by Koboah, A D
“No, Luna,” Jupiter answered, and placed a comforting hand on her arm.
“Our Mama always thought your name was Lina,” one of the young men said with a quick glance at Lina who seemed to be completely at a loss for words now and was looking down at her feet. “I guess they heard wrong.”
I brought my hand up to her face.
“Lina,” I said and smiled. “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”
She brightened immediately at those words, something that caused my shame and self-loathing to flare.
“Come inside. We...we has lots to talk about,” I said.
I stayed at the door for a few moments as they all entered the house. The sun would be setting in a little while. I looked around and wondered if Avery was somewhere nearby observing our little reunion. I sighed heavily.
I was so tired of this constant struggle whenever I thought about Avery, and I thought about him all the time. A few years had passed by then and although I was still furious with him, every time he did something to demonstrate how much he cared, I missed him so much that it felt as if my soul was drowning.
On the verge of tears, I turned around and entered the house to properly welcome the new additions to our family.
Despite the miracle of having the daughter I thought I had lost return to me, the years were still hard to bear, and I was often tormented by strange dreams of Avery, some of which were excruciatingly real.
In one of those dreams I was back at the mansion but Avery was nowhere to be found. Gripped by the same mindless panic that had consumed me the first time he went away, I ran out into the night in search of him, walking once more for hours through the woods to the lake where I was sure I would find him. But when I got there, the lake we had once sat beside in the sun had turned into a dark, dank swamp. And Avery wasn’t there.
Distraught and feeling as if I were caught in that never-ending fall, I wept and called ceaselessly out to him, my cries a mantra of loss and pain. There were others there with me, though I barely took notice of them. One was a male who observed my distress with a mixture of sympathy and fascination as he tried to talk me into coming back to the mansion with him. But I wouldn’t leave and instead sank to my knees by the swamp crying out for Avery.
I woke up with a start, drenched in sweat and shaking violently. The grief, the loss, was so raw and keen that I wasn’t able to sleep again that night. I rose, wandered outside onto the porch, and searched the unwelcoming night.
“Where is you?” I asked in a faint echo of the dream. “Where is you?”
There was no answer, only the gaping hole his prolonged absence had left.
In another dream, I found myself in the dark, disconnected from my body and with no sense of where I was. I could make out hazy shapes and images but they disappeared the moment I focused on them. The only thing I could be sure of was that I was needed and I felt myself being drawn forward and down. That’s when Avery blazed into view. He appeared to be caught in the darkness and was completely unaware of my presence, his handsome face frozen in terror as something, some cold, dark fury, descended on him. I felt a surge of rage and I rushed at this thing, sending it back, and then I was burning, caught in a circle of fire, my screams rising as the flames consumed me.
I woke up to find Jupiter gripping me by the shoulders, fear lining his face as he called my name. I was still caught in a whirlwind of fire and couldn’t speak, only gasp for air. The pain melted away as Jupiter wrapped his arms around me, his hand shaking as he caressed my face. Unable to get the image of a trapped and terrified Avery out of my mind, I wept, barely aware that Lina was by the door, her expression hidden in the shadows. But if I had been able to see her face I was sure that it would have held reproach. We had never discussed Avery, but I knew that she was aware of him and what he meant to me. And I often caught her watching me at dusk when I felt his absence most. She never hid her resentment during those moments and I didn’t know whether it was directed at Avery and what he was, or toward me and the fact that I couldn’t stop loving him. That night, she left a few moments later and Jupiter held me all night as I cried inconsolably, for I was sure Avery was in some kind of mortal danger.
The rest of that week saw me descend to such severe depths of misery that Jupiter and Lina were afraid to leave me on my own. I merely went through the motions of wife and mother, and had it not been for Dembi and his younger sister Mary, it is unlikely I would have managed to get out of bed. Jupiter, the kind and patient man that he was, didn’t try to force me to tell him what was wrong, though he was worried and on edge. Luckily, at the end of the week I was woken from a fitful sleep by the same melancholy symphony that had drawn me to the chapel the day I’d first laid eyes on Avery. It was gone the moment I tried to focus on it but it felt as if a steel ring around my heart had been loosened and I was able to go back to sleep that night with the knowledge that Avery was alive.
