Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (35 page)

“
It doesn’t matter if we
go to Europe and marry! A marriage between a white man and a Negro
woman will
never
be accepted no matter where we go!”

“
I am sick of hearing you
whine about not being married, Luna because we
are
married. The ring on your
finger, and even more than that, the blood,
my blood
, that runs through you, and
the bond we have that transcends time and space marries
us.

“
I need to hear you say
it.” I leant forward in my seat. “I can tell you a thousand times
that I love you and not hear it ever said back to me. After all
these years the silence starts to speak to me.”

“
Yes, you talk and talk
and say you love me, but in the same breath you can throw me away
into the arms of another man.”

I stood up and moved to her, placing
my hands on the sides of her face. She was rigid as a serpent, her
anger pure and tangible like a third person in the room. “Do you
love me, Luna? I need to hear you say it.” The last words were a
whisper and I knew it sounded as if I were begging her.

She merely watched me, her thoughts
shielded, her eyes cold and dark like the surface of a pond. I
looked into its depths and I saw and felt no love there. After a
few moments, she removed my hands from her face and walked out of
the room.

I was left shaking.

She left that night and I paced the
room in turmoil, reduced to tears. Did she love me?

When she returned, I was alone in the
drawing room, my face in my hands, the tears wrung from me. At
first I did not know she was there until I caught a glimmer of her
thoughts. I saw myself through her eyes looking beaten and
wretched, and a small part of her relented even though she was
still angry.

She crossed the space between us,
placed a hand beneath my chin and lifted my head so she could look
into my eyes. Her reaction to the tears that had dried on my cheeks
was more softening, but it also seemed to intensify some of her
anger.

“
Of course I...I love you,
Avery. I’ve shown you that time and again, so never ask me
that.”

Relief flowed through me. I pulled her
to me, resting my head against her stomach and wept. For those
hours here alone in the mansion, I had been so sure she didn’t love
me. She exhaled and wrapped her arms around my shoulders and it was
some moments before I realised that she, too, wept.

That was the first and
last time she spoke those words directly to me throughout the
course of our union. And although my heart was eased by them, it
felt like a defeat of some kind
.

Two years passed and we were
relatively happy with the Morrisons, although the bliss we enjoyed
was frequently disrupted by the mutual animosity between Luna and
Alba, which only ripened as the years passed.

Celesta, who was nineteen now, had not
changed much during that time. She was still a quiet, timid young
woman who had not lost her nervousness around me, or anyone outside
of her family. But a deep bond had developed between her and Luna,
and shortly after the Morrisons came to work for us, Luna began
teaching her how to read and write. They sat at the table now,
their heads bent over the books before them.

On evenings like this, I normally
sought Samuel’s company and left Luna and Celesta on their own. But
Alba seemed to have developed a haughty, smug attitude over the
last few days and kept regarding Luna with a sort of
self-satisfied, insolent smile whenever she was near. Luna’s moods
had been particularly vicious of late, and dreading the eruption
that was bound to follow Alba’s change in attitude, I wasn’t
letting Luna out of my sight.

The confrontation I was dreading
occurred when Luna rang the bell to summon Alba. She rang it a
second and then a third time before Alba sauntered into the drawing
room.

“
Alba, didn’t I ask you to
bring us some hot chocolate about an hour ago?” Luna
asked.

“
Oh, that. I’s gonna bring
it to you in a little while.”

“
No, you’ll bring it
now!”

Celesta rose from the table. “I’ll get
it, Mama.”

“
You sit down!” the two
women snapped in unison.

Celesta sighed, but did as she was
told.

Luna got to her feet then and moved to
stand before Alba, malice alight in her eyes.

A mocking smile spread to Alba’s lips
as if she had been eagerly awaiting the impending confrontation. I
got to my feet and was about to intervene, but Celesta’s reaction
stopped me. She didn’t appear nervous of the impending argument
between the two, merely curious.

Smiling now, Luna reached for a twine
necklace around Alba’s neck, pulling it out from under her
clothing.

“
What’s this?” she asked,
smiling sweetly.

I didn’t know what it was, but it was
hideous. It appeared to be a pendant that was made of chicken
feathers, animal teeth, and some stiff brown matter I couldn’t
immediately identify. Alba’s mocking smile wavered and then
disappeared. She seemed deeply disappointed and looked ready to cry
when Luna unclasped the necklace from her neck and held it in the
palm of her hand, still smiling sweetly.

“
Who gave this to you?”
Luna asked, fingering it tenderly, her smile growing wider whilst
Alba’s eyes began to fill with tears.

“
I...I... It was my
mama’s.”

“
Really?” Luna
scoffed.

“
Why don’t you give Alba
back her necklace, Luna?” I said coming between them.

Instead she handed it to me, her gaze
locked on Alba.

“
What do you think of the
necklace, Avery?” Luna asked, all innocence.

Having no idea what silly game Luna
was playing, I took the necklace, but then wished I hadn’t. The
brown matter I observed appeared to be cow dung. I grimaced in
revulsion.

“
It’s…um...beautiful,” I
said and held it out to Alba.

There was complete silence. I didn’t
move as Alba’s face clouded over with anger, a hint of wounded
pride making her bottom lip quiver.

“
If it be so beautiful,
you go on and keep it!”

With that she stormed out of the room,
leaving me staring from Luna to Celesta in bewilderment whilst the
two appeared to be trying not to laugh.

“
What did I do?” I
asked.

“
You called it beautiful,
not what you want to hear about a charm that’s supposed to
incapacitate any demon that touches it,” Luna said. “With all the
rumours in town about demons in our midst, I’ll sleep much better
now I have this.” She winked at Celesta.

