by A. D. Koboah
Desolation along with the darkness that had been a part of my soul for so long began to overwhelm me and tears pricked my eyes. She wasn’t the one I had been searching for. There was nothing left for me to do but disappear back into the wilderness.
But I could not leave her and return to the emptiness.
Perhaps if I spoke to her, told her that...that...
I did not know what I could say to her, but I could perhaps show her I only wanted to protect her. Master John and his vile thoughts came to me and I knew now what I could do. He intended to be at her cabin as soon as the sun went down. He was probably there already. I may not be able to tell her of my devotion, but I intended to show her.
I disappeared into the trees. I would reach the slave quarters before Luna did.
***
John Holbert.
The handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed man that had caused Luna so much pain and misery. He had made his way to Luna’s cabin as soon as he was able and stood there for a few moments surveying her home, as smug and content as he always was. He had his riding whip in his hand and kept stroking it, imagining the ways in which he would use it when Luna arrived. As usual, he stared at the pallet she slept on, trying to decide whether he should let her have a proper bed, which would make him that much more comfortable whenever he was at her cabin. But, once again, he decided he would continue to make her sleep on a pallet like the other slaves until she learned some manners. Her fiery, haughty manner was one of the things that excited him about her, but it was becoming quite tedious after so many years. So she would sleep on that pallet for a while longer, or until he tired of bedding her on it.
He lit a candle and was in the process of taking off his coat when he got the shock of his life. He cried out like a child when I materialised before him in her tiny cabin. I struck him, sending him stumbling backward and subdued any more cries with a command that left him unable to speak or move. He was still clutching the riding whip and struggled in vain to lift it against me to defend himself.
I plucked it out of his hand and broke it into two, wanting desperately to snap his neck in the same manner. I threw the broken riding whip down by the door. He was like a lifeless mannequin but for the fear working at his features. His throat moved as he tried to speak and his thoughts reached me, mainly cries for help. I ignored them. Luna, Jupiter, and Jupiter’s master, Father Geoffrey, had reached the slave quarters.
They spoke for a few moments and then Luna moved away from them and began walking toward her cabin.
I grasped Master John roughly by the neck and swung him around so he was standing with his back to me, facing the doorway.
She was almost by her cabin door. When she opened the door and entered the cabin, I used my telekinetic power to pull her inside and slammed the door shut behind her.
Sparing him no pain, I tore into his neck and the blood filled my mouth, making me swoon as the crimson bliss overcame me.
It was a few moments before I became aware of Luna, of an insistent tugging at the periphery of my mind.
I opened my eyes. Luna was standing by the cabin door, her beautiful eyes wide and lit with fear, her face etched in horror and...and...revulsion. I was immediately bombarded by her thoughts, and they were like a shower of thorns raining down on me. Overcome by her distress and disgust, I did something I had never done before. I pulled away from Master John’s neck—and the blood—the very act as painful as the flesh being torn from my bones. I released Master John and he collapsed at my feet in a dead faint.
Luna’s scream tore through the cabin. She started to back away and then her eyes glazed over. Her knees gave way. I caught her before she hit the ground. She managed to focus on me for a few seconds and I struggled to speak to her, to tell her she had nothing to fear. But her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out.
I took her over to the pallet and lay her down, hearing footsteps descending on the cabin. The cabin door was wrenched open and I came face-to-face with Jupiter, a giant of a man with coal-dark skin and large, beautiful brown eyes. Shock marked his features when he saw me, but then he took in the sight of me looming over an inert Luna. Fear lit his eyes. He rushed toward me, clearly not thinking of his own safety. I disappeared before his eyes, his gasp of shock resounding in my ears as I re-appeared in the dark in the woods by the slave quarters.
***
For the next hour I stayed in the woods, despair and fear rising with every second that passed. I should have left the plantation but I could not leave Luna. To add to my misery, a small crowd consisting of slaves, the master’s family and their guests, had gathered outside the slave quarters when they heard of what had befallen Master John. Luna stood accused of trying to murder him.
Thankfully the witch arrived as I made up my mind to get Luna away from the hostile crowd. As fearless and as brazen as ever, she sought my mind the moment she entered the plantation and warned me to stay hidden unless I wanted to see them butcher Luna before my eyes. I did as she bade.
Eventually, it was decided that Luna would leave the plantation with Jupiter and Father Geoffrey. But even after they departed on horseback—with Luna on the same horse as Jupiter—it took some time before the crowd could be calmed down and dispersed.
Silence finally descended on the slave quarters. Mama Akosua entered Luna’s cabin and seated herself.
I waited in the woods whilst she remained in the cabin in silence, and whereas her mind had been closed to me, it opened abruptly and images sprung from them.
I was transported to a memory of hers, to a woodland—no, a jungle.
It would be dawn soon but the darkness was pitch-black, and the torches they carried barely penetrated it. The heat was suffocating and the whining insects that nipped at her skin, a nuisance. All around was the sinister drone of the jungle along with the multitude of night creatures producing a distant din in the darkness.
