Salome did not dance again for many months . When she did , at last , her joy was
gone . Her movements were slow , mournful . Every step she took , with every movement
of her arms , she seemed to see John ’ s lifeless eyes , staring at her , unable to look away .
It was not many days later that Salome , instead of whiling away her life in her
chambers , waiting for Mother to decide on a husband , began to listen to the words of
the radicals , trying to work out what John the Baptist had been preaching , why her
stepfather had venerated him , why the people had loved him . And it was only a few
weeks after that when Salome left her palace , to wear simple homespun cloth and eat
bread and water for days on end and follow the teachings of another radical who
preached love and forgiveness and eternal life .
And it was only a few years later that Salome laid that same man to rest in a
borrowed tomb , wrapped in cloth , those lips from which she had heard so much wisdom
finally silenced .
And when word came three days after that the tomb was empty , the body gone ,
Salome went to see it for herself . And when she danced that day , her dance was , at last ,
one of joy .