Those years were long and hard. And as they wore on I began to doubt that Avery loved me the way that I loved him, but I felt that he at least cared. However, that assumption was called into question when I made a startling discovery one mild, spring day.
I was in town with Lina that morning when I heard the news that something had happened to Zila during the night and now nobody knew where she was. Master John had been found alone in her cabin covered in blood and too drunk to remember what had happened.
The news left me shaken. I hadn’t seen Zila since the day she had helped me get Avery to safety. We had never been friends, but she had helped me, helped Avery, and so I couldn’t sit and do nothing when she could be hurt or in danger. So, forgetting about my errands, I left Lina in town and went straight to Mama’s small home.
As always, her front door was open and she was preparing some kind of tea when I rushed in.
“I know,” she said without turning.
“You know? Then why you sitting there? We has to find her.”
She placed the tea on the table in the middle of the room and sat down. “Drink.”
“Mama!” I cried. “There ain’t time. She could be hurt. She...she could even be dead!”
“She is not dead. She is safe now. I know so. Besides, we used to be slaves and we are also women. So what do you think we can do?”
“God, Mama, you sure can be evil at times,” I cried as I moved to the table. “This is ’cause she helped me that time. It’s ’cause...”
The words died away and I was left rooted to the spot in shock. As I leant over to shout at her, my hand brushed the back of the chair and an image came to me. It was night time, the room lit by a single candle, and there was a game of Awore on the table that had been forgotten amidst the lively flow of conversation and laughter. It was all there in that fleeting vision, years of visits and the friendship that had slowly bloomed between these walls under the gentle benevolence of candlelight. A friendship between Mama and Avery. I was completely unprepared at what such a vivid glimpse of him after so many years would do to me. It was like I had been struck by lightning. He looked sad but was so much more beautiful than my feeble memories of him were able to yield. I can’t explain how betrayed I felt. He had ignored me, completely ignored me for years, but had been visiting Mama the whole time. And she had kept it from me. It made sense now why she appeared to be so unconcerned about Zila’s plight.
I straightened and gazed down at Mama, and although I was trembling slightly, I kept my face devoid of expression.
She sighed softly. She had, no doubt, anticipated this moment.
“Yes, Zila is fine. Massa John would have killed her if I hadn’t foreseen the danger she was in and asked Avery to help her. But knowing that foolish girl, she will be running back to Massa John the moment she is healed.”
Pulling my shawl around me, I walked to the door, stopping only when she spoke again.
“He loves you. If you must hate someone, hate me. I was the one who summoned the evil at the chapel and that’s what has kept him from you.”
/> Without acknowledging her words in any way, I left the cabin.
That discovery sat between us like a putrid wound for many years. I was angry, more so at Avery than Mama, but he wasn’t there and so Mama bore the full brunt of my rage. She didn’t ever speak of it or acknowledge the small changes in the way I behaved toward her. But her eyes beheld it, her expression always that of the martyr who receives her punishment without complaint.
I am ashamed to say that the anger and bitterness stayed with me until the day she died. And on the day we laid her to rest, the pain and guilt that wracked me was almost enough to eclipse the taunting anguish of Avery’s absence. I was inconsolable that day and I wanted nothing more than to go back in time so I could forgive her and ask for her forgiveness in turn.
But I should have known Mama would never fully leave me. You will have my devotion in life and in death, she had told me. And as always, she never failed me. She came back to me in dreams and continued to guide me for the rest of my life. She also urged me to never give up on Avery.
