Forbidden Fruit Read Online Free PDF Page A

to her face and wept into them. “Please, Father. Please help me.”
    â€œCalm yourself, child. Of course I’ll help you. Tell me what’s troubling you.”
    Hope shuddered. “The women of my family are evil and wanton, Father. They’re sinners, they sell themselves, their bodies. It’s always been so in my family, we are cursed women.”
    She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I escaped, but now I fear for my baby daughter’s eternal soul. I fear she, too, will grow up evil and wanton. I see The Darkness in her, Father, and I’m so afraid.”
    For a moment, the priest said nothing. Then he began to speak, softly but with a strength and surety that filled Hope with calm.
    â€œWe are all in possession of the darkness, child. Eve offered Adam the apple, he took the Forbidden Fruit and Original Sin was born. Each of us come into the world tainted by that act of Original Sin. We are all unclean. But God sent His only son to die for us, for our sin. Christ is our promise of salvation.”
    The priest shifted, Hope heard the rustle of his robes and the click of his rosary beads. “You must help your daughter. You must show her the right path. You must teach her to fight the Serpent.”
    â€œBut how, Father?” Hope leaned toward the partition. “How can I help her?”
    â€œYou’re her mother. You have the power to mold this child into a woman of high moral character. Only you. You show her the way, teach her right from wrong, holy from unclean. God has sent you this child as a test. Of your strength and of your faith. This child can be your glory or your defeat.”
    Hope’s heart began to thunder, and suddenly her path—her purpose—was clear. It wasn’t the Lord who was testing her, it was The Darkness.
    She curved her hands into fists, so tightly her nails dug into her palms. Let The Darkness test her, let it taunt and mock her. She wouldn’t lose to it; she wouldn’t let it have her daughter. She would stamp the Bad Seed out of her child, just as she had worked to stamp it out of herself.
    This child could be her glory or her defeat.
    Glory, she thought, determination rising like a tidal wave inside her. This child would be her Glory.

Part 2
Santos

4
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    1979
    L iving in New Orleans’s French Quarter suited fifteen-year-old Victor Santos just fine. No place else he had lived was quite like it. Day and night, the Quarter vibrated with energy and excitement; he never lacked for something to do or someone to hang out with. He liked the sounds and the smells, he liked the old buildings whose cracked plaster walls were always damp, he liked the lush, hidden courtyards and the fanciful iron balconies.
    But most of all, Santos—called that by everyone but his mother—liked the people. The Quarter was home to all ages, persuasions and colors, home to the good, the bad and the ugly. Even the crush who flocked to Bourbon Street at night—most of them dedicated party animals, the rest curiosity seekers come to ogle the outrageous—fascinated him.
    His school counselors were always telling his mom that the Quarter was no place to raise a kid because of the bad element. Of course, they would lump her into that category, too, if they knew she was an exotic dancer and not the waitress she had told them she was.
    As far as Santos was concerned, those counselors were a bunch of full-of-crap know-it-alls. As far as he was concerned, hookers, junkies and runaways had a lot more heart than no-good sons-of-bitches like his daddy. No, from what he had seen of life, the folks who’d had nothing but hard times and hurts didn’t have room inside them for hate.
    Santos crossed Bourbon Street and shouted a greeting to Bubba, the guy who worked the door of Club 69, the place his mother danced nights.
    â€œHey, Santos,” the burly bouncer called back. “You got any smokes? I’m