Dark Genesis (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 1)

by Koboah, A D

  “You’s hopeless, Avery,” I remarked, marvelling at his inability to stay angry with me for long. “If I really be looking to shoots you, I’s at least wait for you to teach me how to use the gun first.”

  He laughed. “I suppose that does make sense. I had better get the other one. But before I do, you must promise that—”

  “Avery!” I cried but saw that he was merely teasing me.

  Avery spent that night showing me how to use the gun and a few hours before the sun came up, he decided to teach me how to ride Julia. At first I didn’t want to go anywhere near that horrible creature, but from the moment he helped me up onto the horse, I felt completely at home. He spent a couple of hours showing me what to do, leading the horse in a walk and then allowing me to progress into a trot on my own whilst he stood back and watched. Already enjoying my first horse riding lesson and wanting to go faster, I tried to squeeze the horse gently with my lower legs in order to encourage her to go a little bit faster, but ended up kicking with my heels instead, which made her shoot forward. Not knowing how to slow down and not particularly wanting to, I kicked with my heels again and before I knew it we were galloping through the night. I held on tight, terrified but exhilarated and a giggle escaped me, followed by a scream of pure joy. The speed, the feel of the wind sweeping past me, the thrill of being in control of such a powerful animal was pure euphoria, and I knew this was what it felt like to be free, really free.

  “Luna, stop! That is too fast.”

  He had appeared to my right but we sped past him as I urged the horse to go faster. But all too soon he reappeared a few yards ahead and I knew he was controlling the animal because she started to slow down and came to a stop a foot away from an extremely angry Avery.

  This time his tirade was longer and far more heated than the last and ended with him stalking off saying that if I was this determined to kill myself, he saw no reason to stand in my way. I was laughing so hard by that time that I fell off the horse into a heap on the floor, still struggling to control my laughter. He was kneeling at my side in an instant, his anger replaced by concern and intense remorse, which only made me laugh harder.

  Poor Avery. I abused and wore out his patience on those nights as he taught me how to ride and shoot. He threatened to stop those lessons on more than one occasion but he could never quite bring himself to carry out his threats. So as well as teaching me how to read, he taught me how to ride and shoot better than most men. He often said he regretted teaching me such dangerous pastimes, as I seemed determined to injure myself. But in the end, when our lives were threatened, those lessons would be our only hope for survival.

  Chapter Sixteen

  And so the days slowly turned into weeks, the happiest of my life. I spent a lot of those long, warm nights with Avery, often sitting on a blanket amongst the sweet perfume of the Queen Anne’s lace. I ate up everything he taught until, at last, I was able to read small sections of the Bible out loud to him whilst he sat watching me like a proud parent. If I struggled with a word, he waited patiently for me to tease it out on my own and the smile that lit up his face when I finally managed it always made my breath catch and it would be a few moments before I was able to continue.

  Avery also continued to teach me how to shoot and ride and, after some persuasion, he let me ride off into the night on my own. Once he was out of sight, I would recklessly urge Julia on as fast as she could go, thrilled by the speed and the feeling of freedom. It was always a magical moment and felt as if I were shedding my skin and becoming one with everything around me. Out in the empty countryside, with only the moon looking down on me, I could pretend I was invincible and laugh into the rushing wind as I sped on to nowhere under a boundless starlit sky. But I was never completely alone for Avery was always nearby. I would often catch reassuring glimpses of him out of the corner of my eye and no matter how far from the mansion I rode or eventually found myself, he would always be waiting for me, relief in the weary little smile he gave when I dismounted and let him take me and then Julia back to the mansion.

  On some of those nights we took long walks under the loving magnificence of the moon. Sometimes we would talk for hours but at other times we merely walked in silent reverence for the beauty all around us. I was able to find out little bits of information about his past life during those walks and discovered that he had been the one who had started the fire at the chapel and then fled, without knowing whether or not the other demons had survived. He also told me that he first saw me “as if in a dream”, as he put it, immediately after he was turned into a demon and kept on seeing my image over the years. But most of all he spoke of the many, many years alone in a wilderness of despair at what he, a God-fearing man, had been turned into: a creature that was perhaps on a par with the devil himself. My heart cried out for him when he told me those things and I desperately wished I could have been there to comfort him during his travails. I was also eternally grateful that he had eventually found me.

  I was a different woman during those weeks, the lowly slave whose every moment had been dogged by fear now a phantom of the past I barely acknowledged. I felt vibrant, fearless and most of all, loved. Loved. And there was nothing in this world that was closed to me now, so long as Avery was by my side.

  I should have thought more about those I had left behind, particularly Mama. But I was selfish in my newfound love. You see, love and happiness had previously been as unreachable to me as the sky. So now that I had been given those things, I was selfish with them and left no room for thoughts of anything else. And in the grip of that all-consuming fixation, like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and sealed my long fall back to Earth.

  The first signs I had of the threat to our happiness were the dreams. In those dreams I was always at the chapel and although I could never remember the content when I awoke, I always had the sense of some malevolent terror, an insatiable evil lurking in the darkness waiting for a chance to devour. I sometimes felt that presence during the day and found it hard to sleep especially since Avery’s absence was already like a festering wound.

