by A. D. Koboah
“I’ll know if they’re in danger,” she replied.
I held out my hand. “Ready?”
She took my hand and nodded. I kissed her tenderly on the lips. Then she pulled me with her into the ether and we were in town.
We materialised, unnoticed, in the Negro part of town to the sound of rough shouts and screams from more than one source. To the left of us, a house stood burning and farther down the street, people were being dragged out of their homes to be savaged and beaten.
A man was being beaten a few yards from us in front of his home. Two white men were dragging a woman out of the house. One of the men tore at the front of her dress and threw her to the ground.
When the men attacking the terrified man on the ground found themselves flung away from him with no visible explanation, they stood staring at each other in bewilderment. I moved to place myself between the men and the Negro man on the floor. When one of his attackers came forward, I shoved him again with my telekinetic power, knocking him off of his feet.
He went crashing to the ground where he remained, staring at me wide-eyed.
Go home, I said, speaking into their minds.
They all gave a start. The man I had knocked to the ground scrambled to his feet. Not taking their eyes off of me, they started backing away before they turned and broke into a run.
A woman screamed behind me, and I remembered the one I’d seen dragged out of her house. I whirled around to see Luna already there. She had one of the attackers by the wrist. The gun he had in that hand, which was aimed at my back, clattered to the ground. He sank to his knees, a scream caught in his throat. I heard bones snap like twigs as Luna crushed his wrist. His companion lunged at her.
I grabbed his shirt and tossed him. He hit the ground hard. His face was a mask of pain and fear when he pulled himself to his feet. Luna let the other man go. Groaning, he staggered to his friend. They helped steady one another and limped away.
“Are you all right?” I said to the Negro man on the ground as Luna helped the woman to her feet.
He nodded, gratitude in his eyes drowning out his confusion. “Good. Take your wife and go to the Wilkins’ house. Tell everyone you meet to go there.”
He nodded and went to his wife. He took her hand and they ran into the night, dodging other Negroes and the whites chasing them.
We had agreed we would not kill anyone, only use our abilities to bring the violence to an end. But there were still only two of us. We moved through the town, intervening in beatings, cutting one man down from a tree just as he began to lose consciousness. We overpowered some of the mob physically, others we commanded mentally to go home. There was no time to deal with the wounded, only take them out of sight before we moved on, telling those we came across to make their way to Mr Wilkin’s home, a doctor many of the Negroes went to for help, or to intervene in disputes with other whites. The message was passed on.
Most women fled their homes and hid in swamps when news of the attacks reached them. We found as many as we could and rescued them from the snake-infested swamps, taking them to the doctor’s house. During that long night, my heart clenched in misery whenever I heard screams and cries for help from miles away, unable to do anything for them, and I wondered if intervening had helped at all.
We were exhausted, but the early hours of that morning saw us at Mr Wilkin’s, where a large mob of armed whites were headed. We were standing in front of the house, hand in hand when they advanced. The large mob was a frightening sight even for the two of us. Many of these men had seen us display our supernatural abilities and that was what made them come to a stop some distance from us and the house. They milled about, hesitant.
The man Luna disarmed earlier held his wrist in front of him, clearly still in pain. He glared at Luna, envisioning what they would do to her when they got their hands on her.
She gave a cold smile, replaying the incident back to him and the unnatural strength she used to disarm him. His eyes widened in terror.
Then one man made to move toward us. I pushed him back with my telekinetic power and he staggered back into the crowd. Fear washed through them like a breeze rippling through dense woodland.
He frowned as he glanced at those around him, his hands shaking, his breathing nowhere near as steady as it had been. After a few moments he turned around and pushed his way through the crowd. A few more followed him. Eventually they all turned around and disappeared into the night and the street was left silent and empty once more.
But there was still more to be done and so we moved on, hearing cries for help long after dawn lit the world in gold. It was midmorning before we were able to return to the mansion.
Things remained tense in town, although there was no sign of the unrest that had been prevalent in the weeks leading up to that night of violence. I visited regularly, reading the minds of those around me. Most of them couldn’t remember seeing us display our abilities; whether they buried the memory deliberately was hard to tell. The others that could remember were angry, but too terrified to be a problem. They did not know what we were, and even if they did, they did not know of a witch as powerful as Mama had been, so there was no need for us to be concerned. And as a consequence of our intervention, things generally improved for the Negroes in that town.
Chapter 31
The townspeople did not know of a witch powerful enough to pose a threat to us, but there was one who knew of us.
One evening, when Luna had gone on one of her solitary walks, she summoned me with two words.
Come alone.
I was surprised when I heard her in my mind, for this witch was not someone I ever expected to hear from. But I put my book down and went immediately.
When I got to her home, I stood outside it for a long moment, staring at the house and the changes that had been made to it. More rooms had been added at the back and it had been painted white. There was also a white fence around it now.
The front door opened not long after I arrived and she appeared in the doorway. I walked up to her, joy in my heart.