But despite Mama’s reassurances, I had given up hope and was sure I would die without ever seeing Avery again. Time had robbed me of the young beautiful face he had fallen in love with and every year it continued to take more from me. Every line that marred my face was an affront, every streak of grey in my once dark locks, a violation. And my once lithe, toned body had long ago succumbed to the ravages of childbirth and the trappings of a comfortable life. I mourned those loses, for they were small deaths that I buried along with my hopes of one day being reunited with Avery.
Then, one night, when I was in my forties, something miraculous happened.
I was dreaming and, as was always the case whenever I dreamt in those days, I found myself at the chapel. But this time I was young again and kneeling at the altar with my Bible clutched to my chest, praying as I had done that fateful evening so many years ago. But instead of being outside by the trees, Avery was standing a few feet away with his back to me. He was dressed in the clothing he must have worn when he was a reverend, but they were torn, ravaged with age, and soiled with clumps of earth. His hair was already past his shoulders.
He was upset and his emotional turmoil washed over me like a tsunami until I was drowning in his pain, and self-loathing. That’s when I knew that this was more than just a dream. Needing to comfort him, I tried to stand but could only manage to raise my head and when I did, it felt as if I was being torn apart as I separated from the version of myself that was kneeling at the altar, a separation that was excruciatingly painful and left me feeling weak and dizzy.
Avery turned around and there was instant recognition in his eyes, which pushed back some of his inner turmoil. But it abated for only a moment before the shame broke over him again with renewed force. He hung his head and stepped away.
And I knew why. I knew what he had done.
It had been a few years since he had been turned into a vampire and out of disgust and self-loathing at what he had become, he had tried to refrain from drinking blood so that he wouldn’t have to take anymore lives. He had managed to survive for a week and a half, getting steadily weaker and more delirious with pain as the demon within him raged for blood. That night, almost too weak to pull himself out of the earth, he knew he wouldn’t be able to last another night without blood. So, overcome by that mortal need, he had stumbled and crawled through the woods in search of a victim, eventually finding a farmhouse. Unable to go any farther, he had stayed on his knees in the woods and sought out the weakest mind within the house and summoned them to him.
At first he thought he had failed to entice them out of the house in his weakened state but then he heard the sound of bare feet treading carefully in the undergrowth. Invigorated by the scent of warm human blood slowly drifting through the air toward him, he managed to pull himself to his feet, the pulsing pain driving him forward in anticipation of the feast as his bloodlust consumed him. Almost completely lost in the savage, crimson trap that always descended in the seconds before a kill, his fangs were already elongated and ready to tear into human flesh. But then a little girl in a long white nightgown appeared out of the gloom. She was no more than nine years old and had red hair which was tied up in two bunches. She stood in the dark woodland gazing up at him and even though he was in control of her mind, she was still afraid.
Completely mortified, he had quickly sent her a command not to be afraid, telling her that she was safe. And although a part of him wanted to send her back home, he was completely overcome by his thirst, which was like fire thrilling through his veins, burning him alive.
It took all the will power he had to keep from attacking her long enough to search her thoughts for a pleasant memory, settling on one of her slave Cassie, a large mulatto Negro with a brutal scar cutting across what would otherwise have been a pretty face. The little girl, whose name was Amanda, smiled in her daze as he brought forth a memory of Cassie singing one of Amanda’s favourite hymns whilst she cooked. Amanda loved Mammy Cassie, probably more than she loved her own mother, but the slave hated her. Amanda knew this even though Cassie was careful not to show it and it was a constant source of sadness for her.
“She does love you,” Avery had said to her through the flames of his anguish and she had smiled dreamily, her thoughts filled with Cassie singing softly to her.
Unable to hold off any longer, he had gathered her tiny body to him and, careful to ensure she felt no pain, he bit into her slender neck. At first she cried out as panic overrode the spell he’d placed on her, but then she fell silent.
He drank greedily, draining every last drop of her blood until he was left with the bloodless, rapidly cooling flesh of a cadaver. Then he wept bitterly at the monster he had become.
