Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2)

by A. D. Koboah

  To me it was as if a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders as I felt we had moved past a particular sticking point in our marriage. She also began to go out on her own at night, at first only a couple of times a year. I saw this as progress, taking it to mean she had gotten over her fear that she would return to find me gone and would never hear from me again.

  Chapter 27

  The abolitionist movement had been gaining momentum in America, England, and other European countries throughout the 1800s. And although I supported these causes financially, in my heart, I had given up on the day when I would see an end to slavery in America. But in 1861 fighting broke out, with the Confederates bombing Fort Sumter. This was the beginning of a period of mass upheaval and uncertainty regarding the future of the southern states of America.

  1863 saw the Union army finally break through to the southern states. The soldiers came, plundered and stole from plantations, leaving most completely destroyed. Some soldiers even raped the slave women they had come to liberate. The war saw the once fertile, wealthy southern states became a virtual wasteland economically. Hordes of slaves fled plantations to meet the coming army. There were people literally starving in the streets and many affluent families abandoned their homes as they could no longer afford them. We often passed entire crops left to wilt. Fields that had previously been toiled by hundreds of brown-skinned bodies left to lie fallow because there was nobody left to work them. Everywhere we looked we saw human pain and suffering.

  We remained hidden within the security of our mansion during the war, our hearts growing heavier with all we saw. The human misery increased as many slaves fled plantations to meet the Union army and remained living in large, filthy overcrowded camps. Many died in those camps, which had very little even in the form of adequate protection from the elements. But still, they held steadfast to their belief that out of this suffering would come a hard-earned freedom.

  The war ended in 1865 and slavery was abolished. But it saw most Negroes left without a home, land, a trade or any means by which they could build a future and support themselves. Many continued to work for their old masters and although they received a wage now, many were in debt to their former masters and so remained unable to truly break free from them.

  But with the end of slavery, a new threat arose out of the darkness to drown out the scant light it had shed. One night, after Luna and I argued viciously over a teapot—of all things—I left the mansion in a temper, moving out of Louisiana and back into Mississippi. I walked through the woods with no destination in mind, trying to walk away my anger when two dark figures loomed out of the darkness before me. I stopped short and stared up at the sleek muscular forms of two young black males swaying gently in the brisk night breeze, coarse ropes wound around their necks, their eyes bulging, faces discoloured and puffy. Thick purple tongues lolled from their mouths.

  I stood there for close to an hour, merely staring up at them in their graves amidst the trees. The younger of the two males had a sparse smattering of hair above his upper lip, a pathetic attempt at a moustache. The other had a small half-moon shaped birthmark on his chest.

  I eventually cut them down and took their bodies to the nearest town, and left them where other Negroes would find them.

  I returned home. Luna was in the drawing room. The moment my footsteps were heard in the corridor, there was a flurry of movement and then silence. I entered the drawing room to see her reading by the fire. But I was not fooled and knew she had been standing at the window, anxiously awaiting my return, as she did every time I left the mansion without her. She glanced up from her book and gave me a look that felt like showers of cut glass were raining down on me. Then she returned to her book.

  I remained by the door for a few moments, my thoughts shielded from her, thinking of those boys hanging like large grotesque fruits from those trees and of the people they had been torn from. I simply do not know what I would have done if Luna was ever taken away from me.

  I went and sat outside amidst the field of flowers.

  It was not difficult to guess who was responsible for the lynching of those boys. They were a new breed of evil that called themselves the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike slavers, they were not motivated by money or profit. Unlike vampires, they weren’t driven to kill to survive. They did so for hate alone. Not even whites were safe from this new threat operating in secrecy, dressed in white robes, their faces hidden by white conical shaped hoods. Their calling card? A burning cross often left outside homes as a warning. And so people continued to suffer on account of the colour of their skin.

  For the first time, I thought of leaving America, leaving behind such sights and the human misery I saw around me.

  At daybreak, I left the field of flowers and entered the mansion. America had long become my home and the land, along with its sins, was a part of me. Like those wedding vows Luna and I had been denied the luxury of uttering to one another, I would stay with this flawed and errant land till death do us part. Although, like myself, I doubted it would ever find redemption from its sins.

  So despairing, and having lost hope in humanity, Luna and I retreated from the world completely and most of our time was spent at the mansion, or in the anonymity and seclusion offered by the woods. I spoke often of my heartache regarding the world outside the mansion and my overall disgust for the evil that persisted. Luna remained silent and outwardly unaffected by it, her thoughts and feelings often hidden from me. But beneath her outward calm lay rage and despair that went beyond those I expressed outwardly. Her solitary jaunts slowly increased during those years from merely once or twice a year, to almost every week.

  And so life went on for us. Remaining impossibly young, our love for each other as undying as our immortal bodies, we lived for decades in our own little Garden of Eden, where I believed evil could never enter.

  But in 1885, the world found us again and we were drawn back into its arms one autumn night.

  I was in the drawing room and Luna was in the bedroom when I became aware of a man, a Negro man, standing on the edge of the field of Queen Anne’s lace, watching the mansion.

