Reborn (13 page)

elba knew more than she let on, I was certain of it. But there was no reasoning with her. So I stayed outside with Excalibur until bedtime. That night I spent dreamless, but also sleepless. And the next few days were hell, of a different kind. I worked at the gardens and the yard. Melba cooked my meals, but didn’t eat with me. Desiree hadn’t come back. And why would she? I had nothing to offer her, not even a given name. She was pretty—no, beautiful, and smart. Smart enough to know when to stay away. Life became meaningless.

On the third day since the nightmare and the Priestesses’ warning, a nagging feeling I’d been having won over. With Excalibur in tow, I headed upstream. Not until I passed my bathing spot did I feel the pull become so prominent. I couldn’t turn back if I wanted to. Something invisible lured me through the dense bush, in the direction of the fishing spot, the place I’d felt unseen eyes watching me. Maybe it was the Priestesses, or maybe it was the ghost of Rasmus Smith watching over his property, or maybe the evil spirit of Solomon himself; whichever, I was hell-bound to the fishing hole and beyond.

When we reached our destination, Excalibur refused to go farther. With his head hung low, bobbing, he snorted and pawed at the mossy ground, clearly agitated. Behind him, a gray mist lay on the river, adding to the eerie feeling surrounding the area. I turned from him and looked into the dark woods beyond. Something Melba said during one of our mealtime conversations a while back surfaced in my mind.
“Animals have psychic abilities. They can sense danger where we can’t.”
A sixth sense, she’d called it. I took a step away from the river, toward the wide tree trunks, and then looked back at the horse.

“You stay here. I won’t go far.”

He stilled his swishing tail, one big eye fixed on me.

As I stepped out of the morning light at the riverside and into the dank gloom of the thick forest, my nerves came alive, prickling against my skin, warning me to turn back.

The T-shirt I wore was of little defense against the chill that fell over me under the canopy of thick tree branches, blocking out all but a shaft of light here and there. After I was about ten minutes inside the network of thick tree trunks, I noticed an uncomfortable calmness around me. The sounds of the flowing river and the chirping birds had stopped. My heavy footfalls shuffling against the forest floor debris were the only thing I heard now. The odor of the composting leaves lifted as my feet churned them, making me wonder if anyone else had ever taken this invisible path. Now that I was deeper in, I felt as if I wasn’t alone. Somewhere, someone, or something, followed me, waited for me. I glanced over my shoulder, regretting leaving the yard work. Behind me looked the same as in front. The forest had swallowed me completely.

I walked onward, until up ahead, a spot slightly brighter than the rest of the forest came into view. My breath grew louder as I rushed to it, hoping that I’d gotten turned around and now headed back to the riverside. But the tree branches here supported heavy gobs of moss. The only other place I’d seen this was at the plantation, and according to the view in my nightmare, this place was far from the plantation house, and very close to where the slave quarters had been.

I parted the moss in places, and ducked under in others, until I came to the source of the light. Sunbeams filtered through the branches, creating a wide circular curtain around the darkest part of the forest, as if on purpose and not by nature.

Cautiously, I stepped through the veil of light, stopping cold at the fringes of the dark area, when I saw a line of red dust along the ground inside the circle; in this instance, a barrier to keep evil in. Melba’s teachings, over her delicious meals, had taught me what the crushed brick was used for. This line was bright and fresh. It must have been topped off recently, but by who? And why? .Although the treetops barely covered the area here, darkness prevailed over what I knew were the remains of the true Solomon Brandt.

Followed by a quick wave of nausea, the vision of his torturous death came into view, but this time, unlike in the nightmare, I had a front row seat as part of the crowd. I felt the fire blaze behind me, burning my back. I had to keep moving, along with the other slaves, chanting, throwing handfuls of mud on the naked body writhing on the ground in front of me. When I reached Solomon’s left side, his head fell toward me. His squinted eyes burst open. The blue turned to flames. He reached a clawed hand out to me, hooking a fingernail on the bottom of my jeans. I stumbled, and fell onto the red powder.

Like a fast awakening, the scene changed again. Just me now, I pushed myself up off the ground. Everything looked as it did when I’d first entered the circle, all except for one thing.

The red line was broken.

My heart pounded against my ribs as I shuffled to fix the gaps my fallen body had made, but when a dark shadow crept from the center of the clearing toward me, I abandoned the task and ran. I didn’t know what direction I took, but I yelled for Excalibur as I made my way through the forest, slamming against tree trunks, stumbling over massive roots that lay along the ground in places. I only looked back once, to see the shadow still following, swallowing everything in its path.

Just when I thought I would never see the light of day again, the white stallion burst from behind a tree. He came straight toward me, but galloped past me. Despite the shadow not far behind, I stopped in my tracks, confused and nervous, wondering why the horse kept going. Then he circled the next tree and doubled back. I caught on to his actions. When he reached me, I ran beside him, grabbed his mane, and hauled myself up. It was the first time I’d ridden him since the day he’d brought me to Melba’s, but it felt like just yesterday. I lay low across his back and neck to avoid the tree branches, and let the stallion carry me away.