She was still exceptionally beautiful, even though she was almost ninety-one years old by this time. Her caramel-coloured skin was marred with few wrinkles and she still had a full head of white, wavy hair which was in two French plaits, the way she had worn it since she was a little girl. Unlike most of the elderly I had come across, she stood tall and straight before me, and it would not have been hard to believe she was thirty years younger than she actually was.
“Lina. It really is such a pleasure to see you again after so long. Like Luna, you have grown more beautiful with age.”
Although her manner appeared aloof, she allowed herself a small smile.
“Can I come inside?” I asked.
The smile became slightly colder.
“You don’t need my permission to come in this here house. See for yourself.”
I did and was surprised I was able to enter. “How is this so?”
She led me to the living room, the same one I had materialised in so many times during those years away from Luna, wishing the shoes I saw drying near the fire were my shoes, and the man sleeping beside her was me. All of that was so long ago.
“The same way you was able to enter Luna’s cabin all them years ago. It seems none of my mama’s descendants has any protection against you.”
“Well, know this, Lina. You will never have a reason to need protection from me.”
“I suppose that’s true, ‘cause magic like that don’t lie. But an open door works both ways and there ain’t no easy way to shut it once it’s been opened. So you ain’t got no protection from her, neither. Something that should scare you a whole lot more than you realise.”
I laughed, for she must have been joking. But she stared at me gravely. The laughter soon trailed away.
“Why do I get the feeling you did not call me here for a social visit?” Her gaze became much sadder.
“Sit down, Mr Wentworth.” I sat down as she moved to a t
able in the centre of the room. “Grandma used to talk of you eating like us humans, which I ain’t never heard of before in all my years. But I made you some tea.”
She placed it before me. I was briefly reminded of my first ever visit to Mama Akosua’s home and felt a tinge of sadness. It had been years since I had seen her spirit at the lake and I missed her terribly.
“I miss her too.”
I paused with the cup to my lips. “You can read my thoughts?”
“No, unfortunately.” Again that cold smile. “Only my grandmama had that kind of power. But I didn’t call you here for small talk.
“My Ebenezer died years ago, God rest his soul, but I kept on living, for too long, and I know it’s ‘cause there’s something I’m still needed on this Earth to do. Once it’s done, then I can follow my Ebenezer home. No, I ain’t called you here for a social visit. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“About Luna?”
“Yes, but this is something I has to show you, with my thoughts.”
I nodded, feeling a whisper of anxiety for the first time.
She sat down and stared at me. “I’m ready.”
The first thing I saw was Luna. Instant apprehension gripped me when I saw where she was.
She was walking toward the slave quarters at our mansion. She came to a stop before she reached the cabins and I was able to pick up the other things in the vision, like her heightened state of emotions.
The fury that was usually hidden deep beneath was free and it twisted, leapt and raged. A prickle crept along my neck when I felt it, especially since outwardly, she was still, her hands clasped loosely before her. The focus of her thoughts and heightened emotions was Celesta and that’s who she reached out to, waking the child. She then sent her images and I looked on in dismay as the images reeled out, seeing exactly what Celesta had seen.
The Morrisons’ old boss was returning home late at night when his horse came to an abrupt stop. Luna stood before the horse, staring up at him. She didn’t give him a chance to speak, or even a moment to wonder what she was doing there alone at night. She knocked him off his horse and dragged him deep into the woods.
Alone in the woods with no one to hear his screams, she beat him brutally. When he was lying on the ground bloodied, her fist came down on his spine, and I winced at the sound of his bones crunching. She didn’t want to kill him. No, that was too easy for him. She wanted to make sure he lived to suffer for a very long time.
Wide awake, Celesta’s breathing was rapid as the images of what Luna had done to her old boss suffused her mind. She sat rapt, seeing him being battered like a doll, with only Luna to hear his cries for help between his pleas for her to stop. When he lost consciousness, she revived him and, to my growing disquiet, healed him so she could begin the assault afresh.
When she finished showing Celesta what she had done, she turned and slowly walked back to the mansion where I was waiting. She took a few moments to steady herself before she walked in to meet me. And, as oblivious as always, I only noticed how radiant and beautiful she looked, and that being apart from Luna, no matter how short the separation, was always too long. I saw absolutely nothing amiss even though she was quieter than usual.
The next thing Lina showed me was Luna at a location I had never seen before.
She stood outside what appeared to be a humble home surrounded by grasslands, watching the front door as she manipulated and confused one of the minds within so a woman went to the door believing a friend was outside who desperately needed to enter. A few moments later, the door was opened. Luna was inside the house in less than a second. The white woman she lured to the door was impaled when Luna hit her, her fist punching a hole through her chest and the door behind her. Luna pulled her arm away from the door, the choking woman rising along with the arm, and swung her arm to the side, throwing the woman off her arm and across the room to crash into the fireplace. There were three men in the house. In the time it took Luna to kill the female, they only had time to get to their feet.
