Dark Genesis (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 1)

by Koboah, A D

  He seemed slightly amused. “I tell you these things because I want you to know what to do if you ever come across one of my kind. I also tell you because...well... There is still so much that I do not understand about why I saw you long before you were born, but for some reason I have been led to you and it seems as if nothing is closed to me where you are concerned.

  “For example beings like myself can only enter a person’s abode if they are invited in. But I was able to enter your cabin even though you were not there to do so. I do not have an explanation for any of it, but somehow, I know I am safe with you, Luna.”

  “I reckon you’s right.”

  Of course I would kill him if I had the chance. And if I did, this idiotically trusting creature would think he was safe with me even as I twisted the knife in his chest.

  He looked as if he was trying to suppress a smile as we sat in silence and although I wasn’t sure why he appeared to be amused, I smiled sweetly at him.

  He really did seem so harmless now and I felt confident that I had nothing to fear from him, least of all sexually. It wouldn’t surprise me if I learned that he wasn’t even able to perform that function. He was after all “not a man”, as he had instructed me never to forget.

  An ironic smile passed over his lips.

  “What’s so funny?”

  The smile disappeared and he quickly shook his head.

  “So do you want to continue or retire to sleep, Luna?”

  “I’s gonna go on up to bed now,” I said. “I can’t see straight no more.” I yawned again and stood up.

  “Until tomorrow evening then. Good night, Luna,” he said sadly.

  “Good night,” I said and left the room.

  It was a relief to be upstairs and away from him even though I got a small measure of comfort knowing that he was still downstairs in the drawing room. Being around this strange being was proving to be a very unsettling experience for me, especially since I found myself staring at him far too often and for far too long.

  Chapter Eleven

  So if you were wondering how an illiterate slave could write an account of her life, you now have the answer. The demon that had terrified me so, the same one I had seen slaughter three men in a matter of minutes, the very thing I thought was going to kill me, began teaching me how to read. And that is how the following nights passed by.

  Most of the time we sat in the drawing room but on other nights we sat outside on blankets under the gentle radiance of the night sky with three or four lamps creating a soft amber cloud around us.

  My mind, which had been idle for so long, ate up everything I was taught and I learned quickly. He would often leave a few hours before the sun rose, but I would continue to pore over everything he had showed me and spent hours writing out letters, and then words, until what I wrote came close to his elegant script. I spent as much of the day as I could spare learning the little tasks or homework he set. But if I wasn’t sleeping, the slow task of cleaning the many rooms of the mansion occupied my waking hours.

  My life had changed completely in a matter of days and for the first time my needs were not only met, they were made a priority. Hunger, which had been a sensation as familiar as the feel of the sun on my skin, was completely obliterated. And food of all varieties was so plentiful now that much of it was wasted. I fretted whenever I threw food away as I knew that nearly all the slaves on the plantation I had been rescued from would be going to sleep with the sharp ache of hunger in their stomachs. I was also clothed properly in brand new garments and had so many dresses, simple though they were, that I often felt guilty when choosing what to wear.

  After a short while I found that I didn’t like being awake during the day and was often restless and agitated during those hours. The fierce glare of the sunlight irritated me now and the sound of birdsong was far too shrill, unlike the almost hypnotic drone of the crickets after nightfall. Everything looked far too harsh without the moon or lamplight to cast soft shadows over them and I told myself that the reason I pined for nightfall was because at night I got to feed my mind, a mind that had been starved for far too long. At that stage, I couldn’t be honest with myself about why I would rush to the drawing room window at sunset or why I would sit outside watching with breathless anticipation as the sky began to darken, the shadows lengthening and deepening as night crept softly into view. Yes, on those days I waited and watched until he appeared. I would usually hear the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and then he would be at the drawing room door. Other times he would simply materialise wherever I was. But most of the time I would see him walking toward the house under a vermillion sky, whilst the sun, which looked like a golden fireball, dissolved into the horizon. And the part I looked forward to the most was that gentle, hopeful smile of his whenever he saw me waiting for him.

  I wish I could say I looked forward to nightfall and his presence merely because he taught me how to read, but it would be a lie if I did.

  At first I was slightly uncomfortable about the fact that he stared at me constantly. But I got used to him searching my face as if there was something hidden there for him to find. Sometimes he looked slightly puzzled as he watched me. Other times a whisper of a smile, so slight, would creep over his features. Sometimes he looked sad and at times I thought I saw anger as he studied me.

  Once I glanced up to see him looking at me as if I had said something to anger him and felt dread touch my heart for the first time since agreeing to stay at the mansion. Part of that instant prickle of anxiety was because my mind had been plagued that day with thoughts of life at the plantation, and in particular, the abuse and degradation I had suffered at Master John’s hands. And I worried that I had done something that would make the demon take me back to that nightmare.

  “Why you looking at me like that? Has I done something wrong?”

  He snapped out of his anger immediately.

