Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (19 page)

“
Luna?”

My voice seemed to break through the
panic and her relief was so intense that hope surfaced for a few
seconds. She sank onto the loveseat so quickly I feared she had
lost her footing. I moved over to the table where I deposited the
white box, able to make out the images in her mind now that her
panic was beginning to subside. They were all memories, dark,
frightening memories to which the morose, claustrophobic silence of
the mansion had added weight as she spent the long, lonely hours
churning over her predicament.

I stared helplessly at her as she
began to gather herself.

“
What you do that for?”
she said.

I was concerned and flustered to see
tears well up in her beautiful dark eyes and fall onto her
cheeks.

“
I...I do not—”

“
Why you be
walking
in here like
that…
and wearing them
clothes
?”

I tried to explain myself in order to
calm her down. But she continued to throw questions at me, pacing
back and forth like a frightened, trapped tiger. The echoes of her
shouts, along with her frightened thoughts, clapped against my head
like thunder as she rode her temper like a stampeding
horse.

I cowered in the presence of her fury
and felt as if I was a trembling child once more before the fierce
storm of my father’s explosive temper. So I did the only thing I
could think of to do before her anger could escalate.

“
Sleep, Luna.”

I focused and began to induce the
sleep I had put her into on previous occasions.

Her eyes began to droop and she
swayed. But then her gaze hardened and she began fighting me
mentally, much stronger than before.

To my surprise she lurched forward. I
didn’t move as she stumbled across the room to me and struck me
across the face. I immediately released the hold I’d had on her
mind and her eyes brightened, the sleepiness
disappearing.

“
Don’t you never do that
again!” she snapped.

I could only stare at her in shock. I
couldn’t force her to sleep, so where did that leave me?

“
You have a very strong
mind, Luna,” I said. “No one has ever been able to resist me for
even the few moments it took for you to cross over to
me.”

It was the start of a conversation.
She was mistrustful of me, her mind and emotions convoluted and
often volatile. But it was a start; a chance for me to explain part
of the reason why I had sought her out. And slowly the anxiety and
fear began to fade away until she merely sat on the loveseat in
silence, her eyes wide with wonder as she listened. It became
apparent from her thoughts that she understood my turmoil. I
wouldn’t have ever expected anyone on this Earth to, but she not
only understood, she seemed to empathise with me.

“
So what you want with
me?” she asked after a long silence.

What I have waited half a
century for. Your love.
I was so close to
saying those words, and in the end it was only the repulsion I had
witnessed on previous occasions that stopped me from uttering
them.

“
I just want to be
near
you, Luna. Nothing
more.”

It seemed to calm her.

“
Thank you.
Sir.”

That was the second surprise of the
night, the gratitude and the “sir.” Again it was a meeting of the
old and the new world, a chance for me to make my way back to a
semblance of the man I once was.

“
I have something for
you.” I held out her Bible and she was immediately across the room
to take it from my hand. “I can teach you,” I said, keen to present
my gift whilst the joy and comfort she felt at having the Bible was
prominent in her mind. “You said that was your dearest wish, so let
me teach you.”

It seemed an age before I saw in her
thoughts that she would accept it, that she would stay at the
mansion. She sat down at the table then looked up sharply at me,
those luminous bewitching eyes keeping me trapped under her
gaze.

“
Why’s you wanting to
teach a slave to read?”

I took my place opposite
her.

“
You were never a slave to
me,” I said vehemently.

That was the first of many mistakes I
made with Luna. Being a slave, those experiences, the violence she
endured and witnessed, defined who she was. Until the night I was
made into a vampire, I had known only comfort, no real hardship
pain or trials. Violence was an unknown other in my world so I
could never have foreseen how it had shaped Luna. Or how hard it
would be for her to resist it.

Finding Luna was a miracle that gave
me sweet joy, but that joy was laced with pain and I found the
first few nights in her presence extremely difficult.

My desire for her was an ever-present
wound. I hungered for her so much more than I lusted for blood. It
was agony to see her hand on the table when I sat down to teach her
how to read, and not reach for it. Or to see her hair sticking out
from under the rag she used to cover it and not reach over to tuck
it back, letting my fingers caress the tight, springy ebony curls.
Sitting beside, or opposite her, it was difficult not to lean in to
drown in the scent of her skin or look into her eyes and not take
her into my arms.

One night, she was absentmindedly
eating an apple whilst I taught her how to read. She bit into the
apple and licked her lips, her focus on what I was showing her.
That small movement of her moist red tongue against her dark lips
sent a jolt of desire through me, bringing heat to my loins. I
paused, but not long enough for her to notice, and it was difficult
not to keep envisioning my lips on hers, imagining how sweet she
would taste, so much sweeter than the apple in her hand. Every
movement she made, the hypnotic sway of her hips when she moved
across the room, her skin moist and dewy with sweat, the small
amounts of exposed dark skin (her neck, the taut smooth flesh of
her arms) brought agony and ecstasy in equal measure and I would
lie awake day after day in the cool, frigid earth, recalling her
scent and those dark eyes. Her voice was like deep honey, an
electrifying husky undertone beneath, the drawl of the particular
vernacular of slaves like music to my ears.

I left her every night and killed,
needing to bury my desire for her in the crimson tide that drowned
me. But I was always left with a corpse, my self-loathing, the
anguish I felt in her presence and the desire that could never be
assuaged.

