by A. D. Koboah
I spent most of my time asleep in Avery’s room as the weeks wore on. Mallory, Shadrach and Maryse spent time with me, trying to coax me out of the mansion and into the night for even a few minutes. Mallory was as loving and supportive as she had always been. Shadrach would gaze at me with a gleam of curiosity in his eyes along with a hint of excitement, and at times it seemed he was on the verge of saying something. Then he would merely smile, that curiosity deepening. Maryse was terrified of me. She was her usual humourless self, but that fear was there, the image of Auria—such an old and powerful vampire—rendered helpless in mere seconds, never far from her mind.
Avery did not leave my side and his presence was able to draw me out of the despondency that had befallen me. He often sat by the side of the bed holding my hand and staring at me as if the very sight of me was a miracle he could not fathom. Then he would quickly look away, guilt colouring his handsome face.
Since Jessica’s death I had questioned my decision to become a vampire. But with Avery before me gazing at me with quiet patience, it was difficult to regret the decision I had made as I would not be here with him otherwise. Although his expression was sometimes grave, I could sense a burden had been lifted from him. Perhaps saving my life had exorcised some of his demons.
Auria’s death, however, was a blow. She was the only one, aside from her son, who knew anything at all about what the chapel entity was and how to defeat it. I sometimes awoke to find Avery sitting at his desk with thick, heavy books open before him, his head in his hands, the vague wisps of thought that reached me ones of utter dismay and crippling panic.
The dreams of that ancient culture continued to assail me during this time, and I found myself sleeping longer. It always took a long time to wake me, and I awoke on many occasions to find Avery hovering over me, relief drawing the tension out of his face when I finally opened my eyes. Even when I was awake I was often confused, those waking dreams tugging me out of my reality often and without warning, making it difficult to know who I was or where I was. That whisper that had been trying to draw me to it louder now.
At times I would turn to Avery and stare at him in surprise for a few moments, having expected his hair to be grazing his shoulders, as it had been when he was with Luna, instead of curling just at the nape of his neck.
One evening I walked into his study only to come to an abrupt halt.
Instead of Avery’s study, I was standing in a room with furniture and decor that was restrained although still elegant, a fire burning in the fireplace. Avery was seated in a chair by the fire. He was dressed in a brown frock coat with a black necktie. His hair grazed his shoulders, was parted to the side and slicked down. He was deep in thought, his brow furrowed, his mouth turned down, clearly unhappy.
He looked up toward where I stood and a timid smile came to his lips although I saw weariness in his eyes. His demeanour was tense as though he were unsure whether he would receive a smile or a sharp word. I felt a crushing sorrow at that expression even when the room returned to the way it should be with its sturdy dark wood furniture and muted walls.
Avery was sitting at his desk dressed in jeans. He sensed my presence and turned to face me, a smile pushing back the sorrow that had for too long laid claim to the contours of his beautiful face. Remembering the uncertainty of that timid smile I had seen only moments ago, I wanted to walk over to him and embrace him. Instead I merely smiled, trying to fight back the nauseating feeling of intense turmoil at these episodes and what they meant.
The worst episode occurred one night when Avery left the mansion. I awoke in a thick web of confusion, feverish and struck by panic. I believed I was Luna and it was the night she fought with Avery and he disappeared for a few nights.
I ran out into the dark believing I would find Avery at the lake.
I walked for what seemed like hours through dense woodland, the moon seemingly stalking my steps from its frosted throne above the tree tops. Whenever I turned around I saw two Negroes following me. One was a young, handsome Negro male with a clean-shaven head. The other was a girl of about sixteen. They wore strange clothing. The male had a fascinated gleam in his eyes, the female looked bored. They glanced at each other repeatedly throughout the journey and their expressions changed every time they did so as if they were having a heated conversation, although no words passed their lips even once throughout the long walk. And as I walked, rather than diminishing, the anguish tearing at me deepened.
I came out of the trees expecting to see a lake turned to a dark sheet of glass by the night time shadows. What I found instead was a dank swamp. Ancient cypress trees reached desperate thin arms out of the water towards the aloof night sky.
Avery was nowhere to be found.
I sank to my knees and wept, pain rolling over me, breaking upon my wounded spirit.
“Avery, Avery.”
“Let me take you back to the mansion.” The male Negro was standing before me. “Avery will soon be home.”
He held out his hand, but I could only weep by the edge of the swamp, bent over in pain with my arms around my stomach, certain what he had told me was a lie and I would never see Avery again.
“What is this?”
I opened my eyes and turned to the sound of the voice, the tide of sobs easing. My heart filled and overflowed when I saw Avery standing a few feet away from us, staring at me. Anger, along with anguish, burned in his vivid blue eyes. Behind it, swallowing that anger, was clear, raw anguish. He too wore strange clothing.
“Avery,” I gasped, smiling through the tears.
“She thinks she’s Luna,” the Negro female said to Avery.