  I searched through his thoughts and there was much to see, for he was a man with a lot on his mind. He had been standing there for the last half an hour trying to summon up the courage to approach the mansion. He couldn’t be sure there was anyone inside, as the candlelight couldn’t be seen, but he had an idea we were there. I hadn’t realised it was so well known among the Negroes in town that we were always here, despite the story we spread around town that the mansion was mainly empty as we travelled a great deal.

  Deciding to end his agony, I left the mansion. He didn’t see me approach. He had a slate-black complexion, was of medium height and slight build, the blood of his African ancestors strong in his features. He wore an old white shirt, trousers that were too small for him and had a hat in his hands. He had no coat, although the weather had turned cool as autumn ran headlong toward winter.

  “Hello there,” I said. He leapt about a mile when he saw me standing in the dark. “I thought I saw someone outside and came to investigate. I did not mean to frighten you.”

  He was silent for a moment, focusing on the fact that I was speaking to him so kindly. But he was still frightened. I smiled, hoping to reassure him, but it only seemed to increase his fear.

  “I’s sorry, suh. I came to speak to you, suh. I’s hoping I might be able to interest you in a proposition. I’s hoping you be wanting to hire someone to have around the house.”

  “Yes, I thought you might be here for something like that. I am afraid I do not need any new employees. You see, I am rarely here. Two people from town come in to check on the property every so often. So it would be a waste to have someone here permanently, Samuel.”

  He looked stunned and at first I thought it was in response to my refusal. Then I realised it was because he hadn’t actually told me his name. He also knew what I had told him was a lie.

  “I understands that,
suh. I was just hoping you would hear me out.”

  Luna appeared a few metres away from us, leading one of our horses, and was not only listening to what he was saying, she was searching his mind, her expression one of contempt as she gazed intently at him. At first he wasn’t aware of her in the dark until she stepped forward to stand by my side. When he saw her, he stuttered to a stop and affected a pitiful sort of bow.

  The thought in his mind is that we reminded him of wolves circling.

  “Evening, miss,” he stammered.

  She didn’t bother return his greeting, merely regarded him coolly.

  He continued talking.

  “My girl Celesta’s a good worker. She kin do near ‘bout anything she puts her mind to even though she’s jus’ a tiny little thing.” He fiddled with his hat, his gaze continually moving from mine to Luna’s, unease growing in his dark eyes. “If...if you has a mind to take her on, you wouldn’t even need to pay her much, just give her a safe place to sleep and food to eat. I’s good with horses an’ carpentry and I’s willing to work for you for free one day a week—if you jus’ give my girl work and a place where she be safe.”

  Behind the words were his desperation and the events that had prompted him to make this journey in the dead of night. He and his wife were in their mid-fifties and still worked for their old master. Having seen all their children sold during slavery, or dead, it seemed like a miracle when their last daughter, Celesta, was born seventeen years ago. She had been a miracle and one which no one could take from them, least of all the man they used to call master. But that did not mean his old master, or his offspring, could not harm their one and only remaining child. His old master’s sons had set upon his daughter a few weeks ago and raped her. Samuel had only found this out a few hours ago. Wanting to get his daughter away from those men, he had come here.

  “She...she won’t cause you no trouble. You...you won’t even... What I means is...”

  I was not really listening to his words, as I was torn about his predicament and was trying to think of a way to help him. So it was a few moments before I realised he was tripping and stumbling over his words and his eyes, which had widened to two saucers, were fixed on Luna. His fists were now clenched around his hat.

  Then I saw that an image in his mind, a memory he found shameful, kept replaying in his mind in all its intensity and humiliation.

  It was a memory of him as a young man climbing out of the bed he shared with his wife in response to a knock on the cabin door. He slipped out of his cabin with his gaze lowered as his master strode in. Then he sat outside the cabin door in the cold, sickened by the sounds that reached him, but not wanting to leave her although he was helpless to prevent what was happening.

  I realised that Luna, having sifted through his memories, was dredging each and every occurrence to the fore, torturing him with his shame.

  The worst moment for him was when he returned to his bed to lie beside his wife in silence, his master’s scent, and the smell of semen and sex filling his nostrils and turning his stomach. The silence in the cabin taunted him as he was unable to say anything or offer any comfort to his wife. There was also rage toward his master and a thin sliver of anger at his wife he hadn’t realised was there until that moment.

  I turned from him.

  Luna, I said sharply in her mind.

  She continued her assault on his memories.

  “Luna!” I snapped, not realising I had spoken aloud until I saw him jump as if he had been struck.

  With a surreptitious glance in my direction, she ceased her assault on his memories and lowered her gaze. After a few moments of silence in which he stood with his head lowered clutching his hat, struggling to contain his ragged emotions, he spoke again.

  “I...I’s—”

  I raised my hand, halting him.

  “We... I have grasped the measure of your situation, Samuel, there is no need to say any more.”

  I glanced at Luna, but her gaze was still lowered and her thoughts closed to me. I wanted to agree to his proposition and have his entire family come and work for us. But I wasn’t sure Luna would agree to it. I was also worried about her volatile and unpredictable moods around others, especially other Negroes.

