by A. D. Koboah
I stood waiting for him beneath a cluster of dogwood trees. Forever reluctant to expose myself fully to humans, I felt naked in the bright glow of the morning sun. He approached me with the slow, determined gait of those of advanced years. His expression was slightly dazed, but the fierce intelligence of a much younger mind shone in his eyes as he gazed at me.
I was about to issue a series of commands, telling him exactly what I wished him to do. But then I paused. That is not what the reverend would have done. So I spoke aloud, hesitantly.
“I need your help.”
His brow furrowed. “What is you?”
“Will you help me?” I said again, desperation creeping into my voice.
To my relief he nodded, simply responding to the word “help.”
“I need clothes. A suit of your old master’s that will not be missed. You will need to alter it to fit me. I need this to be done before the sun goes down.”
He nodded again, his gaze already travelling over me with the critical eye of the tailor as he planned for the task I had given him. Then it occurred to me that I should offer him payment. But I had no money and had never had any need of it before now, something that would have to change now I had Luna to care for.
“I will pay you by getting your old master to reduce the price he has asked for your children.”
A sardonic smile lifted his lips slightly.
“He will honour whatever promise he makes this time.”
He merely nodded, already thinking ahead to his work. He took out a measuring tape and began taking my measurements. When he was done, he nodded a goodbye and wandered back to his home. I had only one other stop to make, to collect the things I would need which I hoped would convince Luna to remain at the mansion. I found them in one of the homes in town and took the opportunity to steal some money, for I would need to have more clothes made and I intended to pay the old Negro the next time I used his services.
I went to ground not far from the mansion, finding it difficult to sleep, my thoughts of Luna, her face a dazzling mystery that would forever dominate my thoughts.
***
I returned to the old Negro at dusk and waited near the dogwood trees. When he saw me, he gestured for me to follow him and then turned and walked away without a backward glance. I followed him behind his home and was surprised to see a tub filled with water behind the house and a small table with towels, scissors, and other items. He had made up a small fire on which stood a bucket of water. He moved behind me and began to take off my jacket, gesturing for me to remove my tattered trousers.
I was so taken aback by the lengths he had gone to, that for a moment I could only look on, overcome by a multitude of emotions I could not name. When he gestured to me again, impatiently, I removed the rest of my clothing.
He bathed me as he had done for his master for many years, bathed me as he would a gentleman. I had already washed the blood and soil off my body, but I submitted to the ritual of the bath. It was a queer meeting of the old and the new as he performed the same task my manservant used to perform in the ease and comfort of my old life in London, here in the twilight air on the outskirts of Louisiana whilst the crickets hummed and night slowly crept into view all around us. He also washed and cut my hair, which was to my waist by then, leaving it grazing my shoulders.
The bath had a queer effect on me, giving me a sense of hope for the future. I would never be the man I once was, but perhaps the old and the new could meet together as they did this night beneath the trees. He helped me dress in black trousers, a navy blue coat over a white shirt, a tan waistcoat, and white cravat (he would not let me dress on my own). Then he produced a large, cracked mirror and held it out for me, moving from one side to another in order for me to see myself from all angles.
I was stunned by the transformation. I had not looked at my reflection in years and I was shocked that I looked like a man, a handsome man, although some sorrow, some unfathomable suffering, could be seen in my eyes. He was looking expectantly at me, still holding the mirror as if to ask if it was enough. I nodded and, satisfied, he placed the mirror to one side. There was only one thing I had forgotten to ask him for. Shoes. But he had thought of that and produced a pair of scuffed black shoes which he placed on my feet. He rose and looked me up and down, nodding in satisfaction.
“Thank you,” I said after a few moments. “I have kept my promise. He will inform you of his decision to reduce the price of your children tomorrow. So they are free.”
He nodded, his features impassive, still not really believing my words. He handed a package of my old clothes to me along with another suit. Sitting on top of the parcel was the gold chain that had been given to me long ago to protect me. I placed it over my neck, tucking it under my clothes. It was another sign that God had not truly forsaken me.
I left him and made my way back to the mansion. I entered, materialising in one of the smaller bedrooms where I deposited the parcel he had given me. Armed with a white box, my heart leaping in anticipation of seeing her again, I was about to materialise in the drawing room where she was waiting, when I hesitated.
Would the reverend have appeared out of thin air in someone’s presence? No. I entered the ether and was standing in the night air in the field of flowers outside the crumbling mansion. I moved toward the front door and opened it, moving down the corridor to the drawing room. I was already much later than I had told her I would be, but I was sure that, thanks to the old Negro, my appearance would not terrify her as much as it had done thus far.
So it was somewhat of a surprise, and concern, when I walked into the drawing room and saw Luna dressed in an old, large green dress, shaking with fear, her beautiful dark eyes wide with a terror that was far more potent than my presence had ever induced in her. Her mind was swollen with it, along with a multitude of images and thoughts that suffused my mind the moment I entered the room. She stared at me and the two words I could make out amidst the deluge were white and man.
“Luna?”
