Surrender the Dark

by L. A. Banks

  Then there was this strange and deeply disturbing emotion that he felt when he looked into Celeste’s eyes, when she touched him gently and let down her guard. He wasn’t ready to identify the component parts of that emotion yet, or to address where it manifested in his body.

  He moved to the dining room table as quietly as possible, remembering that Celeste’s aunt had offered him use of this thing called a laptop. As he sat down, he remembered Celeste had also said that the Internet would blow his mind. He stared at the lime green device, knowing that somehow this and the place called the Internet were linked.

  Stilling his thoughts, he called on any impressions of the relationship between the laptop device and the Internet that he could glean from the library and from his mind-bond with Celeste. Afraid that he might accidentally break it, he gently lifted the unit and turned it over, careful of the long wires connected to the wall as he tried to figure out how to open it. But the moment he touched it, children’s mirth filled him and their open knowledge gave him all he needed to know. He could feel the laughter and excitement from the children that Mrs. Jackson babysat. They’d touched the computer; they enjoyed playing games on it. They were experts on how to use it.

  Eagerly popping the unit open, he quickly turned it on, bypassed the easy password, Nana, and logged on to a Web browser. Instantly his consciousness went out into a black void, then images and information careened into his mind so fast that he drew away from the unit, panting.

  Azrael pushed the off button and slammed down the top, appalled and amazed. Although his eyes were tightly shut, images continued to careen through his mind in millisecond intervals, causing his lids to flutter. He was almost near a seizure, but the images slowly began to abate and he spread his palms out wide and pressed them down hard against the wood table to ground himself.

  Slowly opening his eyes, he wiped his brow and sat back, staring at the small, flat neon green box on the table. Celeste had been right; the Internet nearly blew his mind. Millions of humans had come together to create what was like a human replica of the divine Akashic Records. And this coming together had no filter. It was as though the gates of Heaven and Hell collided here; you could find great good or great evil on the Internet . . . it was wide-open, which made sense to him as he pondered the issue—this was the free-will zone. Both Heaven and Hell did reside here on earth, too, and that was what the battle was about—which side was going to prevail.

  But the difference between what was in the human worldwide database and what resided in the Akashic Records was that truth and lies and misinformation were allowed to reside side by side.

  “Interesting,” Azrael murmured, peering at the laptop, but not ready to touch it again just yet.

  What had almost shut down his mind was the instantaneous filtering required in order to sense and weed out the dark-consciousness aura around information created for harm. The library had much less of that; it was as though some responsible humans had decided against allowing in things such as child pornography and hate-filled newsletters calling for armed violence, even though adult subject matter was permitted. But in this elusive place called cyberspace, anything and everything was allowed.

  Deeply inspirational things, such as messages and websites of uplifting purposes and beauty, were right next to satanic worship and ritual killings, and things that no human was ever meant to do with an innocent animal.

  What was really unnerving was that the sites took him through the full gamut of human emotion. Some sites made him want to laugh, some made him want to bitterly weep. Some were provocatively arousing, while others revolted him with indescribable disgust. The need to protect came as quickly as the urge to kill. And all of it shot through his mind faster than his feelings could process. That, too, was what had almost caused the information seizure. The Akashic Records modulated to the being’s frequency, unlike the Internet.

  Still, for all its human imperfections, it was a wonderland of options that taught him music, languages, and even how to speak and understand Celeste’s dialect. He hoped she would be pleased. But he had to get the horrors he’d seen out of his mind . . . the dark side of the Internet was definitely no place for a being of Light.

  Azrael shivered and then focused his mind again, now realizing that he possessed entirely too much knowledge—there were things he was quite sure he never wanted to know. However, he was pleased to learn of the wealth of information in the human consciousness about energy and the Light. He’d also begun to understand that it wasn’t wise to do a general search. One had to be specific.

  Tentatively opening the laptop again, this time when he turned it on, he spoke his intention out loud.

  “Maps . . . find me maps of the places I need to go to seek Bath Kol and any balance keepers that will guide me on my mission.”

