Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (56 page)

“
Why? Why do you care for
him?”

“
My mama was sold when I
was still in her belly so I never even clapped eyes on my daddy.
She be dead not long after and I grew up on my own. I never looked
like nobody on that plantation. The other niggers is nice and takes
care of me, but I never really belonged to nobody. Everybody else
in my life just comed and goed. Then he came and he’s the onliest
thing that stayed the same in my life. My chillen be knowing who
they daddy is. And he treats em different from the other nigger
chillen on that plantation ‘cause they his. I can never name him as
they daddy, but he knows they his. And they at least know what he
looks like, which is more than I can say about my own daddy. And he
can never be took from me.”

“
No, but he can sell you
away as easily as he can sell his horse, or—”

“
He ain’t never gonna sell
me!”

“
It does not matter. I
cannot make him love you, and you won’t see him again.”

She was silent for a long time, then
she glanced at me, malice dancing in her eyes.

“
So what went on with you
and Luna?”

Her question threw me off guard and I
moved to the fireplace.

“
Nothing. It
was—”

“
You done hand her to that
nigger Jupiter on a plate. That’s what happened. Well, let me tell
you, that was just plain dumb.”

“
The situation was
complicated, Zila. I had a good reason for doing what I
did!”

She snorted in disgust.

I turned and glared at her. A few
moments later, I faced the wall again. “I cannot disagree with you.
I never should have let her go.”

I felt more than saw her triumphant
smirk. But she was right. I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but I
never should have let Luna go no matter the risk posed by the
entity in the chapel.

After some persuasion from Mama, I
took Zila back to the plantation. It was not our choice to make,
Mama insisted. So I took her back.

I was relieved when she left; the
mansion was an even more miserable place to be with Zila
there.

But when I returned at
dawn the following morning, I almost wished for her return. We were
united in our misery in wanting someone we would never really
have
.

Also by A. D. Koboah

PEACE

Peace Osei is young, beautiful—and
addicted to heroin; the only thing that can keep painful past
memories at bay. But when Mohamed, a past love, re-enters her life
demanding answers to questions she is not ready to face, it
threatens to send Peace swimming deeper into self-destructive
waters. Having spent so long drifting away from the real world, can
Peace find the strength to face the past and banish her
demons?

Read on for an excerpt of
A. D. Koboah’s Contemporary, Urban novel.

I
quickened my steps to try and shake
off the grinding pain in my stomach. But that only made it worse,
forcing me to slow down and come to a stop by the side of the
bridge whilst everyone else swept on past. It was rush hour so
nobody noticed me, a small figure dressed in black trembling
against the icy metal railing under dense grey clouds that
threatened to unleash rain on the city below. Unable to move or
think straight I let my eyes drift over the raging waters of the
River Thames, which stretched out like a rippling black sheet for
miles before me. And as I stared at the dark angry water, it seemed
to come alive, taking on the appearance of an enormous creature
stirring restlessly beneath me. The sound of the waves crashing
against the bank now sounded like an unearthly heart beating slow
and steady against the soft sigh of the January wind.

I
wondered then what it would feel like to plunge into the midst of
the creature beneath me. Would the seconds spent in the air before
I hit the water feel like an eternity, or would they disappear in a
flash? Would any of the people sweeping past me even notice or stop
long enough to care? And once the dark, icy water closed over my
head, how long would I spend struggling before I gave in to its
eternal embrace?

Thankfully, the icy wind was all I felt against me, the
biting cold eventually jolting me out of my morbid reverie and back
to reality. Noticing a bus roll past and come to rest at the bus
stop nearby, I released my death grip on the railing and ran toward
it, only just managing to board it before it moved on.

Once
aboard the packed bus, I inched my way through the knot of people
on the lower deck, up the stairs onto the top deck, and chose a
seat next to the window as the bus lurched forward. Leaning back in
my seat, I delicately fingered three soft plastic packages in my
right coat pocket and letting myself relax – ever so slightly – I
watched the city streets dance by.

Dusk had
crept up on us by this time and the glow of the streetlights
beating back the invading darkness gave the bustling streets a
festive air as office blocks emptied of their daytime inhabitants.
I sat enchanted by the people that swept past, most of them in
heavy winter coats walking briskly in either ones or twos toward
tube stations or to join the larger groups that had gathered around
bus stops in what was a mass exodus away from the city streets.
Some people I saw walked with a grimace as the bitter cold whipped
their faces. Their mouths were drawn into thin hard lines and their
vacant eyes told me that the stresses of the day had followed them
out of the office and would be with them long into the evening.
Others strode energetically down the streets, jauntily ducking out
of the way of their fellow pedestrians as they fled to the comforts
of home. They even managed a smile as they waited for buses that
were often too full to welcome them aboard. I also saw groups of
young men and women around my age who appeared oblivious to the
punishing cold as they meandered down the streets, laughing
carelessly about something or other that had amused them. I kept my
eyes on those groups of blissfully young, untroubled types who were
a representation of something that had long ago ceased to exist for
me, and watched until they were either too far away to see or had
disappeared into one of the many pubs and bars that dotted the city
landscape.