I looked closer at it. “Is that what
this is? It is certainly ugly enough.”

Celesta burst into laughter, the first
time I had heard her laugh. But the moment I glanced at her, the
laughter disappeared and she swiftly returned her gaze to her
book.

We were still laughing about Alba’s
charm later on that night, especially since Luna insisted on
wearing it for the rest of the evening. As they were leaving for
the night, Luna turned to Alba.

“
Thank you for your gift.
Do tell Madam Garcou I may pay her a visit sometime this week, so
we can have a long talk about the charms she’s been
selling.”

Terror immediately crossed Alba’s
face. I know it was cruel, but I couldn’t help joining Luna in
laughter once they left the room, especially when we heard Celesta,
who rarely spoke two words, quietly admonish her mother.

“
Hush now, Mama. I told
you that thing wasn’t gonna do nothing. Everybody knows Madam
Garcou is just a crazy old fraud!”

The following evening, Samuel came out
to see me as I was lounging outside in the field of flowers staring
up at the stars. At first he didn’t speak. He had his hat in his
hands, reminding me of that night, which now seemed like an aeon
ago, when he came to us for help. He seemed embarrassed. I waited,
knowing he would say what he wanted sooner or later.

“
I’s sorry, Mr Avery,
about Alba and that charm of hers,” he said eventually. “She can be
bull headed about some things, but she don’t mean nothing by it.
You’s been good to us and we know you ain’t never gonna let nothing
bad happen to us. And Miss Luna, she can be mean at times, but I
knows deep down she don’t mean it, and we’s grateful for all she
does for Celesta. I hope you ain’t mad at Alba.”

“
Actually, I am,” I
replied. “As Luna insists on wearing that god awful thing to spite
her.”

A smile erased the lines that marred
his brow. “I’s mighty sorry ‘cause that thing’s the ugliest,
smelliest thing I ever laid eyes on.”

We laughed and he stayed for a short
while talking about his wife and daughter and things concerning the
running of the mansion. Luna ventured out to us a while later. We
exchanged a small smile when we saw the hated necklace around her
neck.

***

A few nights later and the humour
regarding Alba’s charm had grown thin. Luna was still wearing that
ugly thing to taunt Alba. Celesta was in one of her low moods,
something that normally made Luna and Alba take some measure to
hide their mutual animosity, but not tonight. They were oblivious
in their confrontation, and Celesta moved about like a nervous
shadow enduring existence in a world holding no joy. If it ever
did.

Luna was staring at Alba as she
brought a bowl of soup to the table, a stinging comment on the tip
of her tongue, when she abruptly stood with a start, knocking her
chair over, her face a mask of fear and anxiety I hadn’t seen since
her mortal days. Alba and Celesta both glanced up at her, two sets
of dark eyes turning to round pools of fear.

I got to my feet. “What...”

The images in her mind leapt out at
me, images seen through mortal eyes so they were a jumbled
confusion of dark woodland and disembodied shouts. Luna whirled to
her left.

“
They won’t make it,” she
whispered.

She vanished.

Celesta squealed in shock. The hot
bowl of soup Alba was holding slid out of her hand and onto the
floor, most of the soup spilling onto her skirt. If she felt the
scalding hot soup, it had not registered yet because she was still
staring at the empty space where Luna had been standing just
moments ago.

I did not have time to see the rest of
their reactions, but shimmered out of the room after Luna, having
caught a glimpse of her destination before she
disappeared.

It took me longer to reach the area I
had seen in Luna’s mind and I flung myself out of the ether into
woodland, materialising behind a group of Negroes. My ears filled
with screams and dogs barking in the distance. There were about
fifteen men and women and one boy, huddled together in a small
pack, some trying to fight off a dog that had lunged at one of
them, and was hanging on to the man’s forearm as he screamed in
pain. The others searched about, terrified and trapped, too afraid
to run ahead and unwilling to turn back. The racket of more dogs
crashing through the undergrowth fuelled their terror. Their only
other route of escape was blocked when I materialised in their
midst, increasing their collective terror. I darted to the man who
was being attacked by the dog and the rest backed away. I grasped
the dog by the neck, using my mind to force its jaws open and
release the man. I hurled it against a tree and it gave a yelp
before hitting the ground where it lay whimpering in
pain.

Then I saw why the Negroes were so
afraid of what was ahead. I was in time to see Luna snap the neck
of a dog she had pulled off one of the Negroes with ease, even
though it was almost as large as her. The man lay at her feet, his
hand to the torn flesh of his throat, blood trickling through his
fingers. A middle-aged white man with dirty blond hair stood a few
feet away. He stood staring at Luna, fear and disbelief widening
his eyes. A gun lay forgotten at his feet as he backed away from
her.

She used her telekinetic power to
hoist the white man into the air high above our heads, her laughter
ringing out into the night, sending a cold wave of fear through me.
He couldn’t scream but seemed to be choking on air as if he were
underwater. Dark blood started oozing from his nose, eyes, ears and
mouth.

“
Luna!”

I raced to her but she continued to
laugh as some of the Negroes dragged their fallen friend away,
wanting to get as far away from this demon who had appeared in
their midst. But they were not sure of where to run as the sound of
dogs barking, and the shouts of their pursuers, could be heard all
around us.

“
Luna!” I grabbed her
shoulder, trying to snap her out of the trance she appeared to be
in, her face frozen in a bitter smile.

I battled against the mental hold she
had on the man. She held on to him for a few seconds, and then
relented. He fell to the ground where he lay gasping, blood still
pouring from his face, his clothes now darkening with
blood.