  Again he closed his eyes as Google Maps seared his brain with satellite images of streets, apartment buildings, warehouses, transportation options, and monasteries. Azrael drew away from the computer, breathing hard. He shook his head as he stood up on wobbly legs.

  “Wow,” he murmured. “What a rush!”

  Serenity claimed Celeste and she felt oddly refreshed as the sound of deep, booming male laughter mixed with her aunt’s husky-timbered mirth awakened her with a smile. She hadn’t felt this calm and safe waking up since she’d been a kid, and even then she’d never felt this completely at peace.

  A blender whirred . . . and she could smell pancakes?

  Celeste swung her legs over the side of the bed and gathered together the robe she’d borrowed to sleep in. She dashed down the short hall and down the steps and found Azrael at the stove making spelt pancakes and her aunt seated at the table looking through an old scrapbook.

  “We didn’t mean to wake you up, suga,” Aunt Niecey said, wiping her eyes. “But Az gonna make me need diapers if he don’t stop cutting up.”

  “Huh?” Celeste looked from Azrael to her aunt completely confused.

  “He’s been telling me all kinds of crazy mess about why you gotta cook a certain way, then is trying to get me to eat these here pancakes with no eggs in ’em with tofu whipped cream—whatever that is—and then he had the nerve to swirl up almost all them good collards in a danged blender! Who eats collard greens raw from a blender?” Aunt Niecey started laughing again and wiped away tears of mirth. “The boy done lost his natchel mind, even though his pancakes with mango and strawberries look good.”

  “Try these,” Azrael said with a big smile, setting down a plate of pancakes topped with fruit, pure maple syrup, and what looked like whipped cream. “I’ve already blessed the food, so dig in and tell me what you think.”

  “You let him cook on your stove?” Celeste stood in the doorway, slack-jawed. Nobody but serious family, and not even all of them, got to cook at Aunt Niecey’s stove!

  “We had a bet,” Aunt Niecey said, taking a huge forkful of fluffy pancakes. “I bet him he couldn’t make breakfast as good as my Roscoe used to, and he bet me I couldn’t make him laugh.”

  For a few seconds, Celeste simply stood in the doorway amazed. What had happened during the six hours she’d been asleep?

  Azrael had changed clothes and had clearly showered; his long locks left a damp spot down the back of his fresh royal-blue, collared T-shirt. He also now wore a different pair of jeans and smelled as if he had on cologne—and had what look like barber-trimmed five-o’clock shadow. He had to have gone back to the stores alone at night to gather more supplies. She glanced at the bags sitting in the corner on the floor. All-natural pancake mix and syrup were definitely not in the bags before. She glanced back toward the sofa and saw a bulging men’s gym bag and a women’s backpack.

  “What do you think?” Azrael said, giving Celeste a measured glance before he offered Aunt Niecey a wink. “You want to call it a draw?”

  “Might have to do that,” Aunt Niecey said, seeming oblivious to the exchange between Celeste and Azrael. “Son, you can burn, even if you got some hippie kitchen way
s.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Was meant as one,” she replied, chewing a mouthful of pancakes. “These are really good.”

  He set down a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in front of Aunt Niecey. “We’ll work our way up to green juices, how about that?”

  “Yeah, well,” Aunt Niecey protested, laughing. “You gonna have to work your way up a real hard row to hoe if you think I’ma be drinking no collard greens.”

  “She’s tough,” Azrael said, looking at Celeste and laughing. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Celeste replied, as the smile she’d been wearing widened.

  “Then come join us and have a seat.” Azrael turned back to the counter, then brought her a glass of the green juice that her aunt had rejected. “But since you didn’t place an earlier bet, you’ll have to abide by the cook’s rules and get something green in you first.”

  Celeste sat down laughing as her aunt let out a whoop and slapped the table. She couldn’t remember when she’d seen Aunt Niecey in such a good mood.

  “Tell me how nasty it is, chile, and don’t lie,” her aunt said, wrinkling her nose.

  Picking up the tall glass and scrutinizing it under the light for dramatic emphasis, Celeste took a deep sip, then drank down the entire glass. He’d obviously put something sweet in it to cut the pungent collards, and it tasted like thick apple juice with a bit of a bite to it. Celeste allowed the mixture to roll over her tongue, trying to figure out his recipe. “It’s really quite good. What did you put in it?”