  “No, Luna. I am sorry.” He frowned. “I was merely thinking about something I wish I had been able to prevent from happening.”

  When he looked up at me again, the frown had disappeared. “You could never do anything to make me angry,” he said and I was able to relax under the steady light of his gaze once more.

  I have to say that I began to not only enjoy the adoration I saw in his eyes whenever he looked at me, I began to crave it, and when he left in the early hours of the morning, it was as if I had been plunged into a deep dark hole.

  It may seem strange to you that I was able to adapt to being in the presence of an otherworldly being so quickly and even come to crave his presence, but you have to understand that I was used to being noticed because of my beauty and of being an object of lust. But I had never been the object of the kind of adoration I received in the company of the creature, nor have I experienced it from another living being since.

  Being under the gentle reverence of his gaze was like a balm to my battered, tortured soul. And what was more, I felt a sort of kinship with him as I recognised a slave’s broken spirit when I saw one. Whilst I was bound by my white Master, this creature was bound by the need for blood that compelled him to kill and so I no longer saw him as something other to me. It didn’t occur to me then, but I realise now that it was much deeper than that for we had a connection to each other that denied any kind of rational explanation.

  I didn’t start to have misgivings about my decision to stay with the demon until the end of that first week. Still flattered by his devotion in ensuring that all my needs were met and in an effort to see how far he would go, I had mentioned the apple tree behind the chapel on the plantation and how those apples were probably the sweetest in the whole of Mississippi. You can’t imagine the warm glow that melted through me when I came downstairs the next morning and found a basket of those apples waiting for me.

  There was nothing that he wouldn’t do for me, I thought to myself as I wrapped my fingers around one of the apples, remembering with longing the time I had placed one in Mama Akosua’s hand and held it be
tween us. It was hard to believe that I had ever thought he meant me harm, as I was so sure now that he would rather die than hurt me.

  And maybe because my thoughts were, to a degree, on Mama Akosua as I brought the apple to my face and inhaled it, I heard her voice clearly in my head.

  Be careful, my child. I fear your vanity blinds you.

  “Mama?”

  I dropped the apple. Tears immediately sprung to my eyes and the longing grew into a fierce ache at the sound of her voice.

  He will not kill you, no. But there are worse things than death. Remember that.

  Closing my eyes, I pressed a hand to my chest and tried to concentrate.

  Mama, can you hear me? I’m all right. He won’t hurt me. I’m all right, Mama. I’m...

  I opened my eyes with a start, thinking about what I had been about to say. I’m happy. Was that really how I felt?

  I listened and tried to concentrate, but if she had been there, she was gone now, and I had no way of knowing if she had heard me.

  Her words however, lingered that day like the smell of rain in the air before a storm.

  That night, he looked harmless as always as he sat on a chair a few feet away whilst I copied out lines of script. When I looked up at him he immediately lowered his gaze and began following the path of a spider as it scurried along one of the books that lay across the table.

  I groaned inwardly at the sight of the spider. This house seemed to be a veritable playground for them. They were everywhere and I had lost count of how many I had killed over the last few days. As the spider inched nearer to the paper I wrote on, I moved my hand closer to one of the books, ready to slam it on top of the spider when it got close enough. But before I could do anything, the demon cupped the creature in his hands and took it over to the window, where he released it on the sill.

  I continued to write, but my mind was elsewhere. Glancing at that impossibly beautiful face, half-turned toward the open window, I asked myself if all I saw in his actions and countenance could possibly be a lie, an elaborate deception. There was also the issue of the form he had taken. I had to admit that I was captivated by the beauty he wore and maybe that made it hard to see the truth about his intentions toward me.

  If I was to stay here, I had to free myself from the deception that was the handsome man and see this being in his true form.

  “Demon,” I said somewhat imperiously, and tried to ignore the swell of anxiety I felt as I swivelled around in my chair to face him. “I wants to see what you really looks like.”

  I braced myself for the horns, scales, or whatever it was that I would soon see, and promised myself I wouldn’t scream or show repulsion in any way.

  When he turned from the window he was smiling slightly, as if I had amused him.

  “I do have a name,” he said. But then sorrow passed over his face. “Or at least I used to.”

  He faced the window again, seemingly wrestling with some private pain.

  “Then go on and tell me this name,” I said.

  At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer me.

  “Avery,” he said finally. “My name was...is Avery Wentworth.”

  Avery Wentworth.

  I don’t know why I never thought to ask him his name before. I said it a few times in my head while he stood brooding by the window and if I’m honest, I was actually disappointed. Avery wasn’t exactly the kind of name you would expect a demon to have.

  “And what you see is my true form,” he said whilst I was still toying with the sound of his name.

  I gaped at him.

  “That...that can’t be,” I said.

  There was no way that what I was looking at could be real. It was too perfect.

  “It is real,” he said and moved to the fireplace where he stood with one arm on the mantelpiece.

