocent children who came to him one by one – defeated! It was a slaughter of the innocents caught in an evil war, and from this bloody battleground grew………….The Black Rose!

Arhtur had Morgana. We had……………..Rosemary!

Oh how she worked to be the spider that made everyone’s choices – impossible. No
escape. Her brilliant gaze over our shoulders, gave away our happy designs, she
gleefully thwarted. And our dreams were like sheep to the slaughter. Who could
guess the danger at the gate of her Madonna like smile. We her children came to
her profane alter, where she took our little guesses, and disappeared them, like
a thief in the night, disguised as mother.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2011

For The Love of Three Roses
Chapter One

The First Rose

What trapped my mother in the cruel hidden web she wove almost everyday, was not
that she could take my genius away, not that she did take my dear friend Bill
away, not that she could keep me from becoming a great poet, or artist, but that
I had become a great lover right before her eyes, and she was never more
powerless. She did not let me see she died that way. The death of the great
seductress was wooed by the Death of a much darker night, a Special Death, who
could bare her evil secrets, away.

Oh how she worked to be the spider that made everyone’s choices – impossible. No
escape. Her brilliant gaze over our shoulders, gave away our happy designs, she
gleefully thwarted. And our dreams were like sheep to the slaughter. Who could
guess the danger at the gate of her Madonna like smile. We her children came to
her profane alter, where she took our little guesses, and disappeared them, like
a thief in the night, disguised as mother.

Marilyn began to look for me when she was two. I haunted her on the playgrounds.
My shadow crossed her soul when she jumped rope. In a fountain, in a stream by
her dream, she made secret visions, of me.

She would love me. I was approaching. Nothing could prevent this. No one could
plumb her beautiful iridescent soul where she made memories to be, stored them
like diamonds. My great soul. My Marilyn, and my Rosemary.
* * *
Giving birth to this story, getting it started, may be an attempt to stop hating
my mother. But, it is not hate I feel. I feel utterly devastated and defeated by
her great betrayal. What do I do with it, along with so many heavy things that
have been put before me like an Irish Sin Eater at a wake? Is there anything
more annihilating, then when a mother betrays her son? Give me another example
so I may weigh my chances of getting out of hell.
Even the careful web Rosemary wove is rendered useless, for is there a no more
thorough prison? Where would one got, to escape? What punishment is in store for
Rosemary? Who could administer it – God?

No doubt Rosemary heaped punishment upon herself – everyday! But what I lonely
punishment it must have been. There was no arrest, trial and conviction, no
confession unto a priest. Would Rosemary dare take her great sin to God, and beg
for mercy?

There is only me, her son, at his darkest hour, when the truth that dwelleth in
everything was utterly eclipsed. No light beam streameth in from a divine crack
No votive candle is lit. No one comes down from the bell tower to guide my
mother, take her back into the light. For it came down to this, it was her life
or mine – to forfeit.
No sword was dangled over my head, no false but generous mother cried out for
the life of this child. Above all things, Rosemary must live. After all, she had
sacrificed her life for her four kids. Well, that isn’t the truth. Rosemary
sacrificed her life for the love of the man she married who she claimed
deliberately kept her barefoot and pregnant.

That is how I remember my mother, a veritable prisoner, a hostage – till the
bitter end. I did not understand that she was showing me how completely she was
punished, because I did not own the whole truth. I saw enough of it, got a
glimpse of it as it slunk around the corner, scurried into a dark closet, or
jumped into the fireplace and up the chimney. Devil!

Rosemary knew I knew, but every day we played a game of keep away, a game of Hot
and Cold. She saw me get so close to it, my intuition leading me right to it.
She saw the look of consternation on my face, my puzzlement. Something is wrong
here.

She knew I had the sight. She kept saying this to me since I can remember;

“The truth will set you free!”

Rosemary went to sleep with the key around her neck like a crucifix. My mother
was raised a Catholic. What does this tell you my dear reader? Shall I go on? Is
it too late to turn back? Are you curious to see if I will extract a confession
– from beyond the grave?