Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (39 page)

Again he looked down at the money in
his hand. He was ashamed of himself now. He had gained so much
pleasure in Luna’s exploits and all those white men she had killed.
But here was a white man who had shown him nothing but compassion.
He was wishing now that he’d given me the respect I deserved and
told me of what he had known.

I sighed and moved away to stand by
the fireplace. I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t protect them, and to
be honest, would I have believed him? Only Lina could have shown me
what had happened and who was responsible.

“
I am not a man,” I said
in response to his thoughts. “That’s why I have been able to show
compassion. People are a product of their surroundings. Who’s to
say that if I had been raised here and didn’t have the powers I
have to see that Negroes are not animals, I wouldn’t be just like
the Fortier brothers? Who’s to say
you
wouldn’t be like them if it was
what society had taught you to be?”

We stared at each other across the
room. It was something he had never considered before.

“
Give me a week, Mr Avery.
I can get them settled and then come back and stay for as long as
you need me.”

“
Thank you,” I said,
managing a small smile for the first time since Lina revealed the
truth to me. “But you don’t owe me anything, Samuel. You should go
and get ready, I don’t know when she will be back.”

He nodded and lingered for only a
second before he left the room. I heard him round them up,
listening to the quiet urgency in his tone, the muffled panic from
Alba and only silence from Celesta. I went out into the field of
Queen Anne’s lace and waited. When I heard Luna’s footsteps in the
drawing room and heard her settle down, I went out to the old slave
quarters.

It was the first time I had been there
since they moved in and I was surprised at how homely it was. I
didn’t take much note of the strained, frightened expressions that
met me. I listened instead to make sure Luna was still in the
drawing room, then I spirited them away to the church.

The parting was awkward. Samuel merely
stood before me and fiddled with his hat. He eventually held out
his hand. I shook it warmly, and then Alba’s. She looked so tiny,
her eyes large in her thin face. The third surprise that night was
Celesta. I nodded in her direction, expecting little more than a
mumbled goodbye. But she surprised me by hugging me. She didn’t
move away from me straight away, but looked up at me intently,
concentrating. I let her thoughts reach me.

I ain’t able to write well
yet, but I left Luna a letter. I hid it under a flower pot by the
window so my mama wouldn’t find it.

I nodded.

Relieved, she scurried
away into the church. But the surface thought was repeated over and
over again.
The note. Tell her ‘bout the
note.

I turned away from the church and the
anxious voices within. I felt a profound loss. Since finding Luna,
I had worked so hard to try and regain my humanity and attempt to
atone for my past sins, even though I never truly would. But at
moments like this, to see how these people had accepted me,
especially Celesta, it was so precious and hard won. But my
salvation had come at a cost: Luna’s soul.

Reluctantly I left the church to do
what I had been dreading since leaving Lina’s home.

Luna was still in the drawing room
writing in her journal. She paused when she became aware of me
standing by the window, watching her. Her back was to me and I
marvelled again at how fragile she always appeared to be even
though she was such a powerful being. She caught a scent of my
surface thoughts and a soft sigh escaped her. She resumed
writing.

“
I should have known that
meddlesome daughter of mine would find a way to reach you. So tell
me, Avery, what tales has she been telling you?”

“
I saw everything she has
seen and heard. I saw the bodies in her mind’s eye, Luna and the
sadism in your killing sprees are truly extraordinary.”

“
No more than yours was
that night you took your revenge on the Fosters and all their
helpless slaves. The brutality I inflicted on those men was no
worse than what they have inflicted on countless Negroes over the
years. They had gone unpunished for far too long for their
wickedness. They deserved to die.”

“
Did their children
deserve to die? And the Negro slaveholder?”

She at last put the pen down and
swivelled in the chair to face me. The silence between us crackled
with tension before she answered. And then I wished she had
remained silent.

“
Why wait for those
children to grow up and become monsters like their
parents?”

She saw my horror at her words and
looked away.

“
I lost control, but even
in the red mist of the kill, I saw reason enough to kill the
children quickly and painlessly. They did not suffer.” She faced me
again and a wry smile touched her lips. “Do you remember that one,
Avery,” she added, sounding almost sad.

I moved toward her.
“Do
you
remember
what you felt when I told you that, and the horror and repulsion
those words wrote on you? Do you remember a time when you held
human values of remorse and compassion—and most of all, respect for
life—in high regard? Do you remember that, Luna?”

She lowered her eyes and
shrugged.

“
Vaguely. I am no longer a
human being, Avery. And neither are you. All we can do is mimic
their limited existence in order to continue our lives. There is no
use in denying what we are. We are killers. Those men deserved to
die and I feel no remorse in killing them.”

I knew this was not true. A part of
her was ashamed, not necessarily at the deaths, but the fact she
had lost control. It frightened her, the ease with which the chapel
entity—which had always been the unspoken Other on the periphery of
our world—had been able to creep in. Not wanting to believe Luna
was solely responsible, I latched on to that, hope rising for the
first time since leaving Lina’s home.

“
Answer this first. Is it
the spirit from the chapel controlling you?”

She laughed. “God no. I’m too strong
for it. I told you that.”

“
Oh well, that makes it
all better then. How much of a relief it is to know this evil is of
your own will and volition.”

She stayed silent as my own anger,
which rarely surfaced throughout the course of our marriage, was
barely contained.