Mama Akosua was barely twelve, the youngest in a small group of adults. She was terrified but trying not to let her fear show. She walked directly behind a large, older woman—her grandmother—who strode through the trees, not seeming to need the illumination of the torch she carried. She came to a stop and stood in the dark, listening. Then she threw her torch into the air. The torch arced through the air, illuminating the trees around them and revealing a sight that made Mama Akosua gasp out loud. It had a similar effect on me thousands of miles away in the relative safety of Mississippi.
Hanging upside down from their feet in the large circle of trees were hideous creatures. I felt Mama Akosua’s scorn at the fact that I did not recognise another vampire when I saw one. But these were unlike any vampire I had ever seen. They had long talons for feet and wore only thin pieces of cloth around their groins. Their eyes were glassy and their teeth bared, their fangs reaching almost to their chins.
At first it looked as if they were ready to attack the small group of men and women, but then I realised they were grimacing in pain, and there was fear in their eyes. At that moment, Mama Akosua became aware of the fact that it was cold in that part of the jungle, and now she could hear the whispering of what was a multitude of spirits in communion with her grandmother. She saw them now as the torch her grandmother had thrown into the air fell to the jungle floor and was extinguished. Mama Akosua had been seeing spirits her whole life, but they were often just lost wandering souls. This was the first time she had seen spirits such as these thin, silvery spectres that were powerful and frightening.
Mama Akosua watched her grandmother utter a command to the spirits, and then the spirits rushed at the vampires. They were torn out of the trees and hurled to the jungle floor. The vampires immediately sprung to their feet and tried to lunge at the men and women, but they found they could not move and instead were set upon by the waiting crowd, armed with long machetes that had been made especially for this occasion and blessed by Mama Akosua’s grandmother.
The massacre began. Mama Akosua was young, but overcame her fear and revuls
ion to join in the fray. She was fearsome as she attacked the trapped creatures.
The last image she showed me was of her bringing down her machete on one, ignoring its screams and pleas. She had been aiming for its neck, but hit its head instead, burying the machete in its skull. She struggled to free the machete from its head before she succeeded and then brought it down on its neck. She was not as strong as the other adults in the group so it took a few blows before its head lay on the ground at her feet.
The images vanished, but the lingering memory was of Mama Akosua swearing that she would grow up to be exactly like her grandmother. Hidden behind that one was another she no doubt never intended for me to see. It was her sense of shame regarding what she now was—a slave—and what her grandmother would think if she knew of what had become of her.
After seeing that memory, the urge to flee and never return was strong. The only thing that kept me there was Luna.
Please. Please, I begged. I can end her pain and suffering. I can give her anything she desires. Please.
The only thing you can give her is death, Asanbosam. Leave now and never trouble my daughter again or I will follow you to hell where you belong. Go now!
Never, I vowed. You cannot stop me. You cannot keep me from her. I—
I was interrupted by the sound of a soft gasp from Mama Akosua. Outside in the woods, I listened. Her heart was beating much faster now.
What is it? Tell me, I begged, knowing that there was only one thing capable of eliciting fear in Mama Akosua, and that was Luna’s wellbeing.
Finally she opened her thoughts to me and the vision she’d had moments ago overwhelmed my mind.
I saw the faces of three white men who were at the slave quarters earlier. They were on horses, racing through the night, firing as they went. Then I saw them on foot in the dark lit by the sickly glow of a lantern. A thin boy with dark hair held a gun and it was aimed at Luna’s head. The next image I saw was of Luna’s face, her eyes vacant and the dirt she lay on slowly filling with blood, half her forehead blown away.
I was away from the slave quarters before Mama Akosua had finished showing me the images. Her anger and fear was like a clarion call in my mind.
She is not yours! Bring her back to me! Do you hear?
That journey through the woods only took a few minutes, but it felt as long as those years in the wilderness. That image of Luna’s head blown in nearly blinded me, and I was consumed with panic that I would not get to her in time. Halfway through the woods, I materialised out of the ether, my feet barely touching the ground before I launched myself into the air, breaking through the branches obstructing the sky with my arms and gliding above the trees, blocking out the moon as I looked into the distance. Even with my heightened vision, they were so far away that they looked like tiny stick figures. But I could see two horses, the one with Jupiter and Luna racing ahead. They were being chased by three others on horseback. I disappeared again, praying for the first time in years.
The world around me swirled into view as I burst out of the ether beneath the vast, sooty night sky and grassland stretching out before me. Sound exploded all around and terrifying screams of pain filled my ears, disorienting me. My heart lurched and I thought I was too late.
Far ahead of me were just three figures on horseback, the other two horses had been downed, presumably by bullets, and one was already dead. The last horse was the source of those terrifying screams, and those were already starting to diminish. I only stayed long enough to observe one of the men on horseback dismount and the boom of a gun before I dove into the ether. I landed, closer now. Luna was sitting on the ground, Jupiter cradled in her arms as I had seen in Mama Akosua’s vision, blood darkening his shirt along the shoulder. The dark-haired boy then levelled the gun at Jupiter, sneering the entire time.