A few minutes later, we burst into the light and a newer part of the forest, where the trees where spindly and fallen sticks and branches littered the ground. Was this a shortcut back to the river? Excalibur dropped into a fast trot, and I straightened, in some instances becoming taller than the stunted trees. Soon after, a settlement of shabby dwellings came into view.

We broke out of the woods and into a backyard. Behind us, the shadow ceased its pursuit, and then retreated.

Excalibur wove his way through the area, littered with broken-down cars, stacks of tires, and car parts. Crossed sticks, woven together with colored threads, hung from everything: clotheslines, tree branches, corners of buildings. Some had small skull shapes fastened to their centers; tiny bones hung from others. Melba had something like this hanging in an apple tree in her yard. When I’d asked her about it, she’d said it was a ward against evil, but wouldn’t elaborate further.

Two young men with skin as dark as the people in my nightmare lifted their heads from under the hood of a car and flashed me silent glares of foreboding. I watched with unease as their gazes followed me until I was too far past to see them anymore.

The horse led me between two rundown dwellings and into the front yard of one. A woman burst out of the front door. Tight black curls stuck out beneath a multicolored scarf she wore around her head. Grabbing something tied around her neck, she looked at me with horror-filled eyes. I’d never felt more out of place and unwanted in my life.

Excalibur ignored the people gathering in the yards, holding back their children from whatever they played with before our intrusion, and walked slowly toward the dirt road ahead. A bad vibe hung in the air around this settlement, or maybe I was the bad vibe. There were seven houses in all, and above each front door hung a bundle of herbs.

We were almost out of the settlement when a gray-haired man came up behind us holding a shotgun.

“Keep going, boy, and don’t come back to these here parts, or you mightn’t be so lucky next time.”

Determination gleamed in his black eyes.

Sweat trickled down my face and into my eyes, stinging them. I blinked the perspiration out, but was careful not to make another move. I had no doubt this man would pull the trigger. Once we passed the last house, I risked a glance back. The man with the gun hadn’t moved an inch. Taking a chance, I dug my heels into Excalibur’s sides. He broke into a fast gallop, churning up road dirt behind him. The strange scene behind me vanished in the dust cloud.

A half hour later, we reached broken pavement, and a level of sanity, once I had Melba’s house in my sight. The feeling of someone reaching out, ready to grab my back, had diminished.

Excalibur walked almost lazily to the backyard, where I slid off into the grass. Instinct told me I was safe, for the moment. Melba came bursting out of the back door.

“Solomon!”

The frantic tone of her voice brought Desiree to mind. “Is Desiree all right?”

My question caught her in a moment of confusion. “Yes, she’s fine.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“Y—no. Not since the last time you asked. No. That’s not why I’m upset.”

“What’s wrong?”

Her look was stern. “You should never have gone to the guardians.”

“Guardians? And I didn’t go there to visit. I was chased there.”

“Mae just called…”

“Who’s Mae?”

“My second cousin once removed on my father’s side. She said the devil himself, sitting arrogantly on top of a white horse, rode through her property, and now she will be cursed forever.”

“What? It was just me, and I didn’t go there on purpose… I told you I was chased.”

“By who?”

By the devil you spoke of.
I decided to be frank with Melba, since she seemed to know more than she let on, anyway, but clouded the truth with a small lie. “I went fishing, and—”

The pointed look she gave me told me she wasn’t fooled.

“Solomon, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I see clearly, remember? Now why did you go to the river?”

Behind her, I saw Excalibur munching grass, as if it was just an ordinary day. I took a deep breath and spilled everything that had happened since leaving her backyard that morning.

“What do they guard?” I asked after a moment’s pause.

“You already know the answer to that. And now I think you’ve disturbed the grave. For more than one hundred and fifty years, my people diligently watched over it, undisturbed. You went and stirred up some bad mojo around here. They will never let you stay now.” She looked up from the ground. “You have to leave, and the sooner you go, the better for both of us. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth before, Solomon.” Her voce lowered as if she didn’t want me to hear the rest. “I was hoping you really were a college kid with amnesia.”

“Who exactly am I?”

The way she looked at me, the apologetic, yet fearful look displayed on her face, sent a chill through me.

“You look exactly like him.”

Then she changed the subject quickly. “A friend of mine runs a pay-weekly motel, and will spot you a month’s rent until you get on your feet. Her cousin’s son got you a job working as a laborer with him. He also has a friend who is making you a fake ID. You’ll have a new name. What you do with it and what you choose for your background will be up to you.”

So Melba had everything taken care of. She would send me away into the unknown, the big scary world I’d learned about on the Internet. How would I ever find Desiree out there? I began to wonder if taking my chances with evil wasn’t a better future for me; at least it seemed familiar.