The bus
soon sped away from those people and the city streets, away from
the London Eye which stood over the near-black river, holding up
its glowing blue capsules like an offering of jewels to the
twilight sky. Away from the grand office buildings with their lit
windows looking like Christmas tree lights in the distance. And as
the bus drew further and further away from the city streets and
became emptier with each stop, we were slowly taken away from one
world and into another.

No
impressive-looking office buildings were to be seen providing the
background for an opulent world in this new landscape. And whilst
the world I had left behind had statues and monuments as a tribute
to their heroes and significant events of their history, we saw no
more of these as the bus left behind the wealthy city streets and
wound into the urban jungle.

Neglect
instead wove an ugly thread along the littered streets of this new
world, and the only thing that distinguished each unremarkable
building from its neighbour was the graffiti that screamed at the
passer-by from every exposed concrete surface. It seemed as though
every time the bus turned a corner, it was met by a sprawling
estate or a high-rise block of flats that loomed menacingly on the
horizon, dominating the landscape and casting an oppressive shadow
over the world beneath. I was carried deep into this new world and
got off the bus to the familiar sight of a small group of drunks
that had congregated by that bus stop. They were always there,
dishevelled, noisy and oblivious to the unease or open contempt
their presence evoked in those around them. In my eyes they were an
example of people who had given up on life; kindred spirits that
had taken enough of life’s knocks, had handed in the towel and
surrendered. People who had made the conscious decision a long time
ago to stop striving for the better things in life such as that
better job or better relationship. They had instead chosen to find
that something better at the end of a bottle – or in their case,
the many empty cans of beer that littered the bus stop.

I left
them behind and made the short walk into the heart of the urban
jungle, under a sky that had already deepened to an inky black as
night descended, bringing with it a hive of activity as people
either left the streets or ventured from their homes to explore it.
Cars roared past and I heard the sound of a police siren, the
piercing wail sounding like a bird of prey shrieking in the
distance before it died away. I passed off-licences, corner shops,
and takeaway shops which were now beacons of light in the darkness,
drawing people in. I took comfort in the kaleidoscope of colourful
faces that passed mine; from white, Asian, Latin American, Chinese
and every shade of black; starting with soft golden browns and
travelling down the spectrum to the richest blue-black skin
tones.

Some
people I passed were clearly not at ease in this world and they
trod carefully through it with their heads down, trying not to make
eye contact with those around them in an effort to get from A to B
unnoticed. But for others, the world around them had become a part
of their identity and was as much an essential part of them as the
blood coursing through their veins. Whether they were obvious
predators or people that had simply fallen in love with the urban
jungle, the hold that this world had on them was a powerful one and
it kept them coming back again and again to dance to the rhythms of
its dangerous beat.

I made
it onto my road without having to stop and give in to the pain
which was clutching and twisting my lower abdomen. I fled past rows
of identical Victorian houses towards the bright red door of a
converted house which had become a lighthouse, lighting the way
home in the growing storm of my need. Once I let myself into the
house and stepped onto the worn dark brown carpet in the gloomy
hallway, I was able to release a deep sigh before I closed the door
shut quietly behind me. I slunk past a door on my left, which led
to a one-bedroom flat, and up the stairs onto the first floor which
had been converted into two bed-sits with a shared kitchen and
bathroom. The tremor in my hand was more intense when I put the key
into the lock of my bed-sit and swung the door open to the glare of
the television set which I had left on in my haste to leave earlier
on in the day. Safely in my sanctuary, I wasted no time in
shrugging off my coat whilst fragments of news that nobody ever
wanted to see or hear accosted me from the television screen. It
was a news bulletin about another missing or dead child, and a
photograph of that child wearing a school uniform they would
probably never have the chance to wear again. I watched the
television sadly, affected by the sweet innocent smile that the
child’s parents must have longed to see again in the flesh. Then I
snapped the television off and plunged the room into an expectant
silence.

Carefully taking out the tiny bag from my coat pocket, I
reached for the lighter and roll of foil on my chest of drawers,
catching sight of a tall, slim, pretty young woman peering at me
from the mirror against the wall.

I
avoided her as much as was physically possible, but she still
managed to sneak up on me when I was least expecting it, and forced
me to acknowledge her as I did now.

I
watched as she put a hand up to her face which had a strong hint of
Ghanaian lineage in the mahogany brown skin, small, flat, broad
nose, full sensuous lips and thick, jet-black natural hair that had
been pulled tightly away from her face. Although this face had
undergone minor changes over the years, the eyes – my eyes – were
the only feature that had changed beyond recognition and looked as
if they had seen far too much in their twenty-three years on this
earth. It was the clear, deep anguish in those eyes that led me
here and made me tear myself away from the mirror back to the
lighter and the two small pieces of foil that I tore off the roll.
Rolling up one of the pieces, I put it in my mouth and let it hang
off my lip like a cigarette then tore open the bag and emptied the
brown powder onto the other scrap of foil. Using slow deliberate
movements, which defied the urgency that was speaking to me from my
every pore, I used the lighter to melt the powder into a
golden-brown ball and tilted the foil to make the brown ball run
down to the other end whilst chasing it with the foil roll in my
mouth.