Eventually he gathered Amanda’s limp body in his arms and took her back to the farmhouse, where he laid her outside the kitchen door. He knew that the first person to find her would probably be Cassie, the slave Amanda had been so sure hated her. But Avery knew Amanda had been wrong. Cassie did love her. Standing outside the farmhouse in the ethereal glow of the moonlight, he could sense Cassie’s thoughts, and even in her sleep, those thoughts were filled with her love for her Master’s child, the only thing she had to love and nurture after having all three of her own children sold. Knowing that Cassie would suffer terribly in the morning when she found out that Amanda had been taken from her, Avery turned his back on the farmhouse and disappeared into the woods.
But it seemed Cassie didn’t have to wait until morning to discover what had happened to her darling Amanda. Perhaps woken by some sixth sense, she had ventured outside and found her beloved Mandy dead.
Avery had been fleeing through the woods when he heard her anguished cry, even though he was miles from the farmhouse. Impaled by that harrowing grief-stricken wail, he had dropped to his knees, consumed by remorse and hatred at what he had become. Moments later, he found himself standing in the chapel.
I felt my heart tearing as I observed his agony and torment. I wanted so much to comfort him and let him know that although I knew what he had done, I could never hate him for it. I had so much to say but I knew that my time with him was short as I was already wilting under the strain of looking up at him.
Hold on. I’m coming, Avery. Wait for me, I’m coming.
He glanced up at me, disbelief radiating from his soft blue eyes and then hope, hope like a lighthouse in the storm of his despair, lit up his beautiful face and then it was all gone.
The following morning it was as if every last vestige of strength had been drained out of me, replaced with a deep exhaustion that weighed down not only my body, but my mind. It was an effort just to raise my arm and I wasn’t able to get out of bed that day. Having very rarely seen me sick during the course of our marriage, Jupiter spent most of the day hovering above my bed doing whatever he could to make me feel better. By evening I had begun to recover some of my strength and with it came a sense of peace because at last, the mystery of why Avery had sought
me out had finally been solved.
I knew now that I had done it somehow. I had gone to him during his years of solitude and told him to wait. I didn’t know how but I knew it was true. It was such a blissful discovery but one tempered with grief because Avery wasn’t here with me to share it. The most exhilarating thing about this miracle was that it meant I was tied to him and that gave me hope that it wasn’t the end for the two of us after all. Mama was right. I would see him again. If only for a moment, I would see him again.
All I had to do was wait. He had waited for me for fifty long, lonely years. I would wait for him until the end of time if that is what it took. And when I laid eyes on him again, I wouldn’t stop telling him how much I loved him.
The years passed. My children grew up and began families of their own and old age found me. But even though the dreams of Avery had long since ceased, I never lost the conviction that I would see him again. When Jupiter died, I knew that my days on this Earth would soon come to an end. My children were grown, happy and prosperous. Lina and Ebenezer were already expecting their third child. They no longer needed me. Jupiter had been the only one keeping me tethered to life and although he had been dead only a few days, I could already feel my strength leaving me. I knew I was giving up, allowing life to trickle through my fingers. But I felt no sorrow, only a sense of excitement at the prospect that this would all be over and I would be going on a journey. The anger I had harboured at Avery was still there, but it no longer suffocated me. I would never truly forgive him for leaving me, but I knew he loved me and had tried to act in my best interest. He had waited nearly half a century for me so I was prepared to wait for him until day and night ceased to exist if that’s what it took for me to even catch a glimpse of him.
So I prepare and wait, knowing that my time will soon end and I will begin another journey. Part of my preparation involves writing down these experiences for you, my dear Lina, whether it will be to end this chapter or open a new one, only time will tell. But my sojourn in the sun is at an end and I will spend these last few days waiting for night to come with the hope that I will look out across the searing sunset and see Avery walking toward me as night closes softly in.