My voice seemed to break through the panic and her relief was so intense that hope surfaced for a few seconds. She sank onto the loveseat so quickly I feared she had lost her footing. I moved over to the table where I deposited the white box, able to make out the images in her mind now that her panic was beginning to subside. They were all memories, dark, frightening memories to which the morose, claustrophobic silence of the mansion had added weight as she spent the long, lonely hours churning over her predicament.
I stared helplessly at her as she began to gather herself.
“What you do that for?” she said.
I was concerned and flustered to see tears well up in her beautiful dark eyes and fall onto her cheeks.
“I...I do not—”
“Why you be walking in here like that…and wearing them clothes?”
I tried to explain myself in order to calm her down. But she continued to throw questions at me, pacing back and forth like a frightened, trapped tiger. The echoes of her shouts, along with her frightened thoughts, clapped against my head like thunder as she rode her temper like a stampeding horse.
I cowered in the presence of her fury and felt as if I was a trembling child once more before the fierce storm of my father’s explosive temper. So I did the only thing I could think of to do before her anger could escalate.
“Sleep, Luna.”
I focused and began to induce the sleep I had put her into on previous occasions.
Her eyes began to droop and she swayed. But then her gaze hardened and she began fighting me mentally, much stronger than before.
To my surprise she lurched forward. I didn’t move as she stumbled across the room to me and struck me across the face. I immediately released the hold I’d had on her mind and her eyes brightened, the sleepiness disappearing.
“Don’t you never do that again!” she snapped.
I could only stare at her in shock. I couldn’t force her to sleep, so where did that leave me?
“You
have a very strong mind, Luna,” I said. “No one has ever been able to resist me for even the few moments it took for you to cross over to me.”
It was the start of a conversation. She was mistrustful of me, her mind and emotions convoluted and often volatile. But it was a start; a chance for me to explain part of the reason why I had sought her out. And slowly the anxiety and fear began to fade away until she merely sat on the loveseat in silence, her eyes wide with wonder as she listened. It became apparent from her thoughts that she understood my turmoil. I wouldn’t have ever expected anyone on this Earth to, but she not only understood, she seemed to empathise with me.
“So what you want with me?” she asked after a long silence.
What I have waited half a century for. Your love. I was so close to saying those words, and in the end it was only the repulsion I had witnessed on previous occasions that stopped me from uttering them.
“I just want to be near you, Luna. Nothing more.”
It seemed to calm her.
“Thank you. Sir.”
That was the second surprise of the night, the gratitude and the “sir.” Again it was a meeting of the old and the new world, a chance for me to make my way back to a semblance of the man I once was.
“I have something for you.” I held out her Bible and she was immediately across the room to take it from my hand. “I can teach you,” I said, keen to present my gift whilst the joy and comfort she felt at having the Bible was prominent in her mind. “You said that was your dearest wish, so let me teach you.”
It seemed an age before I saw in her thoughts that she would accept it, that she would stay at the mansion. She sat down at the table then looked up sharply at me, those luminous bewitching eyes keeping me trapped under her gaze.
“Why’s you wanting to teach a slave to read?”
I took my place opposite her.
“You were never a slave to me,” I said vehemently.
That was the first of many mistakes I made with Luna. Being a slave, those experiences, the violence she endured and witnessed, defined who she was. Until the night I was made into a vampire, I had known only comfort, no real hardship pain or trials. Violence was an unknown other in my world so I could never have foreseen how it had shaped Luna. Or how hard it would be for her to resist it.
Chapter 15
Finding Luna was a miracle that gave me sweet joy, but that joy was laced with pain and I found the first few nights in her presence extremely difficult.
My desire for her was an ever-present wound. I hungered for her so much more than I lusted for blood. It was agony to see her hand on the table when I sat down to teach her how to read, and not reach for it. Or to see her hair sticking out from under the rag she used to cover it and not reach over to tuck it back, letting my fingers caress the tight, springy ebony curls. Sitting beside, or opposite her, it was difficult not to lean in to drown in the scent of her skin or look into her eyes and not take her into my arms.
One night, she was absentmindedly eating an apple whilst I taught her how to read. She bit into the apple and licked her lips, her focus on what I was showing her. That small movement of her moist red tongue against her dark lips sent a jolt of desire through me, bringing heat to my loins. I paused, but not long enough for her to notice, and it was difficult not to keep envisioning my lips on hers, imagining how sweet she would taste, so much sweeter than the apple in her hand. Every movement she made, the hypnotic sway of her hips when she moved across the room, her skin moist and dewy with sweat, the small amounts of exposed dark skin (her neck, the taut smooth flesh of her arms) brought agony and ecstasy in equal measure and I would lie awake day after day in the cool, frigid earth, recalling her scent and those dark eyes. Her voice was like deep honey, an electrifying husky undertone beneath, the drawl of the particular vernacular of slaves like music to my ears.
I left her every night and killed, needing to bury my desire for her in the crimson tide that drowned me. But I was always left with a corpse, my self-loathing, the anguish I felt in her presence and the desire that could never be assuaged.