  “Oooohhh, girl, you need to tell the truth and shame the devil! The only reason you drank it down so fast is to keep from hurting his feelings!” Aunt Niecey bent over where she sat and laughed hard. “But I can’t blame you, wit his handsome self.”

  “No . . . it really is good,” Celeste said, unable to stop laughing as her aunt took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “But what’s in it? Seriously.”

  “To answer your question, it’s got a little gingerroot, carrots, kale, a splash of lemon, apples for sweetness, and a little agave nectar, all of which will alkalize the pH in your blood and feed your cells better than most anything you eat,” Azrael said, feigning indignation, which only made the women laugh harder. He turned and folded his arms over his chest with a spatula still in his huge fist, giving them a good-natured glare with a half smile. “But I bet I’ll get no complaints on my pancakes, even from my toughest customer.”

  “None whatsoever,” Aunt Niecey said, still wiping her eyes and wheezing. “And even that crazy-sounding whipped topping is good. What’s it called, toe-hoo?”

  “Tofu, Auntie,” Celeste said, laughing harder.

  “Well, don’t blame me ’cuz the name is funny . . . but he’s right. He sweetened it up with some ole almond milk and coconut milk and syrup concoction and mixed it in that contraption, and now I can’t tell the difference from that and the real McCoy. Seems like a lot of work when you can jus’ buy whipped cream in the can and spray it on, although you didn’t hear that from me. But I still don’t see why I can’t have my butter on these, which would just take ’em to the moon. Still in all, the way Azrael fixed ’em is definitely all right by me.”

  “Good,” Azrael said in a fake huff, then turned back to the stove.

  Aunt Niecey bit her lip and waved him away as she composed herself. “My Roscoe did pretty good with breakfast . . . was a bacon-and-eggs man, though.”

  It was the second reference Celeste’s grandmother had made to some man named Roscoe. But the reference was totally confusing to Celeste, because she was almost certain that Roscoe was Aunt Phoebe’s first husband, who died in World War II.

  “Roscoe made you breakfast, Auntie?” Celeste asked, gently pushing at the edge of the subject.

  “Honey chile, Roscoe loved to wake me up with breakfast in bed . . . them were the days,” Aunt Niecey replied, beaming. “So, if you find you one who can make you good breakfast in bed, then you are double blessed,” she added, laughing.

  Shocked that her aunt had gone there, Celeste opened her mouth, closed it, then laughed. What had come over Aunt Niecey? “But...”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah . . . everybody said he was Phoebe’s husband, on account of the fact that I had to go down South to live with her for a summer.”

  Thoroughly confused, Celeste stared at her aunt. Generally when older black folks said a young girl had to go down South for a summer, it meant that she was pregnant and was sent South, back in the day, to hide her pregnancy. Then the girl came back north and resumed her life, and some older married relative “down home” kept the baby. Celeste tried to shake that out of her mind; that couldn’t have been what Aunt Niecey meant.

  Aunt Niecey took another bite of her pancakes and flipped through the yellowing photo album with a pleasant sigh. “Wasn’t like it is these days. Back then, if a young girl got in trouble, if’n you know what I mean, then they sent ya South. Then your aunt or some kin who’d never been showing suddenly had a brand-new baby—in my case your aunt Phoebe, who was a newlywed, had my twins down in North Carolina.” Aunt Niecey glanced at Azrael and then at Celeste. “That was the old-fashioned way of having what they now call a surrogate chile on TV.”

  Celeste didn’t move a muscle, much less breathe. Her aunt had never been so forthright in all the years she’d known her.

  Aunt Niecey laughed at her own joke and shook her head. “Me and Roscoe had been in love for months and had only got together for a few wonderful weeks before he got drafted and had to show up on the base. By the time I found out I was carrying, it was too late. He was already on his way overseas. I wrote him,” she said in a wistful tone. “He wrote me back and said he was gonna marry me, and I believed that he would have, too. In fact I know it. But he ain’t never had a chance to. War took ’im. But we had us some good times . . . and he loved to dance.”