“Make her stop,” he whispered, his features twisting in pain, his gaze never leaving mine as I got to my feet.
“You have to let whatever it is play out,” the Negro male said to Avery before turning to me again, a tender smile on his lips. “Go on, Luna. Go to him.”
I moved to Avery, wondering at his expression and why he appeared to be so angry with me. I threw myself against him and peered up at him, tears still streaming down my cheeks.
“Avery, I thought you’s never coming back.”
Distress blazed in his eyes. He remained rigid as I lay my head against his chest and sobbed. After a few moments, his arms came around me.
“It’s all right. I’m here now,” he said, his words clipped and stiff.
I looked up at him, placing my hand against the side of his head. “Why you done leave me like that?”
His face tightened with misery along with intense helplessness as he stared at me.
“Promise you’s never gonna leave me again, Avery. Promise me.”
There was only silence, his distress intensifying. Then he spoke, looking away from me and into the distance, undulating desolation in his eyes.
“I promise.”
I clung to him, the fear and panic subsiding. He was here and he would never leave me again. I closed my eyes in relief and before I could open them again, sleep swept in and tugged me away from everyone and everything.
Chapter 18
Akan
Later that day Akan was in the sun-drenched woods, his bow and arrow aimed at a deer. He released the arrow. It flew through the air over the deer's head, hitting the tree behind it with a crack and disrupting the stillness. The deer darted away and was soon out of sight.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Why don’t you just go to sleep? You’re completely useless today.”
Akan turned toward the sound of the voice to find Rutia behind him. He faced forward again.
“Do not tell me what to do, woman.”
“Hm. If you wish.”
He heard her footsteps move away. She came to a stop a few moments later.
“Men. It always takes them twice as long to do a thing as a woman because they do not think. It is not enough to reduce the amount of the potion. You need to counter its effects. Men, they do not think.”
He spun around in surprise, bu
t she was already moving away again. He watched until she disappeared out of sight.
Counter the effects of the ekniwa? What other herb could do that? Agu, the village medicine man, would know. After all, he was the one who had discovered the herb the potion was made from. Now a drunk who talked freely and had falsely predicted Akan’s death in battle on countless occasions, he would be able to tell him which herbs could counter the effects of the ekniwa—if such herbs existed—and not even remember the next day.
Akan retrieved his arrow and raced home to see if there was any alcohol left. He returned to find Rutia had left several jars of alcohol in the courtyard for him, along with a basket of food. He stopped short and stared at it in wonder for a few moments. Then he picked up the bundle and raced to Agu's house.
Akan found Agu already drunk, cheerily so, wandering outside his home in just a loin cloth, his grey hair tangled and greasy. He was apparently searching for something.
“Akan,” he called, smiling as if Akan were an old friend. Then he frowned at him. “Are you dead? You’re supposed to be dead. You should have died a hundred times over by now.”
“I am very much alive, Agu.”
“A pity, a pity. Well, come inside and have a drink with me.”
Akan followed him into his home. Unlike the rest of the houses in the village, Agu had insisted on building a house using the old method of wood and thatch. Akan walked through the narrow door, stepping down onto packed earth. Despite Agu’s appearance, his home was ordered and neat, and although there were many jars of alcohol against one of the walls, Akan saw no food. He was glad Rutia had given him a basket of food to bring with him.
“Why do you insist on living like the old ways?” he asked Agu.
“Because the day I found that herb, I cursed us all. I do not want to be rewarded with one of those cold, stone houses those creatures told us how to build.”
Akan stared at him, remembering the numerous sacrifices he had witnessed and the child currently lying in her own vomit in the silent, gloomy temple.
“Perhaps we cursed ourselves, Agu.”
Agu peered at him as if surprised by what he had said. Then a sad smile spread across his lips.
He did not ask Akan why he wanted to know if there was an antidote to the ekniwa potion, but just began preparing it for him, seemingly pleased about being given the opportunity to instruct another. Akan left him a few hours before he was due to be at the temple. The old man had fallen fast asleep, having shared a few jars of alcohol with Akan. Akan stared at his emaciated form for a few moments before he left, making a mental note to himself to ask Rutia to get one of their servants to bring food to Agu each day.
That night Akan performed the ritual again. The delirious child lay trembling on the gold platform, her gaze casting around the dark temple as if she could see unearthly creatures crawling out of the shadowy corners. He returned to the temple hours later and gave her the antidote Agu had prepared for him. She did not vomit that night, although she continued to weep.
He sighed and stroked her hair. Perhaps it would have been kinder to have slit her throat the moment he laid eyes on her.
Once again, sleep remained elusive when he returned home. He had slaughtered so many in defence of the village and was still feared among the Enwa people and beyond. Yet he was helpless to save this one child.
