by Koboah, A D
She got to her feet and disappeared behind a large bush where she started thrashing around with something large and heavy, occasionally cursing in frustration. I was more curious than fearful of her presence at this stage but I reached for the gun anyway and held it against my side, hidden by my skirt. I didn’t want to have to hurt anyone, but if she forced me to, I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her.
After a moment she poked her head out from behind the bush, her hair littered with leaves and twigs.
“Well, ain’t you gonna help?” she asked curtly.
When she received no answer, she rolled her eyes and, with great effort, managed to pull a wheelbarrow partway out from behind the bush. The rest of it was obviously stuck.
“What you doing with that?” I asked.
“What you think I’s doing with it? How else you reckon I’s gonna get your demon out that chapel?” She let it go with a huff and wiped the sweat from her brow.
“How dumb do you think I is? You’s hell bent on seeing me dead just a month ago and now you wants to help me?”
My voice was soft but there was no denying the menace in my tone. She chose to ignore it, however, and put her hands on her hips, her chin tilted up in defiance.
“Yes, and I’s feeling bad about that all month, so quit going on about it. I has my reasons for helping so put that gun away. You know you ain’t gonna use it.”
“You sure about that now, Zila?”
She looked slightly taken aback at that and appraised me as if she were really seeing me for the first time. When she spoke again, her tone was slightly less belligerent than before.
“I says I’s here to help.”
I looked thoughtfully at her. My sixth sense was telling me I could trust Zila. In fact it was allowing me to see her as she really was, another lost soul grasping at love and the small moments of happiness that it could offer. Unfortunately for her, her heart would always be with Master John, and although I would never be able to fathom how she could love a man like him, I understood her for the first time that day too. Even so, could I really afford to trust her when there was so much at stake?
“I don’t be needing your help, Zila.”
“Oh, is that right?” She pulled a bolt cutter out of the wheelbarrow. “So how you reckon you gonna get them chains off it? You think you gonna bat your eyelashes and them chains just fall right off, huh?”
She dropped the bolt cutter back into the wheelbarrow.
She had a point. I hadn’t really thought any of this through, but she obviously had. “All right. You can help. But I swear, you better not do nothing to—”
“Just stop your cussing and help me with this!”
“Why is you really helping me, Zila?” I asked as I joined her in tugging at the wheelbarrow.
“Let’s just say that life be a whole lot better when you ain’t here. So if I has to save that thing to get shot of you, then that’s what I’s gonna do.”
We managed to free the wheelbarrow, and, after taking a few moments to catch her breath, Zila absentmindedly patted Julia, who had been nudging her playfully.
“There’s something mighty unusual about this horse. Where you get it?” she asked as she took hold of Julia’s reins.
“It his horse,” I mumbled.
Zila grew still and she eyed Julia apprehensively before taking a few steps away from her. “His horse? It drink blood too?”
“No! It be just a horse, Zila.”
She didn’t look as if she completely believed me but she took hold of Julia’s reins again. “All right. We’s going that way. I told Johnson to tell them mens guarding the demon that Master John be wanting them back up at the main house. So they be gone by the time we gets to the chapel. Now get the wheelbarrow.”
Typical of her to leave me with the cumbersome wheelbarrow, I thought, but didn’t complain as I followed her through the woods.
“Tell me something. How come you loves him?” I asked.
She quickly spun around and glared at me. “You a witch just like your mama if you know that.”
“You know what kind of a man he be and what he can do,” I continued. “So how come you loves him?”
“How come you loves that...that, whatever it is?”
“I loves him cause he be worthy. Can you say the same about Massa?”
“Just hurry up with that wheelbarrow,” she flung back at me.
“You know he gonna kill you if he finds out what you done.”
“He ain’t!” she retorted, but she didn’t sound so sure. After a few seconds of silence she spoke again. “Another reason I’s helping is so’s you’ll make your demon leave him alone. Tell it not to kill him and make it stop hounding him with them dreams.” She rounded on me when I didn’t answer. “And don’t tell me he ain’t the one doing that cause who else can it be?”
“I can try,” I replied.
We stopped close to the chapel and Zila went ahead to make sure that there was no one there. I hid with Julia and the wheelbarrow as far away from the trail as I could. It was midday now and I kept glancing up at the sun through the leaves, feeling the noose tighten as I waited for Zila to return. I was beginning to think that something had gone wrong or that maybe she had deceived me, when I saw her hurrying back through the trees.
Looking around anxiously, she took Julia by the reins again.
“Come on, let’s go. Hurry up and quit making so much damn noise with that thing. You want the whole plantation to know we’s down here?”
I directed an icy stare at her back and chose not to point out that with the amount of noise she was making shouting at me, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could be heard all the way over at the Marshall plantation.
At last we got to the clearing and although the aura of evil was even stronger now and stirring restlessly like a caged tiger, I barely noticed it in my haste to get to Avery. Zila led Julia around the back toward the stream whilst I entered the chapel with the wheelbarrow.
Suddenly infused with the strength and speed that Zila had obviously thought necessary in the woods, I raced down the aisle with the wheelbarrow.
