Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (33 page)

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.

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...”