***
Akan returned to the temple each night for the duration of the ekniwa, always arriving to the sound of tortured screams. The attendants had taken to remaining outside the main temple chamber, unable to withstand the child’s suffering. Some of her torment eased whenever Akan gave her the antidote and she was able to eat a little, and sleep, although she remained delirious, mumbling incoherently for hours at a time.
Akan didn't know if he was equal to this task, but he could not abandon the child. It was his fault she suffered the horrors of the ekniwa. She had provoked Mutata because of him, yet she was the one who suffered the consequence of Mutata’s ambition.
Rutia clucked her tongue whenever she saw Akan’s drawn, weary face each morning. She did not mention the child, however, or say any more of what she knew or how she knew of it. Those long daylight hours away from the temple were ones of exquisite anguish for Akan, and he ran through the deserted streets each night, praying to the goddess of the moon that the child would still be alive once he got there. The snake around his heart always stilled whenever he entered the temple and saw that breath still entered and left her frail chest, but her torment continued.
Most nights she merely lay silent with her eyes wide open, but unseeing, trembling in his arms. Her breath came out in thin wisps, her head dipping occasionally as if she nodded her assent to spoken words he could not hear. Akan hoped some of the more benign entities—beings that had perhaps once been human, or other powerful benevolent beings that had somehow become trapped in the underworld—were instructing her. At other times she screamed through the night, struggling to escape his arms as if to flee some terror only she could see.
One night, the child was whimpering in his arms, too weak to scream. He placed her gently on the ground and moved into the shadows to retrieve a gourd of water. When he faced her again she was sitting up in the pool of torchlight, her legs crossed beneath her, staring at him with a level gaze. A moment ago she had been too weak to even lift up her head, but now there was no sign of the fever or delirium brought on by the ekniwa. Instead her eyes shone with an eerie light, her pale, dry lips spread in a smile that was cold and calculated.
He froze with the gourd of water in his hands, a chill overcoming him.
“Goddess?” he said.
Her only reply was that smile and all-knowing gaze. He tried to shrug off the chill wrapping itself around him. She was only a child. He had no reason to be afraid of her. The chill deepened, however, and the longer he stared at her, the less he could be sure the thing sitting before him was the child he had tended over the last few weeks.
At last she spoke, her clear, birdlike voice ringed with a darker tone not unlike the screech of a vulture.
“You won’t be able to save her. She will die in front of your eyes. You will see everyone you love die. You will watch death sweep through the village taking every single man, woman and child. The streets will overflow with the dead. Only you will remain to mourn them.”
The gourd slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor with a crack that resounded through the temple.
The noise snapped the child out of whatever trance she was in. She grew slack, her eyes growing dark. She crumpled to the ground where she lay mumbling. He stood staring at her, her words ringing through his mind. After a few moments, he retrieved another gourd of water and gingerly reached for her, lifting her head so she could sip some of it. She lay against him again, clutching the wooden toy so tightly her knuckles were bloodless spots of white. She spoke once more, her voice little more than a whisper.
“The goddess. You have her favour. She will give you whatever it is you wish. You have her favour.”
He did not know if the words were for him, but they were not able to still his trembling hands or remove the chill that hovered over him. She was soon asleep.
He stared at her, at the hollow dark rings under her eyes. The delicate bones made sharp angles of her beautiful little face and her pallor was deathly.
You will not be able to save her.
The snake sank its fangs into his heart sending swift waves of fear coursing through Akan. Tears gathered as he held the child.
On another night, she had been moaning in pain. He placed his hand against the side of her head to urge her to drink some water. As fast as a rabbit, she sprung out of his lap and was crouching on the floor before him, her eyes wild and staring past him, pain aflame in them along with a rage and hatred that was ancient and pure.
Icy caterpillars crept along Akan’s spine.
“I’ll kill them all, every last one of her descendants! I’m the true goddess.” Her face twiste
d with pain and distress so acute Akan’s throat tightened and he could not breathe. “I am the true goddess. I...”
She grew slack and lay whimpering on the temple floor. She would not eat or drink anything that night. He left that morning with a block of ice in his stomach, dreading his return to the temple the following night, but unable to leave the child alone with her torment.
The final night of the ekniwa, he arrived at the temple to find her completely motionless, her eyes wide open and unblinking. She was still breathing—barely. She was the same when he left the temple just before dawn.
He returned home, unsure of what to expect when he returned to the temple at dusk to mark the end of the ekniwa. It seemed he had perhaps administered the antidote too late and the child was forever lost to the nightmare world she walked in. He tried to remain hopeful she would find her way out and he would see again that little smile she had given him when they first met.
Chapter 19
I awoke expecting to find myself in the red velvet bedroom with its familiar peeling wallpaper and heavy, moth eaten drapes. Instead I found I was in a room with pale, dewy walls and heavy, dark furniture. Panic bit into me, and I tensed, my heart somersaulting against my ribcage. It stilled the moment I remembered I was in Avery’s room and relief washed over me.