  On one of those days, nearly a month after Avery took me away, I was alone in the kitchen having been frightened out of an uneasy sleep by another of those dreams, the third one in a row. Already brooding over Avery’s daytime absence, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something watching me, something that hated me and wanted to see me bathed in blood.

  At that moment there was a loud thump at the kitchen door that had me scrambling to my feet. Trying to control my terror, I hurried to the kitchen window and peered out in time to see Julia rear up on her hind legs and bring her front hooves crashing down on the kitchen door again.

  I sighed in exasperation. God only knows why I had promised to look after that stupid nag for Avery. I made sure she was fed, had fresh, clean water to drink and even spent a lot of time grooming her so that when Avery arrived at dusk her coat was gleaming. But it still didn’t stop the dumb beast from tormenting me and doing things like getting a hold of my skirt between her teeth and dragging me backwards until I cried out for a laughing Avery to help me.

  “Stop that now!” I cried as I leant out of the window. I wondered how the hell she had even managed to get out of the stables.

  I quickly ducked back when she came toward me. Then she stood at the window neighing and shook her head at me as if in agitation.

  This was just my luck, I thought as I backed away from the kitchen window in fright. The horse had gone mad and Avery was too far away to come to my rescue. Julia looked at me in that menacing way she had and then trotted away. Relieved, I crept warily to the window to see where she had gone, gasped when I saw what she was doing, and ran out of the kitchen into the wilting afternoon heat.

  “You dumb beast! Stop that now! I says stop it!”

  She ignored me completely and continued trying to pull the clothes I had hung out to dry off the clothesline with her teeth. She yanked so hard the line snapped and fell to the ground along w
ith the clothes I had washed that morning. I ran up to her and grabbed the other end of the trousers she still had in her mouth and pulled, surprised when she let it go.

  “You know how long it took to wash them clothes? Stupid, stupid horse!” I cried and swiped at her with the trousers. She backed away and trotted toward the trees at the back of the house, then stopped and turned to look back at me.

  Realising what this behaviour was about, I dropped the trousers and walked over to her.

  “So you misses him too, huh?” I said, resting my head on her neck.

  She neighed again and walked forward a few steps and then looked at me again.

  “All right, Julia. Let’s go find him.”

  ***

  She took me to the lake in which I had found Avery that day. He wasn’t in the water this time but I could sense him nearby, so I let Julia wander off whilst I looked out over the water which stretched out like blue glass in the drowsy afternoon heat.

  There was no one around, save Avery, but he wasn’t likely to make an appearance whilst the sun was up, so I stripped off to my underclothes and waded into the clear crisp water. Having never learned how to swim, I couldn’t go out as far as I would have liked to but the cool water, the stillness all around me, and Avery’s presence nearby gradually began to calm me down, so that by the time I came out of the water, I had left behind the sense of foreboding caused by the nightmares.

  I put my dress back on over my wet undergarments, leaving it undone at the back as I stood in the shade of the trees and looked out across the lake.

  All at once I had the sensation I used to have as a child whenever I knew Mama was on her way home, but this time it was much stronger. In my mind’s eye I saw Avery standing a few feet behind me, reaching out a hand toward the bare skin exposed by the undone dress. I turned my head slowly and there he was, his hand hovering only inches from my back, his gaze troubled as he studied the bare flesh. He brought his eyes up to meet mine and slowly withdrew his hand.

  “Avery? What you doing out in the day?” I asked and noticed that he was a lot paler than usual and that there were dark circles under his eyes. “You all right? You look sick.”

  “It is only the sunlight.” He glanced ruefully up at the sky through the canopy of leaves.

  “Then what you doing out here?”

  “I felt you nearby and I suppose I did not want to wait until dusk to see you. The sun will go down in a little over two hours. I have stayed out a lot longer during the day without too many ill effects.”

  I still had my back to him and I noticed that he kept glancing at it as he spoke. Feeling self-conscious, I looked away and began to fasten my dress.

  “All that happened a long time ago, Avery,” I said when my back was covered.

  “It...it’s just that I have only seen the whipping through your eyes so it was a shock to see your back marked in that way.”

  I sat down on the grass and he joined me.

  I had never seen the scars on my back but I imagined that the puckered, twisted flesh must have been a repulsive sight. He was lost in thought as he looked out over the water and although it scared me to see him looking so unwell, this was the first time I had seen his face clearly in the brilliance of daylight and his beauty took my breath away. When he faced me, I lowered my gaze quickly, slightly embarrassed at being caught admiring him so openly.

  “Luna, when I used to look into your thoughts, I noticed that the ones of your child and the whipping did not come to the surface often. Why is that?”

  “Somebody who don’t like talking about they past shouldn’t be too quick to get in everybody else’s business, Avery!”

  The silence stretched on until I finally had the courage to meet his gaze. He was looking at me in that gentle, patient way he had, which spoke of his total and unconditional devotion and I was ashamed, not only of the way I had snapped at him, but of what I was about to say.