He was lying on his back on the floor by the altar, the heavy silver chains still wrapped around his chest.
“Avery?”
He looked thinner somehow, as if he was shrinking inside his clothes and there was no colour to him at all or any sign that he was still alive.
Nearly choking on my fear, I grabbed the bolt cutter and started to try and cut the lock on the chain but my hands were shaking and I could barely hold onto it. Zila came in through the back door and grabbed the bolt cutter out of my hands.
“God, Luna! Don’t you know how to do nothing?” she snapped as she pushed me aside.
I stood and took a step back, feeling as if all the air was being sucked out of me as she cut the padlock and pulled away the silver chains. I hoped he would wake up or at least give some sign that he was still alive, but he only lay there looking like a week-old corpse.
I put my hand to my mouth and couldn’t help the sob that escaped me. It was like I was caught in that never-ending fall again, plummeting lower and lower into despair, and there was nothing I could do to end this torment.
“We’s too late, he dead.”
“You stop that now!” Zila exclaimed. Her tone was sharp but when she looked up at me, her eyes were calm and sympathetic. “We ain’t gonna know that till it gets dark. Now get the blanket. We needs to get him covered.”
Her words cut through my panic and, wiping away my tears, I got the blanket out of the wheelbarrow along with the ropes she had brought along.
“My, he sure is handsome.” She was gazing at him in awe and gently brushing the hair out of his face. “The devils is always the handsome ones.”
I ignored the sharp pang of jealousy that touched my heart at the sight of another woman touching him so tenderly, and with her help, set to wrapping a cold, lifeless Avery up in the blanket.
I wept silently as we covered him,
expecting a sharp retort from Zila at my tears, but she was strangely silent. I could sense absolutely nothing from Avery, not even a hint of the tantalising melody that had grasped my heart, and I lost all hope, for I was sure he was dead.
When it came for me to cover his face, I hesitated, feeling as if I were closing the lid on a casket. After a long agonising moment, I kissed him on the lips, noting how cold and hard they were now, and then covered his face securely with the blanket.
“I’s gonna take his legs, you take his arms,” Zila said, placing herself at his feet.
“You’re not taking it anywhere!”
We both jumped up at the sound of that familiar voice.
Mama.
She was blocking the chapel door with Jupiter. We had been so busy tending to Avery that we hadn’t heard them enter. The battle I had feared ever since Avery told me that Mama was looking for us had finally arrived.
I wiped away my tears as she walked up the aisle toward us. Zila slunk away from Avery and tried to edge slowly to the back door.
“You!” Mama pointed to her. “Stay where you are. I am not finished with you.”
“Stay out of this, Mama!” I said.
“I knew it!” She was furious.
Her face twisted itself into an ugly mask of raw rage. But I could sense that this was much more than just anger and I didn’t like it.
It was the evil that resided here. Its presence in the chapel was like a noxious vapour invading my senses and intensifying the powerlessness I felt at seeing Avery in such a lifeless state.
“Did you think you could deceive me?” she continued, caught in the grip of its soulless hatred. “You! A puppet dangling from the strings it pulled. Stand aside, now!”
“You gonna have to kill me first before I lets you touch him!”
“Do you dare to challenge me? Foolish girl! I will slit your throat and wash the ground with your blood before I let you take that demon away!”
“Mama Akosua, please, stop this,” Jupiter cried, as he came between us.
He had been wearing an expression of resigned dismay when he’d entered the chapel and saw us trying to rescue Avery, but now he was clearly frightened. He tried to pull Mama away by her arm but I closed the space between us so my face was only inches from hers, my own anger flaring like lightning ripping through the sky.
“I done told you to make it go away!” I hissed, taking hold of her chin. “Look at me, Mama. I know it ain’t you talking, so make it go away.”
At first her eyes were dark, blank holes, the rage slithering within their depths. But like a mist slowly lifting, I saw her true self begin to return and I released her chin.
“What...what did I say?” She blinked uncertainly and looked to Jupiter, who exhaled in relief but was still tense, anxiety in his deep brown eyes.
“You says you’d kill me, Mama. But it be that spirit talking.”
She gasped, disbelief tightening her face, but then comprehension and shame descended upon her.
“It is stronger here,” she said and took a step back. She looked as if she wanted to run as far away from the chapel as she could. But then her gaze fell on Avery’s body and she hardened again. “But I mean what I say. I will not let that demon have you.”
“It ain’t your choice to make, Mama.”
“What lies has that thing been filling your mind with? It may have the face of an angel and it may pretend to be something else with those clothes. But it is evil. Evil, Luna. I will not let you give yourself over to evil, so step aside and let me finish this.”
“He ain’t evil, Mama, so don’t be calling him that!”
“It kills to keep a life that no longer belongs to it. It is evil and I will not let it live!”
I was about to say more but found that I couldn’t speak. I was standing here fighting a losing battle with Mama whilst Avery lay dying a few feet away, assuming that he was even still alive. The self-belief I had carried through the woods up to this point swiftly deserted me and I was left feeling helpless. It had been stupid of me to believe myself capable of doing something this daring. But I couldn’t give up, even though I knew I could never win in a battle against Mama. She was too strong.
