Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (24 page)

Over the next few nights, I repeatedly
returned to the Marshall plantation and pleaded with Mama Akosua to
banish the spirit from the chapel. I showed her image after image
of Luna at the mansion, content with her new life. But she would
not accept it.

Fearing for Luna’s wellbeing above all
else, I made frequent trips to the Holbert plantation at night, and
during the day, to plant seeds in Master John’s mind, and the minds
of anyone else who had influence over him, making them believe the
only way to keep the inhabitants of the plantation safe was to free
Luna.

So a few days after Mama Akosua’s
visit to the chapel, Master John signed legal documents giving Luna
her freedom and plans were made for her to live with Father
Geoffrey and Jupiter if she came back to Mississippi. I also
finished building the house by the Mississippi bluffs so Luna would
always have a home of her own—no matter what became of
me.

But Mama Akosua would not be swayed as
the influence the entity had over her increased. It manipulated her
fears, and on many nights I arrived at the Marshall plantation to
find her in debilitating anguish, believing Luna was dead. If she
did not banish the spirit from the chapel, it would soon be
completely in control of her, something I could not allow to
happen.

The evening before they were due to
set out on the journey to Louisiana, I went to the Holbert
plantation as night hovered around a sultry sunset. I stood
unobserved in the woods, watching the slaves at work in the cotton
field, remembering all those years ago when I first laid eyes on
the plantation. I also remembered that fateful evening when I
returned to exact my vengeance on its residents, both the guilty
and innocent. I had been completely and utterly lost and believed
God had forsaken me. But He had given me a way back in
Luna.

Redemption was something I could never
hope for, for I had taken far too many lives. But I could try to at
least atone for them and it had to start with the one who led me
out of the wilderness. Luna.

I had to let her go.

My heart was heavy as I turned away
from the dark bodies glistening with sweat moving through the
cotton field.

I returned to the mansion and
materialised in the drawing room by the fireplace. I stopped short
when I beheld the dining table laden with food. Luna was placing a
bowl of soup on the table and she didn’t notice me at first. When
she turned around and saw me by the fireplace, she gave me a tired
little smile.

“
Luna, I... You didn’t
have to do all this.”

She merely shrugged, that little smile
still on her lips.

I thought of the way she grasped my
hand by the lake a few days ago and my despair overwhelmed me
again. The smile on her lips slowly disappeared.

“
Avery, what the matter?
Avery?”

She moved closer.

“
I...I...have to take you
back,” I blurted out before I could lose courage.

“
Wh-what?”

“
Do not look so, Luna. I
am not taking you back to the plantation to be a slave again. I
would never do that.”

I knew she was lost to me already when
I moved to place my hands on her shoulders and she backed away. As
all my hopes and dreams began to disappear, I told her what had
happened to her mother and why I had to take her back.

The food lay forgotten.

She seemed to clamp down completely
the more I spoke, her face like stone, her raven eyes completely
devoid of feeling. She wouldn’t even look at me before long. I
still had not mastered the act of reading her expressions
correctly, but she showed no overt joy when I told her she was now
free. If anything, she seemed...bored.

It appeared I had been mistaken in
thinking she had come to see me as a friend, those nights spent on
long walks talking long into the night along with the many hours I
spent teaching her to read, ride and use a gun. It was as if none
of it had occurred.

She left the room shortly after and
when she came back down, she was wearing a red gown I had longed to
see her wear ever since I stole it for her. The ruby necklace hung
around her neck.

Stunned by her beauty, that
ever-present desire tightening around me, I bowed to
her.

“
Luna. Why, you look as
you should. You look like a queen.” A curious mix of emotion I
could not identify came over her features, and then she curtsied to
me.

We spent the rest of that evening
largely in silence. At eleven thirty p.m. she got to her feet,
appearing bored as she had all evening.

“
I’s gonna go on up to
bed. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”

I nodded, watching her carefully,
trying to commit to memory every last detail of her face—her raven
eyes and their every nuance—as the darkness I had walked in before
I found her began to huddle around me.

“
You...you ain’t gonna go
nowhere tonight, is you?” Her gaze was intense.

“
No, I will stay here
until it is time to wake you.”

She nodded and lingered at the door as
if she were reluctant to depart. When she finally turned to leave,
I called out to her before I could stop myself.

She spun around, her inscrutable dark
eyes boring into me.

“
You have nothing to fear
when you return to the plantation. Everything has been taken care
of. Even if your old master were to try and go back on his word, he
cannot for he signed a legal contract giving you your freedom. I
would never let him anyway, and neither would your
mother.”

She merely stared at me for the
longest moment before she abruptly turned and left the
room.

Moments later, I heard her footsteps
beating frantically up the stairs to her room.

I was alone. The light, the joy she
brought into my world, seeming to have fled the room with her.
Those years lost in the wilderness were upon me again as
loneliness, along with profound darkness, fully claimed me once
more.

I felt weak, my head swimming with
images of the past few weeks with Luna and I felt my chest clench
to the point of pain.

I moved to the window where I glanced
down at my large, pale hands, thinking of the many times over the
years when those hands had been stained with the blood of the
innocent. When Luna placed her warm brown hand in mine, it was as
if it had wiped away all my sins, the crimson blot on my soul that
had driven me to a wasteland of despair. It was so cruel to have
come so far, to have the possibility of everything I wanted within
my reach, only for it to be snatched away from me.