I was still too far away. I leapt into the nothingness again, fear that the next time I reappeared it would be to the image I had seen in the witch’s mind; Luna dead, half her face blown away. I landed in panic and fear just seconds from them, nearest to the dark-haired boy with the gun as he lifted it up to her head. Hearing my footsteps, he instinctively swung the gun toward me. I directed my mind to the gun and it was wrenched out of his hand. I used my telekinetic energy to throw it high into the air and far away. It discharged when it landed, a lonely gunshot in the dark that no longer had the power to harm. I disarmed the other two in the same way. Then I was upon him.
The red mist descended and all reason left me. All I saw now were the frailties of the human form and the multitude of ways in which I could destroy it, inflict pain and, of course, spill blood.
I slaughtered the three men—the first time I had killed in a blind rage since the massacre on the Foster plantation. There was only one obstacle between me and Luna now, one that would not be so easy to remove. Jupiter. She was standing behind Jupiter, Father Geoffrey praying to their left, and I could see clearly the mutual affection between the two of them and it made jealousy rise within me like a wildfire.
Jupiter shoved Luna away from him and lunged at me, howling. The red mist beckoned. I knocked Father Geoffrey unconscious and had Jupiter off his feet in the same motion. Jupiter couldn't move. He gripped my wrists, desperate to support his weight as I held him by the head. Just as I had held another of the men moments ago.
A man who was now quite dead.
Jealous rage and hatred pulsed within me as he brought his fists down on my face and chest despite the fact that he was wounded. He was trapped in my grasp, all I had to do was apply pressure.
“No!” Luna’s cry cut through my jealous rage and I glanced at her, watching her struggle to her feet. Her distress pounded against me, far more powerful than the blows Jupiter directed at me in his futile bid to free himself. “Jupiter! No!”
I didn’t think. Before she could move toward him, I grasped Jupiter’s mind, rendered him unconscious and released him. Luna gasped when seconds later I materialised behind her and grasped her in my arms, pulling her into the nothingness. I reappeared near to the trees, pulling her close to me. She screamed when she saw the other two lying lifeless in the dying light of a lamp. She was still screaming when I pulled her into the ether again.
Chapter 14
Dawn had come to the dusty, forlorn drawing room of the abandoned mansion in Louisiana. Luna lay on a loveseat by the window, a dazzling jewel lit by the deep golden light of a summer dawn.
I stood by the door in the shadows the morning light had yet to reach, Luna’s battered green Bible in one bloodstained hand, turmoil in my heart and mind.
I stared at the blood on my hands.
A few moments ago, I had used my mental powers to make Luna fall into a deep sleep, unable to cope with her fear, distress, and terror—of me. I tore my gaze from my hands and let them rest on her. My heart clenched painfully at the sight of her beautiful heart shaped face bathed in the morning light and I moved out of the shadows to stand before her. Anguish twisted my features and I clutched her Bible tighter. I could not stop thinking of the last words she had uttered to me before I rendered her unconscious.
Take me back home, please.
I let out a shaky breath, my gaze returning to the blood on my hands. I remembered all too well another slave that had uttered similar words to me. I also remembered her bloodless corpse and the flesh that had been torn out of her neck.
I took a step away from Luna and moved back into the shadows.
She could not possibly be the one I had seen in those visions during my years in the wilderness. Yet I could not bring myself to leave her. I had believed until now that only a decade or two had passed since the massacre on the Foster plantation. But Luna’s thoughts had revealed the year to me. It was 1807. I had been alone, and lost, for fifty years. And when I uttered my first words to her shortly after spiriting her away, it was the first time in fifty years that I had spoken to another.
Turmoil wound itself around me like a cold, fat snake. I wanted her to stay at this mansio
n where I could keep her safe. But she was so frightened of me. How was I supposed to persuade her to remain here when my very presence induced such terror?
The only thing I could think of was Reverend Wentworth. She would have liked and respected him. That only increased my despair because Reverend Avery Wentworth had ceased to exist long before now.
Perhaps he was not completely lost.
If I was to have any hope of gaining Luna’s trust, then I had to try to rediscover him, remember who I used to be. As I stood there I realised there were a few steps I could take to try and bridge the gap between myself, Reverend Avery Wentworth, and the young woman asleep before me. The first had been revealed to me when I looked in her mind when she gazed at my tattered clothing, at the grime and blood I was covered in, and saw her disgust. The other answer was the Bible in my hand.
Hope bloomed and I clutched the Bible tighter. I placed a mental command in Luna’s mind that would prevent her from trying to leave in my absence. Then I left the mansion into the punishing sunlight and broke into a run.
I already knew who to go to, for I had passed him on numerous occasions over the years. I ran knowing that when I returned to the mansion at dusk, things would be different.
***
The person I needed to see was an old Negro who lived on the outskirts of the town, not too far from the mansion. He had been captured in Africa as a boy and brought here, although his native tongue along with the life he lived before America, had long succumbed to the foggy mists of time. He was a gifted tailor and had been fortunate enough to buy his freedom years ago. He lived on his own in a small wooden cabin but continued to work for his old master to buy his children out of slavery, something he knew he wasn’t likely to achieve in his lifetime. He was already awake and beginning what was always a very long day when I reached his home and drew him outside with my mind.
