Blood Moon (36 page)

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The hand carried a bunch of blood-red roses across the field and into the graveyard, which was surrounded by a splintered wooden picket fence. The figure’s legs moved as slow as a snail and were as heavy as a ton, weighed down and reluctant to reach the grave and look at the tombstone. But it trudged on regardless, as though driven by madness and an insatiable need to speak to the dead.

The family plots were dilapidated. Faded names etched into smooth stone, turned white with the elements, were barely recognisable. Sparse patches of grass and a headless statue of Madonna lying on its side had been unattended for years, and its sculptured body, cracked and without contours, looked like a long bulky lump of hardened granite.

The figure approached the newest headstone and stood before it a moment before bending to place the roses on top of the damp soil covering the grave. Looking at the grave, the figure wondered how it was possible to survive and carry on after such trauma and loss. The grief was unbearable, stifling air in lungs and leaving the mind stupefied with thoughts of murder and revenge.

Tears rolled down the figure’s face, wet already with sleet and rain lashing horizontally in the biting wind. In this graveyard, there were no other names but, Stone. The first family member, buried in 1794, had been followed by wife, children, and grandchildren. Only the Stones had been buried here – until now.

Jacob slumped to the ground and sobbed like a child. His wretched cries were not enough to empty him of the anguish and torment, but they spoke to Mercy the way his words could not. He knelt and stared at the writing on the tombstone, and every now and then, he wiped the words dry as they too cried with rain, which bounced off the top of the stone and down its face.

“Dear God, no, not my Mercy!” he cried out. “You should have taken me, not her. Damn you, God. Damn you for your cruel games and hand of fate!” He wiped the stone again and read the words chiselled into its surface.

Mercy Carver

1842–1862

At Her Journey’s End

The rain continued to lash him, burning his skin and streaming down his face, blinding him. He looked skywards. It was not water he saw but shards of glass raining down on him. He covered his face with his arms and screamed for the pain to stop. He looked down at the ground and found himself sitting in a pool of blood, turning his grey uniform red.

Jacob sat bolt upright in bed, panting loudly, disoriented and wide-eyed with panic-stricken thoughts. Touching his face, he felt a fine veil of perspiration and wiped his forehead with his forearm. His heart was thumping like a hammer against his breast wall. He pushed his fingers through his thick, damp chest hair and held his hand there, doing all he could to convince his breathing to steady its rhythm. He turned his head sharply and watched Mercy sleeping contentedly beside him. He sighed with relief and stroked her hair.               When were these nightmares going to stop? It had been months since he and Mercy had seen Elizabeth and her father and weeks since they had been told that the Coulters had moved south, exiled in shame and disgraced in the eyes of Portsmouth’s elite.

The day Elizabeth tried to kill him would live in his memory forever. Had it not been for Elizabeth’s father’s quick hands tussling with the gun a second before it went off, the bullet would have hit Mercy instead of the mirror. She would not be lying next to him – she would be in the grave he saw in his dreams at night. Throwing herself in front of him had been most foolish thing she had ever done, but thank God their only injuries were cuts from the mirror’s shattered glass. “Dear Lord,” he whispered softly, as he lay back down, “thank you for all your blessings.”

Marcy stirred and turned over to face Jacob. She smiled sleepily and then looked at him inquisitively. “Oh no, did you have another bad dream about Elizabeth?” she asked him.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Did I wake you?”

“No, the baby was kicking me. He’s impatient to get out – tell me about the dream.”

“Same as always. It was a bad one, but they’re becoming less frequent and nothing to worry about. This is the only dream that matters: you and me, right here, right now.”

“Well, look on the bright side – had Elizabeth not tried to kill you, you would never have persuaded her to sign those divorce papers and we wouldn’t be married. And then what would we say to our child when born?”

“Come here, Mrs Stone, and let me hold you till sunup. Let me kiss your sassy lips and tell you how much I love you and how damn relieved I am to wake up each morning to your beautiful face.”

Mercy smiled and snuggled into him. Life was indeed a grand adventure, she thought. It was filled with wonders and curiosities that one could never imagine in childhood, whether born in a deep well of sadness and poverty or into wealth and privilege. Destiny, fate, determination, despair, and hope carried a person along in a sea of storms, and that’s what made life remarkable. No one knew only happiness or a lifetime of despair. If it were so, she thought, how could a person appreciate one and prevail over the other?

In this great world, books taught history and told stories of imaginary characters and their imaginary adventures, but she set little store in books now. In her experience, a grand adventure began on a warm October day when she crossed a bridge in the stinking city of London, and when her dainty little purse held no more than a few pennies.

On her journey, she had met many wonderful characters and some awful ones too. Crossing an ocean, she had glimpsed heaven in the arms of a man who had saved her on more than one occasion. She had triumphed over evil, violence, and revenge, and every morning she awoke to the promise of another adventure with Jacob and a child who would be taught that no matter the circumstance of birth, every living soul had the capacity to overcome life’s tribulations.

She placed Jacob’s hand on her belly and gave him a radiant smile. “Darling, I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere,” she told him. “Our journey is just beginning.”

About The Author

Author of the critically acclaimed epic, The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact.

Jana Petken is Scottish but resides on the East Coast of Spain. She is ex military and has travelled extensively, studying conflicts and the after effects they had on the population. She is a fulltime writer but says her hobbies include, walking great distances and painting in oils.

Kirkus Review.

Mercy Carver: Dark Shadows

A fast-paced, action-packed historical romance set during the last days of the Old South.

Amazon Review:
“A female Dickens”