  Celeste remained very still as Azrael brought a plate of topped pancakes to her. All these years she’d thought Aunt Niecey just claimed her sister’s children as her own, the way people often do when they dote on a close friend’s child that they love. They’d say, ‘Oh, you know that’s really my baby,’ all in jest and as a show of true devotion to the cherished child. That’s what she thought had gone on between her two aunts; she’d always thought Aunt Niecey had verbally claimed her sister’s grown children as her own out of deep devotion, never realizing that they were actually, biologically hers.

  Claiming other people’s children was like adhering a stamp of love on a child. It was the village approach, something old folks did in the community; a collective part of the old Southern way that lines of kin got verbally blurred when there was no line of demarcation due to love. To be claimed by many aunties and neighborhood church ladies was to be well loved. As a child in that embrace, you didn’t think about it; most times people couldn’t fully remember how all the so-called cousins were really related, whether by blood or not. You were just in the tribe, a part of the family equation. But in her family it was obviously deeper than that. A long-held secret was fraying at the seams.

  “So Cousin Baby and lil’ Roscoe are actually yours?” Celeste finally asked.

  “Yeah, and they my heart and soul,” her aunt Niecey said in a weary tone. “But they never forgave me for letting Phoebe raise ’em . . . so sometimes they don’t act very nice. Probably why they also get so mad at you sometimes, claiming I treat you better than I ever treated them. That ain’t your fault, though, and they’ve got no cause to blame you for anything. They full grown and you wasn’t even thought about when all this happened, baby. Your mama understood, though. She was my heart, too, my closest sister, and the only one in the family that would stick up for me. But I done turnt it over to my Jesus and I try my best to right the wrongs I’ve done through my grands.”

  “You did no wrong,” Azrael said quietly. “You were just a child yourself when all this began, and the era wasn’t kind to women. Not many in history were.”


  Aunt Niecey nodded. “You ain’t lying,” she murmured. “They treated you and your children like dirt if you didn’t have a ring on your finger. Wanted more than that for them. Only problem was, Phoebe resented having to take care of my twin babies, plus her own after she had them . . . she treated mine different, I later found out. Her husband didn’t want to take care of no twins that were put on him and made no bones about it. So your cousins got a lot of hurt to work out of their hearts. But I swore ’fo Jesus that if the shoe was ever on the other foot, I would love a child that was given to me like he or she was my very own. Then God tested me out on my promise and gave me you when your mama died. You were always my blessing, my second chance, sweet pea. So don’t you ever think for a moment that I ain’t love you true, ’cuz I did and I do.”

  Celeste stood and went over to her aunt and hugged her hard. “I know you did. I always felt like I was yours, and I love you like you’re my own mama. I hope you know that?”

  Aunt Niecey chuckled and petted Celeste’s back before drawing away. “I know that,” she murmured. “You, and my grands, are the only ones who loved me without fail. But don’t you go feeling sorry for this ole lady. I done lived me a full and blessed life. When my time comes, I ain’t worried. I’ma be laughing and put on my best dress and my high heels, and I’ma get young again when I cross those pearly gates to see my fiancé. This time, though,” she added with a little laugh, “I’ma make Roscoe marry me right away.”

  Celeste kissed her aunt and sat back down, catching a knowing look from Azrael. This was more family business that had to be set right so that she and her aunt could be at peace. Celeste also knew that somehow his presence had brought about the confession, although she didn’t know how he’d done it.

  She ate quietly, giving Azrael the thumbs-up as her aunt slowly paged through an ancient photo album that Celeste had never seen. Now all the stories made sense. All of the mythology around Aunt Niecey being so fiery and rattlesnake mean—Aunt Niecey with no children, who took in everybody else’s children and fed them, and disciplined them, and raised them up with tough love. This was the same Aunt Niecey whose heart had been broken into a thousand pieces during the war, the same one who never recovered from losing the love of her life and then losing her newborn children to a sister who didn’t want to take them in. No wonder her aunt was so quick to set people straight. It was also probably why she clung so hard to her Bible, the only mental-health recourse for poor people of her era.