Was what I felt for her like that of those slaveholders with their fascination in exotic dark skin? Was I lusting for the power they exercised over these lush women whom they only saw as wanton sex objects? No. Luna was so much more than her external beauty. Her mind, her thoughts, held a million mysteries I could sit and ponder and still not be able to unravel. I heard her thoughts nightly, and knew all her memories, but still did not necessarily understand them or her emotions, which were always quite volatile and conflicting, her experiences and memories of her oppressors dominating and tainting everything else in her mind.
Alone with her in that drawing room, I often wished I was back in the secluded, anonymous woodland where no one, and nothing, could lay eyes on me and know what I was. An aberration. Trapped in the glow of the drawing room by my love for this woman, I kept away from the light of the candle by her side and would often retreat to a shadowy corner whenever I was able, usually the fireplace. The first night, she was too engrossed with what she was being taught to notice. The second night, I found her staring at me.
Why’s he all the way over there? It be like he hiding from me. I’s having to hurt my neck craning it just so’s I can see where he be.
She gave a discontented sigh.
There was nothing wrong with her neck, but she continued to moan inwardly and even rubbed at it.
The second night, I found my little refuge by the fireplace ablaze with candlelight. She had put at least ten candles on the mantelpiece.
I said nothing, but when I had an opportunity to move away from the table I sought refuge by the window, which was blissfully free of candles. The shadows it offered soothed me, especially when I gazed out on the benevolent night outside.
Luna got up and crossed the room to the fireplace. Moments later, she was by the window with four candles, which she placed on the windowsill, showering me in light. She returned to her seat, and when I glanced at her, she glared at me before returning to the exercises I had set.
I remained by the window, upset and not sure what to do, my shame and self-loathing so very difficult to overcome.
After a few moments, I moved to the table and sat down.
This woman was my life now, if she wanted me where she could see me, then that is where I would be regardless of my discomfort. I moved one of the candles closer, letting the light fall across me.
She glanced up from the words she had been copying, a soft, gentle smile on her lips, as if she had been rewarded with something merely from that small act. I allowed myself a small smile in return. She returned to the work I had set her.
She was beautiful. And kind, so kind. One night we were sitting outside in the field of flowers surrounded by candlelight. She was staring at the mansion, her brow puckered.
All it be needing is a lick of paint, she thought to herself. Then it be beautiful again.
Her gaze came to rest on me and her eyes softened.
Like him. All he be needing is some attention, someone to care so’s he kin come back to life again.
Her words shocked me and also dangled the hope that was all too often near me only to be snatched away. Someone to care, she had said. Someone to care.
I was in love with her and would have died for her, but I knew she would never return that love. I saw it in her mind daily, her fear and revulsion of white men, and although Master John was miles away at the plantation, the violence she had endured in his presence haunted her and I suspected it always would.
One night we were in the mansion whilst rain beat heavily down outside. It had been raining for most of the day. To me the raindrops were like a chaotic orchestra, my vision heightened by the silvery drops of rain whenever I glanced at the window at the scene outside. But to Luna, the rain was a reminder of something else. She sat wrapped in a shawl, although it was warm in the mansion, and kept glancing toward the window, her raven eyes hooded, a faint light of anxiety lighti
ng them as she searched for some hidden danger. The memory that was playing through her mind was of her running through the woods under menacing storm clouds as rain beat down on the earth. I felt my hands clench as I stared at her, for I had seen this memory before and knew the heartbreaking conclusion to the chase she was remembering.
She turned abruptly and caught me staring at her, haunted lights behind her eyes as she gazed at me.
“Why you looking at me like that? Has I done something wrong?” He gonna take me back, he gonna take me back to him. I can’t go back. I can’t—
“No,” I said quickly, cutting through that heartbreaking train of thought. “I was merely thinking about something I wish I had been able to prevent from happening. You could never do anything to make me angry.”
She relaxed visibly and the expression on my face was what she kept in her mind. Whenever the phantoms tried to lay claim to her mind and fears over the next few nights, she pictured the way I had looked at her, and my words, and they were pushed back.
When I left her that night, I made my way through the dark to the Holbert plantation. I stopped outside the main house. The new mansion was not anywhere near as magnificent as its sneering predecessor. Smaller and without the ostentatious flair of the other, it was more like its humble cousin. The power that repelled whenever I stood outside a home was stronger now so that even being within a few metres of the mansion left my head swimming and sent a tremor over me. This no doubt had something to do with the witch. I lingered outside Master John’s bedroom window but then moved to stand beneath his father’s. I sought Henry Holbert’s mind, letting him know I was there and that if it wasn’t for the witch, I would have torn his throat out.
His fear reached me in a long stream of wordless terror. The witch had cursed him and he had suffered a stroke which he had never recovered fully from. Paralysed down one side of his body, he could barely speak and spent all his time in bed. The menacing figure that inhabited Luna’s memories and nightmares had long disappeared and in its place was this pathetic old man.