  “It...it’s cause I hated her. I hated her, so I told Mama to take her away so’s I never has to lay eyes on her. She be dead now for all I know and that makes me happy, Avery. It makes me happy.”

  “Yes, I saw your conflicting emotions when I came across the memory, but like so much that I heard and saw in your mind, I did not understand the reason for it. Tell me. Why do you think you hate her?”

  “Cause she be his!”

  “No, Luna. She is yours,” he said simply.

  “No, she ain’t. She be his. His child, his slave. His blood and mines runs through her, tying me to him and what he did and kept on doing for years. Us! Forever, in her. How can I loves something that be made from his unnatural lust for the child I was when he got at me in the woods that day?”

  He only looked at me thoughtfully as if he were still trying to understand, and that careful scrutiny in place of the condemnation I was expecting made me look away.

  “Mary be thinking I ask Mama to take the child away cause I ain’t want Massa Henry to get his hands on her. Child of his or no, we knowed he woulda done the same thing to her the minute she be old enough to walk. But Mama knew. Mama knew I hated the child and she done never forgive me for that. I see it in her eyes and...and I expect it be the reason she done never told me what she did with her.”

  “I have looked into your mother’s mind. She does not hate you for it. She is merely angry at what she sees as weakness in you for not wanting your own child.”

  It hurt to hear that and not for the first time I wished Avery was like most human beings who would have lied and said what they thought would make me feel better.

  “Letting your guilt and shame run its course is her way of punishing you,” he continued. “So she will not tell you unless you ask.”

  I shook my head slowly and wondered how Mama could know so much about my character even though she rarely saw me. My guilt and shame had been tormenting me. I could see that now and it was a fitting punishment, much worse than the feel of the lash across my back.

  “I have seen your mother’s memory of that night,” he continued. “And I know what happened to your baby. But do you want to know?”

  I was quiet for the longest time and he gave me the space to make up my mind as I struggled with the hate and repulsion I felt for the thing I had heard take its first breath in my tiny little cabin. I could not look at Avery when I answered.

  “Yes,” I mumbled. “Yes, I does.”

  “She gave her to a family of runaways she had been giving food and medicine to. They were the reason she did as you asked and took the child away. She knew that they would agree to take her with them up north and raise her as their own.”

  “So she be alive? And...and free?”

  “I do not know those answers, Luna. But your mother seems to think she is alive. She would know if anything happened to her, as she knows whenever you need her.”

  To my surprise, I began to cry, silently at first, and then the dam broke and I was almost choking on my tears as they ran wild and free. It felt as if a great many chains had been lifted from my soul and I wept in relief for her, for my daughter, and the fact that she had been given a chance at a bondage-free life. I also wept for myself and the sweet freedom this knowledge had granted me.

  When Avery realised the tears were cathartic, he relaxed and let me be.

  “What her name be?” I asked when I could speak again.

  “I do not know. There was no time for your mother to think about naming the baby. And no way for her to find anything out about her either. She told the family that they should never try and come back or contact her in any way because if Master Henry ever found out who the child was, he could claim her back as a runaway.”

  I nodded slowly. Yes, as sick as he now was, he would still move Heaven and Earth to retrieve his property if he ever found out where she was.

  “But I will find her for you one day, Luna. I promise you that.”

  “And what good that do her?” I asked, on the verge of more tears. “She be better off not knowing nothing
about me. I’s happy she ain’t dead, but I still hates her. And I expects I always will.”

  “You think you hate her because you never saw her, Luna. If you had seen her, you would not feel as you do now. Yes, there were elements of Master Henry in her features but it was mostly you I saw through your mother’s memory of her. She was beautiful. You will see. When you are able to lay eyes on her for yourself one day, you will see that you could never hate such a beautiful little thing.”

  We sat side by side in silence for the rest of the afternoon, looking out across the lake as the day yawned and the sun began to set.

  It was only then that Avery stood up and, with one last glance at the sky, held out his hand to me, forgetting as he did from time to time the careful distance he placed between us physically. He remembered, however, and was in the process of withdrawing his hand when I reached up and grasped it. He looked stunned for a moment and stared in awe at my hand in his before he helped me to my feet.

  He held onto my hand as we walked away from the lake, and kept finding reasons to take it again over the course of the next few nights, an expression of such sweet joy and hope in his eyes whenever I gladly entwined my fingers in his.

  But the sense of foreboding that had been plaguing me for the last few days came back stronger than before when we returned to the mansion that evening. When we stepped inside, Avery stopped at the doorway and looked out into the gathering night with an air of apprehension. He insisted that we stay indoors that evening, something we rarely did on such warm, balmy nights, but for once, I didn’t argue. He was distracted, and kept going to the window to peer outside, his expression more troubled every time he did so. I wasn’t surprised when he left a few hours earlier than normal that night, and he looked anxious at the thought of leaving me on my own.

  Yes, he could feel it too. But even though I could sense that danger would soon be reaching out for us, when I went to bed that morning all I could think about was the feel of my warm hand in Avery’s cool one, and when I fell asleep I had nothing but sweet dreams of us walking hand in hand in our very own Garden of Eden.