The first one screamed as his private parts were crushed, just by the power of her thoughts. It was reduced to a bloody pulp as he fell to his knees, bent double and squealing in pain, blood soaking the front of his trousers and spreading to his thighs. The second man was thrown across the room headfirst. His skull was crushed and his neck broken. The third man only had time to stagger back. She was upon him, her fangs ripping into his neck. She crushed his arms in her hold as she drank his blood. Then she let him fall to the ground to bleed to death.
Screams alerted her to the two children, who having been awakened by the commotion, came to the living room doorway. Had she known there were children in that house? I do not know. But mercifully, she killed them quickly and painlessly.
Then she turned her attention to the first man, a young man with blond hair and blue eyes, whose private parts she had crushed. He was crying, dribbling in pain. She knelt by his side. She intended to spend at least a few hours with him and make sure he fully understood the meaning of pain before he died.
What I had seen so far was bad enough, but the last thing Lina showed me made the blood drain from my face.
At first I only saw a hand, a male hand. It shook violently as it came to hover over a ropy dark, wet substance. Then I saw him fully. It was the Negro slaveholder we came across shortly after Luna returned to me. He was lying on his back, splattered with blood. His face was ashen and he was struggling to breathe, forcing the air in and out of his lungs. His trembling hands hovered over his own entrails which spilled from what was left of his stomach. He locked gazes with the person before him, a silent plea in his eyes. It went unanswered and she moved away, leaving him to die slowly, and painfully.
“I think you’ve seen enough,” Lina said.
I was completely silent for at least fifteen minutes. She didn’t speak while I sat there, struggling to come to terms with what she had shown me.
How did I feel? Broken in a way I couldn’t even articulate.
“How...how long? How long has she been killing?”
“I can’t be sure, ‘cause it started slowly. But at least fifteen years.”
I could only stare at her.
“So...so what I always feared has come to pass. The entity from the chapel has a hold on her.”
“This ain’t no spirit!” she spat. “This is all her. Ain’t nothing controlling her.”
I got to my feet without realising I had risen, moving much faster than I intended to.
“You think this is Luna? Absurd! This is not Luna. Luna would never commit such...such heinous acts of her own volition!”
I only realised how threatening my stance must have appeared to her when I saw her move one hand to her pocket. She made no reply, nor any move to escape me. She just looked up at me with perfect equanimity.
Struggling to control my tortured emotions, I got my chair, moving slowly, and pulled it forward so it was a few feet from hers. I sat down and took the hand on her lap in both of mine.
I spoke as calmly as I could in spite of the whirlwind of confused and conflicting emotions.
“Lina, you are Luna’s child. You mean as much to me as my father’s and brother’s children. You could use whatever you have in that pocket against me, and I would never lift a hand against you in defence. You have nothing to fear from me.”
After a few moments, she appeared slightly embarrassed and pulled out a little ball of twisted herbs.
“What does it do?”
“It would’ve stopped you from being able to move for a couple of minutes. And when you stepped foot in this house, you was caught in a spell that means you can’t leave unless I’m still alive to release you. It’s the opposite of the magic that means you can’t step foot inside a home unless you’re invited. So you would’ve been trapped here for however long it took for you to die.”
I was speechless for a few seconds.
“I do not understand. Why do you think I would ever harm you?”
/>
She hardened again. “Well now, Mr Wentworth, I know you wouldn’t. But I couldn’t be sure you’s coming alone.”
It took a few moments for what she said to sink in, and when it did, I carefully released her hand and stood up, moving as far away from her as I could.
“You think Luna, your mother, would harm you?”
“My mother died a long time ago, Mr Wentworth. That thing out there is a killer and there ain’t much that kin stop it, so understand this. Ain’t no chapel devil doing this. It’s Luna, and it has to stop.”
I was silent again as it dawned on me that she thoroughly believed what she was saying.
“She’s shed a lot of blood over the years,” she continued, her tone milder, though there was a band of steel around every word. “You saw the torture and the cruelty behind them killings. It has to stop. I called you here ‘cause my grandmama believed in you. I’m giving you a month to make her stop or I’ll kill her.”
“You do not know what you are saying. Luna is your mother.”
“That thing going around killing folks ain’t my mama.” She was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “You think I wants to kill her? I don’t. So I’m giving you a chance. Make her stop, or I will.”
I moved to the door and then paused, turning to face her again.
“I have clearly been blind to much—very blind. And I may be wrong about a lot of things, but of this I’m certain. Luna would never harm one of her descendants.”
She gazed at me, that hard light in her eyes.
I stepped into the night, completely devastated. When I returned to the mansion, Luna was still not back, something that immediately sent a chill through me now I knew what she had been doing on those solitary jaunts of hers.
I sat on my own in the drawing room until around eleven, when Samuel came in to ask if I needed anything done before he went to bed.
I shook my head. Noticing my grim mood, he hung around for a few moments, seemingly unsure of whether or not to ask what was wrong. Then he bade me goodnight and moved to the door.