“
It sickens me that you
can be so calm about what you have done. They deserve to die? We
are not gods, Luna. We are something else altogether. We do not
have the right or the inherent good within us to be judge and
executioner. If we do not shun the urge to kill, it makes way for
the evil within us to rule and make us monsters. Look at what I was
when I first came across you. I was no more than a mindless beast.
And we are not invincible. You cannot continue on this
path.”

She stood up. “My safety is not more
important than those who are beaten down from morning till dusk,
Avery. It may be easy for you to watch my people suffer, but I
won’t do it any longer. You must decide, you are either with us or
against us.”

“
So you’re doing this for
the benefit of your people?” I flung the image of the Negro
slaveholder at her. She looked away. “And what of the others who
were killed or tortured as punishment for the deaths of those
whites? You are responsible. You tell me to decide which side I am
on? Yours, Luna. Always by your side. Wasn’t I standing by your
side that night as we battled furiously to protect
your people
? All those
lives we could not save and you knew it was because of what you had
done. And worst of all, you kept this from me.”

She appeared agitated for the first
time. But she quickly regained her composure.

“
I haven’t forgotten those
men and women and...and I’ll avenge their deaths.”

“
Have you not heard a word
I said? You will do no such thing! I forbid it!”

Her anger flared and her face became
like stone, her eyes dark, luminous jewels that blazed at
me.

“
You forbid it,” she said
slowly. “As a white man to a nigger wench?”

“
As man to
wife!”

Her smile was bitter and cruel. She
didn’t need to say anything. The years of arguments about that very
point said all that needed to be said. She turned and sauntered out
of the room.

I was left standing there knowing we
had reached an impasse in our marriage that could prove impossible
to breach. I remembered clearly Mama Akosua’s warning and wished
with all my strength she was still alive to offer her wisdom, for
it was sorely needed.

Luna left the mansion shortly after
and I sat and worried, thinking long and hard about what to do, if
there was indeed something that could be done. A few hours before
dawn, I made my way to Lina’s home. I waited outside.

Unsurprisingly she wasn’t asleep. I
heard her get out of bed a few moments later and make her way
downstairs. I stared at the house I’d had built for Luna. How could
I have known at that time what my presence in her life would do to
her? I moved to the front door and Lina opened it a few moments
later.

“
I have thought about what
you have said. There may be a way to weaken Luna, but I need you to
promise you will not kill her. Whether or not you will agree to my
plan depends on one thing: if you trust in my judgement that she
would never hurt you, or any of her descendants.”

She stared at me for the longest time
and I saw pity in her gaze. Then she pulled the door open to let me
inside.

I was outside in the field of flowers
looking out toward the road as the sun sought to break free from
the darkness. It was a moment before I realised Luna was standing
behind me.

“
Where have you been?” I
asked without turning.

“
Come now, Avery.” She
moved to stand by my side. “You know you don’t want to know the
answer to that question.”

I let the sound of the birdcalls fill
the silence for a moment before I allowed myself to look at her. I
assumed she had changed out of bloodstained clothing before coming
out to me, and she was breathtaking in ivory, her hair pulled away
from her face. After a few moments, she met my gaze, a small smile
lingering around her mouth.

“
I want you to come
somewhere with me.” I held my hand out to her.

“
Where?”

“
There is something I need
you to see.”

She shrugged and placed her hand in
mine. With only a lingering glance at the sun still struggling over
the horizon, we were away.

We made the journey deep into the
woods in silence. We soon reached a grassy grove no more than two
metres wide sheltered by deep emerald trees. I entered the grove
with Luna, stepping into heavy peach sunlight. Surrounding us was
an unseen circle of magic Lina had cast a few hours before. She
could trap Luna and me in this circle simply by uttering a few
words.

Although she was well hidden, Luna
became aware of Lina seconds after we entered the grove. She gave
me an amused glance before she turned in the direction Lina was
hiding. Lina moved out of the trees into view a few seconds
later.

“
My dear child. My
meddlesome little Lina. What do you really think you’ll be able to
do here today?” She laughed.

Lina was completely speechless. For a
moment her carefully constructed armour came down and her thoughts
were clear for us to see as she stared at Luna. It was the first
time she had seen Luna since her mortal death. She had prepared
herself for this moment, the moment when she might have to kill her
mother. But she had not anticipated the effect it would have on her
to see her mother again, looking exactly as she had the first time
she laid eyes on her. She no longer saw the killer she had come
here to maim or kill, but the mother she had dreamt of and gone in
search of at sixteen.

Luna smiled and took a few steps
toward her, moving out of the circle of magic and I began to see
all our careful plans unravel before my eyes.

“
Lina!” I
cried.

I gave her a mental push, hoping to
snap her back into the present and the task at hand. Then I grabbed
Luna and pulled her back into the circle. In the blink of an eye
she had broken out of my grasp, her hand around my throat, anger
blazing in her eyes.

“
What are you doing?” she
hissed.

Thankfully, she stayed within the
circle.

It seemed my action spurred Lina on
because I saw movement out of the corner of my eye as she threw a
ball of herbs at Luna. The herbs hit her, and she shuddered as the
magic reverberated through her body. She froze, her limbs turning
leaden in a way that was akin to watching running water rapidly
turn to ice. The fury in her eyes turned to surprise and
bewilderment.

Lina moved behind me so she was facing
Luna.