Was what I felt for her like that of
those slaveholders with their fascination in exotic dark skin? Was
I lusting for the power they exercised over these lush women whom
they only saw as wanton sex objects? No. Luna was so much more than
her external beauty. Her mind, her thoughts, held a million
mysteries I could sit and ponder and still not be able to unravel.
I heard her thoughts nightly, and knew all her memories, but still
did not necessarily understand them or her emotions, which were
always quite volatile and conflicting, her experiences and memories
of her oppressors dominating and tainting everything else in her
mind.

Alone with her in that drawing room, I
often wished I was back in the secluded, anonymous woodland where
no one, and nothing, could lay eyes on me and know what I was. An
aberration. Trapped in the glow of the drawing room by my love for
this woman, I kept away from the light of the candle by her side
and would often retreat to a shadowy corner whenever I was able,
usually the fireplace. The first night, she was too engrossed with
what she was being taught to notice. The second night, I found her
staring at me.

Why’s he all the way over
there? It be like he hiding from me. I’s having to hurt my neck
craning it just so’s I can see where he be.

She gave a discontented
sigh.

There was nothing wrong with her neck,
but she continued to moan inwardly and even rubbed at
it.

The second night, I found my little
refuge by the fireplace ablaze with candlelight. She had put at
least ten candles on the mantelpiece.

I said nothing, but when I had an
opportunity to move away from the table I sought refuge by the
window, which was blissfully free of candles. The shadows it
offered soothed me, especially when I gazed out on the benevolent
night outside.

Luna got up and crossed the room to
the fireplace. Moments later, she was by the window with four
candles, which she placed on the windowsill, showering me in light.
She returned to her seat, and when I glanced at her, she glared at
me before returning to the exercises I had set.

I remained by the window, upset and
not sure what to do, my shame and self-loathing so very difficult
to overcome.

After a few moments, I moved to the
table and sat down.

This woman was my life now, if she
wanted me where she could see me, then that is where I would be
regardless of my discomfort. I moved one of the candles closer,
letting the light fall across me.

She glanced up from the words she had
been copying, a soft, gentle smile on her lips, as if she had been
rewarded with something merely from that small act. I allowed
myself a small smile in return. She returned to the work I had set
her.

She was beautiful. And kind, so kind.
One night we were sitting outside in the field of flowers
surrounded by candlelight. She was staring at the mansion, her brow
puckered.

All it be needing is a
lick of paint,
she
thought to herself.
Then it be
beautiful again.

Her gaze came to rest on me and her
eyes softened.

Like him. All he be
needing is some attention, someone to care so’s he kin come back to
life again.

Her words shocked me and
also dangled the hope that was all too often near me only to be
snatched away.
Someone to care,
she had said.
Someone to
care.

I was in love with her and would have
died for her, but I knew she would never return that love. I saw it
in her mind daily, her fear and revulsion of white men, and
although Master John was miles away at the plantation, the violence
she had endured in his presence haunted her and I suspected it
always would.

One night we were in the mansion
whilst rain beat heavily down outside. It had been raining for most
of the day. To me the raindrops were like a chaotic orchestra, my
vision heightened by the silvery drops of rain whenever I glanced
at the window at the scene outside. But to Luna, the rain was a
reminder of something else. She sat wrapped in a shawl, although it
was warm in the mansion, and kept glancing toward the window, her
raven eyes hooded, a faint light of anxiety lighting them as she
searched for some hidden danger. The memory that was playing
through her mind was of her running through the woods under
menacing storm clouds as rain beat down on the earth. I felt my
hands clench as I stared at her, for I had seen this memory before
and knew the heartbreaking conclusion to the chase she was
remembering.

She turned abruptly and caught me
staring at her, haunted lights behind her eyes as she gazed at
me.

“
Why you looking at me
like that? Has I done something wrong?”
He
gonna take me back, he gonna take me back to him. I can’t go back.
I can’t—

“
No,” I said quickly,
cutting through that heartbreaking train of thought. “I was merely
thinking about something I wish I had been able to prevent from
happening. You could never do
anything
to make me
angry.”

She relaxed visibly and the expression
on my face was what she kept in her mind. Whenever the phantoms
tried to lay claim to her mind and fears over the next few nights,
she pictured the way I had looked at her, and my words, and they
were pushed back.

When I left her that night, I made my
way through the dark to the Holbert plantation. I stopped outside
the main house. The new mansion was not anywhere near as
magnificent as its sneering predecessor. Smaller and without the
ostentatious flair of the other, it was more like its humble
cousin. The power that repelled whenever I stood outside a home was
stronger now so that even being within a few metres of the mansion
left my head swimming and sent a tremor over me. This no doubt had
something to do with the witch. I lingered outside Master John’s
bedroom window but then moved to stand beneath his father’s. I
sought Henry Holbert’s mind, letting him know I was there and that
if it wasn’t for the witch, I would have torn his throat
out.

His fear reached me in a long stream
of wordless terror. The witch had cursed him and he had suffered a
stroke which he had never recovered fully from. Paralysed down one
side of his body, he could barely speak and spent all his time in
bed. The menacing figure that inhabited Luna’s memories and
nightmares had long disappeared and in its place was this pathetic
old man.

When he was first confined to his bed,
he used to occupy his time thinking of Luna, among other children
on the plantation, and the vile things he had done to them. But
then every time his mind brought up those sickening memories he
still received pleasure from, his broken body had been wracked with
pain as if a vice of flames had been embedded in his flesh. Then
Mama Akosua began inhabiting his dreams, making sleep a hell from
which he could not wake. She inhabited his dreams less and less
now. But sleep still evaded him and he spent night after night
awake and staring at the ceiling, unable to relive those moments
with those young children, which had been his only reason for
living.