Luna entered the drawing room a while
later. I didn’t turn around when she came and stood behind me. She
was breathing normally, but her heart was beating fast, a steady
tattoo pushing against the wall of darkness surrounding me. She
didn’t speak and then, like a rope thrown out to me in the dark,
she lay her head against my back. Then her arms came around me,
pulling me back from the brink of despair. The pain in my chest
disappeared as she held me in a tight grip. I turned slowly,
feeling lost when she released me. She looked up earnestly at me as
I stared at her, but I had no hope of deciphering what thoughts lay
behind those bewitching eyes, altering the contours of her
beautiful face. Fearing she would immediately back away, I slowly
brought my arms around her and pulled her to me. She hugged me
fiercely, her head resting beneath my chin. We stayed like that for
a few moments.

“
I promise, I will not let
anything happen to you, Luna,” I said. “I will die to protect you,
so do not be afraid of what awaits you at the
plantation.”

She pulled away then and looked up at
me again, such a tumult of emotion in her gaze that I grew deeply
concerned.

“
Luna? What is
it?”

Without warning, she reached up on
tiptoe and kissed me. Electrified by the feel of her warm, moist
lips on mine, something I had longed for for so long, I pulled her
to me and kissed her fiercely, losing myself in the sweet taste of
her lips, her soft warm body pressed against mine. My desire for
her was as overwhelming as the crimson sea that enveloped me when I
drank blood, so I pulled away before it could drown me. She just
stared at me, seemingly caught in the effect of the kiss, but I had
to fight my desire for her because something was wrong.

“
What are you thinking?
Tell me what you are thinking, Luna.”

“
I’s thinking of you,
Avery. Only you.”

I wanted to believe her words, but it
somehow sounded like a plea of desperation.

I struggled to say something, but she
placed her fingertips against my lips.

“
Take me upstairs,” she
whispered.

When I didn’t respond, she
pulled my head down to hers almost aggressively, and kissed me.
When she pulled away I could only stare at her beautiful face, and
unable to resist my intense desire, I swept her into my arms and
drew the ether to us so the drawing room faded away and we were in
the sumptuous glow of the red velvet bedroom
.

Although dawn was only a few hours
away, darkness still smothered the land. A much deeper darkness
clung to my heart as I stood naked by the bed watching Luna sleep.
She looked much younger in sleep, her lips parted slightly, her
long dark lashes a blunt brush stroke on her upper cheekbone. She
had thrown the covers away from her in her sleep and her sleek,
dark limbs were thrown carelessly against the white sheets, her
full brown breasts deepening to the colour of a ripe plum at the
nipples. The thatch of dark hair between her legs, and the treasure
within, called to me, and I had to resist the urge to wake her so I
could lose myself in her flesh once more.

Instead, I kissed her lightly on her
forehead and then dressed before retreating to the chair by the
window. Everything I had been dreaming of, and what I had held on
to in the wilderness, appeared to be mine. But it only appeared to
be. She didn’t love me, that much I was certain of, but she had
given herself to me. And now I’d had a taste of what could be, how
could I take her back to the plantation, back to
Jupiter?

She stirred then, stretching
languidly, a movement that sent a shiver of desire through me and I
had to force myself to remain in the chair. She reached out for the
place I had vacated by her side, a smile curving across her lips.
The smile fled and her eyes flew open when she found only an empty
space beside her.

“
I am here,
Luna.”

I stood and moved to stand before her,
resisting the urge to caress her, take her into my arms and cover
her with kisses, for I had already made a mistake in giving into my
desire without finding out why she had offered herself to
me.

“
Luna. I need to know why
you let me make love to you.”

She wouldn’t tell me. She merely
stared at me wide-eyed, and then her brow furrowed, her eyes black
crystals glistening with confusion.

When she turned from me, pulled the
sheets around herself and climbed out of the bed, my anxiety, along
with bitter desperation, rose to a deafening clamour.

I appeared in her way, barring her
from leaving the room.

“
Luna, please. I need you
to tell me what you were thinking about before you kissed me. I
need you to tell me.”

“
I don’t know why, Avery.
But it be like I wasn’t in control of myself,” she spat at
me.

‘
It be like...’ Was she
saying...?
“Luna!”

She left the room, slamming the door
behind her.

Alone, I stared at the empty bed,
picturing her as she had been just hours ago, completely yielding
to my lips, my touch.

I leapt into the ether and out of the
room.

Outside, I sat and waited, confused
and torn. She came down a while later and wouldn’t even look at me.
She wanted to ride Julia part of the way to our destination and
when I offered to saddle the horse for her, she gave me a look I
recognised from long ago.

My wife Julia had been a very gentle
soul who rarely became angry, but on one occasion I received a look
exactly like the one Luna had just given me. That was when I knew
she was angry with me, deeply angry, but not because she believed I
had used my mental powers to get myself into her bed. In fact, she
appeared hurt. Her mind was closed to me but her face, and the many
secrets it held, was beginning to open up to me. But too late, it
seemed. We set off on the journey that would see me alone and lost
once more.

We soon reached our destination, a
large rock face surrounded by a thin smattering of
trees.

As the sun began to rise, I gave Luna
all I had left to give to her. I mentally showed her maps of the
area around the mansion and the plantation along with places I had
hidden provisions for her in case she should have need to escape. I
also showed her the house by the Mississippi bluffs. Lastly, I
tried to give her the chain I had carried for so long, the one
given to me by another slave. I had never been able to free Minny
in the way I had freed Luna, for I was sure Kato would not have
been able to keep the massacre at the Foster plantation a secret
from her for very long. But I could see now that her faith in me
had not been completely misplaced and she would want the beautiful,
courageous woman before me to have this chain.