  “You lying. You...you hiding what you really looks like ’cause you don’t wants me to be scared of you,” I said.

  “If that were the case, do you think I would have chosen the form you fear and abhor the most? That of a white man?”

  Of course I had no answer for him. But how could what I was seeing be his true form?

  “This is what I looked like when I was a man. When the change...” He closed his eyes as if to shut away some horrendous memory, and when he opened them again he looked so sad that I felt a pang of sympathy for him. “When the magic was worked on me, it froze me at the age I was at the time and this is the way I have stayed for the past few decades.”

  “You was a man?” This was not what I was expecting to hear at all. “When? How long you be this way? And what happened to make you what you is?”

  Silence pervaded the room for the longest time and when he finally spoke, he was looking off into the distance as if he could actually see his past human self. A range of human emotions quickly passed over his features. Anger, disbelief, and most of all, intense longing.

  “I was born in England in 1730. A few years after I completed my formal education I was ordained a priest and served as a vicar in my local parish. I came to the Americas with my new wife in 1757 when I was offered the opportunity to start a parish in Mississippi. But we soon came to see that the chapel I was asked to take over was a pretence for something evil. There were three of them. They ravaged my body and stole my soul, turning me into what you see now.”

  “You was a priest? What happened to your wife? And the three you be talking about, where is they now?”

  He moved away from the fireplace, moving much faster than a man was supposed to move, his form a blur of green and beige clothing. I guessed that in his agitation he had lost a measure of the control he used to mimic human behaviour. He regained it fairly quickly and when he sat down his movements were normal again.

  “I do not remember,” he said quickly.

  “Sure you do. You just don’t wants me to know.”

  He gestured to the piece of paper on the table in front of me. “Show me what you have done?”

  “You know how come the chapel got burned down?”

  It seemed that question was more than he could bear. His mouth became a hard line and the agony in his eyes flared into burning blue pools.

  “Do not ask me anymore, Luna. I want to see what you have done.”

  I had only spent a week in his company but I wasn’t used to having him deny me anything. And it wasn’t something I intended to let become a habit.

  “Tell me, now,” I said with steel in my voice.

  “No.”

  “If you ain’t gonna tell me then...then you better go on and take me back home right now!”

  He looked up in alarm. He appeared to be so shaken by my words that I almost felt bad. It was cruel to threaten him like that, but a part of me was also overjoyed at the power I wielded over such a powerful being, leaving him as defenceless as a lamb in my presence.

  He studied me in that way he had of doing and in those few seconds he managed to control some of his alarm.

  “You...you should not toy with me so, Luna. I know you do not want to go back to the plantation, so do not ask me to take you there.”

  “You’s right. I don’t wants to go back and be worked from sunup till sundown like some mule. But it don’t mean I wants to stay here with you neither. Especially if you gonna keep things from me.”

  He remained silent, lost in his thoughts. I decided to press him further.

  “This where you’s living with your wife?”

  “No. This is not my house.”

  “This ain’t your house? Whose is it then?”

  “It belonged to an old woman. She lived in this crumbling house with two Negroes until I came across her one night.”

  As he spoke I began to feel apprehensive, first at the knowledge that this mansion, which I had come to love, was not his, and also at what I knew was coming.

  “Don’t tell me you done killed her?”

  “Yes, I did,” he answered simply, and I wished, not for the first time, that he would lie sometim
es to spare me from the gruesome details of what he was and did in order to stay alive.

  “She died quickly, Luna. I did not let her suffer.”

  “That don’t mean nothing, Avery!”

  “Luna, I do not make excuses for what I do to sustain myself. But of all the lives I have taken, that one haunts me the least. You see, her family fell into disgrace a long time ago. Her father was a lawyer who at first delighted in being able to acquire the free labour of slaves to build his fortune. But he soon saw that keeping his fellow man in bondage was a sin and began to educate his slaves so that he could eventually grant them, not only their freedom, but also a way in which to earn a living. As you can imagine, this did not fare well with the rest of the community. The family were ostracised and she lost any chance of gaining a husband. They fell into ruin and in the end she was left with only two Negroes who stayed and cared for her out of loyalty to her father. His decision ruined her life. She was old and her days were filled with thoughts of hatred, not only for him, but for the Negroes who cared for her out of pity. She knew death was prowling the night I came to this mansion, but she invited me in. She wanted to die, Luna. And I made sure her last moments were filled with pleasant thoughts. She did not suffer.”

  “Why in God’s name you done told me all that?” I asked, picking up a pile of books and slamming them down on the table.

  I was heartbroken because I had come to love the mansion mainly because it seemed to embody him in so many ways. Now it was only a house. An old, musty house belonging to some dead white woman.

  “Luna, you know I do not want to be what I am. But I cannot help what it is I must do to survive.”

  “I don’t care! How you expect me to stay in this here house when you done killed somebody in it.”

  He looked ashamed for a moment but when he spoke there was an air of impatience in his tone.