Then I thought about Avery and how easy it had been for him to get me to do anything he’d wanted, with just a single word or a look. He hadn’t ever tried to meet my anger with fire. His way had always been one of love and tenderness, and I decided that might be the only chance I had of winning this battle.
“Please, Mama, listen. Just listen. He a slave too. He a man once and he had that took away from him just like us. And even then we remembers who we is cause we has each other. But he all by hisself and he forget who he be, but he knows now. He knows now cause I helped him remember, Mama. So please, you can’t kill him.”
“You do not know what you are talking about. It has filled your head with lies. Lies! I will not let you give your life to it!”
“So you gonna let them demons on this plantation has me instead? Cause you know Massa John ain’t never gonna let me go.”
She couldn’t answer or even look at me.
“I’s alone with what you calls a demon for a month, Mama. And I’s safe. I’s safe with him, Mama, safe. How many of these white mens could you leave me with and know that I’s safe?”
She was floundering, weakening.
“But...but if I let it have you, you will be lost to me forever. I cannot let that happen.”
“Oh, Mama. I was lost to you. I done died on the inside when they took you from me. But I remembers now. I remember them years and everything you taught me. He helped me remember and I ain’t never be lost to you again. But you has to let me do this cause I ain’t gonna let him die. He need me, Mama. You has to let me help him.”
I wept as I spoke and at first I thought I had failed and would never get through to Mama. But something within her seemed to stir at my last few words and she stared at me intently, as though some missing link in a long chain had finally been restored.
She was calm, almost serene when she spoke again. “You do not have to do anything to earn my devotion.” I knew she was referring to my thoughts that night when I’d ridden away from the plantation with Jupiter and Father Geoffrey, thinking I would never see her again. “It is your birthright, the only thing I can give to you and it will be yours always. In life and in death.”
I felt like that little girl again, the one who had sensed her mother returning home and had run down the hill to wait by the trees until the love of her life appeared to bless her day with a smile. Leaning closer, I pressed my forehead against hers as we used to do when I was a child.
“In life and death,” I repeated.
“Jupiter. Help them take him outside,” Mama said when I pulled away.
At first he didn’t move. Then, lowering his head, he walked over to Avery.
“It... He is not dead yet,” Mama continued. “But you must hurry because Massa John will soon be here.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Outside, the scorching noonday sun beat down on us as Jupiter, with our help, placed Avery on his stomach with his arms and legs dangling over the sides of the horse. He then tied him to it as securely as he could and fastened to the saddle the spade that Zila had brought.
When I made to mount the horse, he stopped me. “No, Sister Luna. I will take him away from here.”
When I faced him he immediately lowered his gaze and on impulse, I reached up and kissed him softly on the lips. He looked up with a start, bewilderment in his deep, dark eyes, and a vulnerability you wouldn’t expect to see at the core of such a strong, courageous man.
“Thank you, Dembi. But I has to do this.”
He looked completely bewildered at the mention of his real name, as if he were a beggar who had been told he was actually a prince. He didn’t speak as I got on the horse but looked as if he wanted to take my hand and tell me to stay.
Still apprehensive of Mama, Zila had been lurking in the backgro
und trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible. But she spoke up now, although timidly.
“Do this mean you ain’t gonna put a curse on me or nothing?” She smiled nervously.
Mama merely regarded her coolly without uttering a word and Zila’s smile disappeared as fast as a cold drink on a hot summer’s day.
“Don’t you worry none, Zila. Mama’s forgiven you,” I said.
Mama merely grunted. “I do not need to put a curse on this foolish girl. That Massa John is a curse of its own.”
Zila blanched but didn’t answer. I picked up the reins and faced them one last time. “If I can, I’s gonna come back,” I said straining to hold back tears.
“Will you just go already!” Zila said impatiently.
I ignored her tone. “Thank you for helping us, Zila. I ain’t never gonna forget it.”
She looked slightly ashamed for a few seconds but it didn’t stop her calling after me as I rode away.
“Don’t forget what I said about them dreams now. You hear?”
I rode as quickly as I could through the dappled sunlight and soon escaped the woods onto the main road.
I brought Julia to an abrupt stop when I spotted Master John with Master Peter and the two men who were supposed to be guarding Avery. One of the house slaves, Johnson, was with them, and as they walked up from the plantation house on their way to the woods, I saw him wringing his hands together. He appeared to be talking to Master John. Even though they were some distance away I could see that Master John’s face was a hot shade of red, which meant that he was angry. Very Angry. And as I watched he stopped to bark something at Johnson before he struck him across the face with what I assumed was a gun. I felt a twinge of guilt as I watched Johnson fall heavily to the ground.
Master John was in the process of leaning over Johnson, no doubt to strike him again, when he saw me. He straightened, the colour draining from his face, his expression blank for a second as he processed what he was seeing. Me on a horse and the unmistakable form of a man wrapped in blankets lying across my lap. He stood gaping at me in shock for a few moments, as did the other men.