  “I do not know if I can hire your daughter, Samuel.” His expression was bordering on panic. “But perhaps I can find another way to make sure those boys do not trouble her again.” Once again I remembered too late that he hadn’t actually told me the details of his predicament. “Let me think on it. I will come to your home tomorrow morning. I have some urgent business to see to in the next town and will need to...”

  For God’s sake, Avery. He doesn’t need a long drawn out explanation, Luna hissed in my mind.

  “...leave early. So I will pass by your cabin in the morning, and let you know what I have decided.”

  “Thank you, suh. Thank you.”

  His eyes widened in alarm when Luna moved toward him with the horse. She handed him an old coat of mine, which he took in bewilderment.

  “You can just let her go free when you get home.” She gave him the reins of the horse. “She’ll find her way back.”

  He gave us both an awkward sort of bow before putting on the coat. He mounted the horse and went on his way. Looking back at us, he surmised we were as still as statues as we watched him ride away. Those images of him slipping past his master and out of the cabin were in his mind as he rode home. But it wasn’t Luna this time. Those events had taken place many years ago, but they haunted him still, and I suspect they always would.

  When he was out of sight, I held out my hand to Luna. She grasped it and we materialised in the drawing room.

  Troubled, I didn’t speak for a few moments, but watched her walk to the chair and sit down, avoiding my gaze. I walked over to her a few moments later, pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. I reached for her hands and held them gently in my own.

  “Why did you do that to him, Luna?”

  I was far more troubled about what had occurred than I was willing to let her see.

  She was silent for a few moments and when she lifted her gaze to meet mine, her eyes were moist and she bit her bottom lip.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  I let the silence gather for a few moments, hoping she would say more, but she didn’t and merely let her gaze drop. I brought one of her hands to my lips and kissed it, letting her know I wasn’t judging her.

  But I was judging her. I just didn’t understand her at times. She had considered his well-being enough to bring him a horse and coat so he wouldn’t have to make the long walk back home in the cold. So I couldn’t understand how she could be so cruel to him, one of her own people, someone in the same monstrous situation she had been in before I entered her life. But, as always, the field of dead slaves stopped me from voicing these thoughts. How could I judge anyone for being cowardly and cruel?

  “So what should we do? I cannot bear the thought of leaving them in that bind. But it may open the floodgates for many others to come and seek us out for help. There are so many suffering and we cannot help them all. They are also bound to talk to others about our peculiar habits, and it will only be a matter of time before people start to become suspicious of us.”

  “They already are. Well, the Negroes in this town are, anyway. It was desperation that brought him to our door. We should do as he asks. Have them here to look after the house during the day, and let them have the slave cabins at the back. If we’re careful, they may not see much of us at all.”

  So it was agreed and I looked forward to telling Samuel that the three of them could come and work for us.

  Chapter 28

  They arrived the following afternoon with very little. Samuel’s wife, Alba, a tall, lean woman with broad, plain features, stood meekly by his side, fear and worry marking her brow. Their daughter, Celesta, was a mere slip of a girl who had her father’s slate-black complexion and noble African features. She inched closer to her father when I
came out to greet them and stared at the ground, her shoulders an inch lower than they had been, as if she would disappear into the ground if she could. She was silent the entire time I spent talking to them and seemed incredibly withdrawn from what was happening around her.

  Luna was waiting in the corridor. Despite the way she tormented Samuel the night before, she was excited about having them come and work for us. Celesta relaxed when she saw her there, especially when we showed them around the mansion and it became clear Luna was not another servant.

  Despite this, the first few weeks with them were fraught with tension. Alba did not like Luna and did not hide it. Unfortunately, the feeling was mutual. Celesta seemed to shrink within herself daily, and whether it was because she knew we were not human, or because of a general fear of white men after what had happened to her, she was terrified of me and could barely speak in my presence. Only Samuel seemed happy to be there. He was still nervous around Luna, but that was purely because she could be so changeable.

  One evening Celesta was sent by her mother to wait on us throughout dinner. When I saw her hands shaking as she poured a glass of wine for me, I told her she should return to the kitchen as we did not need her.

  “Why did you send her away?” Luna asked as soon as she left the room. Luna had been in one of her dark, volatile moods for over a week now.

  “Did you not see the way she was looking at me? And her memories—she couldn't stop shaking. It is most unsettling.”

  She laid her fork down and glared at me. “Oh, poor Avery. How you must be suffering.”

  “That is not what I meant and you know that!”

  Now it was my turn to be in a bad mood, especially since a particularly unpleasant thing had occurred earlier on that day. Whilst Luna and I were in the throes of our lovemaking, an image of Master John entered her mind. This is something that had happened before, but over the past few weeks his nauseating face had entered her mind nearly every time we made love. So the two of us sat in silence, directing furtive, baleful glances at each other. To make matters worse, Celesta came back into the room, trembling and red-eyed from the telling off she received from her mother for not doing her job.