Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (29 page)

Jennifer appeared surprised at her
father’s vehemence. But she merely glanced at me and nodded. The
house was being let at present, but she promised him she would make
sure the deeds were given to me.

I wanted to stay with him, but it was
getting late and he was exhausted. But I knew he would not sleep
with me there, so I eventually forced him into a deep sleep. The
doctor had given him a week at best, but perhaps with enough rest,
he would outlive that prognosis. I stroked his head and then
followed my niece out of the room.

Outside in the corridor, she fixed me
with a penetrating stare.

“
In all the confusion, I
don’t believe I found out your name.”

“
I...it...Avery. Avery
Wentworth.”

Although poised, she was visibly
surprised. “I see. Let me show you something.”

She led me down a flight of stairs to
a dining room and stopped in front of a large painting.

“
Here he is. Reverend
Avery Wentworth.” There was a hint of pride in her voice. “Yes, I
thought I knew your face. You look
exactly
like him. He was the one
shining example in our family and was respected by everyone who met
him. No one that has ever met him had a bad word to say about him.
By all accounts, he was a good man.”

I stared up at the painting of myself.
I looked bored, my expression surly. I remembered that day well.
Gossip had reached me regarding my father’s latest exploits.
Apparently he had seduced the wife of one of his oldest friends.
She was with child and no one could say whether or not that child
belonged to my father or her husband. So I was annoyed at him,
especially since I liked the man in question. He had been a good
friend to my father and extremely kind to me, especially after my
mother died.

“
Reverend Avery Wentworth.
In some ways he was just as flawed, if not more so than his
brothers and father,” I said.

“
How so?”

“‘
Why beholdest thou the
mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye?’” She studied me in silence as I gazed at
the painting and the immature man I had been. “For all his virtues,
he was not able to grasp one of the crucial teachings of that Bible
he carried with him. That of forgiveness.”

“
You speak as if you knew
him.” I tore my eyes away from the painting. Her gaze was frank and
there was curiosity in her eyes. “But, of course, he died long
before you were born.”

I nodded, noting her cynical
smile.

“
Now why do I get the
feeling that there is much that you and my father are not telling
me?”

I faced my niece. She seemed like a
good, honest woman. I was proud of this gracious young woman and
wished I could have been there to watch her grow up.

“
There is. But know that
the love you saw between us was very real. I only wish
I...”

She placed a comforting hand on my arm
and led me away from the painting.

“
I know that. He would not
have insisted the house be given to you if he didn’t care for you a
great deal. You being here has made him very happy, the happiest I
have seen him for a very long time. For that reason alone, I will
let the two of you keep whatever secrets you share—for now. But I
promise you, one day I will demand you tell me and I should tell
you now, I can be very obstinate when I want to be.”

“
I promise, one day I will
tell you whatever you wish,” I said, knowing I would never do
that.

I spent every day of the next two
weeks with Philip, coming to see him in the evenings. And I would
stay with him long after he had fallen asleep. My niece and the
rest of the family left us alone and we talked, exchanging memories
of the past fifty years. I showed him America, focusing on the
landscape, avoiding the time I had spent in the wilderness. Then I
showed him Luna.

“
Oh, if only I was young
again,” he stated.

He seemed to regain his vitality in
those two weeks, and I had hopes he would recover, but in the end,
it was merely wishful thinking. One night he slipped into a sleep
he would never wake from, and as dawn broke over London, he was
dead. Jennifer discovered us in the morning, and without saying a
word, she gently pulled my hand out of his before leading me out of
the room.

Her eyes were shimmering with tears as
she handed me a long wooden box.

“
This is something he
insisted be given to you along with the deeds to the house on
Germen Street.”

I opened the box. Inside were the two
swords that had been my father’s pride and joy. I recalled the last
night I had seen him, the tenderness in his eyes as he spoke of the
gift he had for me. On the hilt of one of the swords was a small
note.

To my firstborn,
Avery.

Your mother would be proud
of the man you have become
.

My niece watched me carefully, a
slight frown marring her brow as I struggled to contain my
emotions. Pulling the note away from the sword, I placed it
carefully in my pocket and closed the box.

“
Yes, I see you have a
great deal to explain to me,” she said with a small smile as she
led me away from Philip’s room. “But I will leave you be—for
now.”

I stayed in London for the funeral,
but did not attend it. Instead I mourned him from a distance, not a
part of the life he had lived, or the family that gathered around
his casket as it was laid into the ground. I was just a ghoul on
the outside looking in on the natural seasons and rhythms of life.
Things seemed extremely bleak that morning, but I had more now than
when I had come to London. I had my relatives, my father’s and
brother’s descendants to care for as well as Luna’s family. I even
had Mama Akosua. That was something to live—or should I say
exist—for.

I went straight to the Marshall
plantation when I returned to Mississippi. Mama’s cabin door was
open and she was making tea for two when I entered and sat
down.

For the first few moments there was
only silence apart from the natural rhythms of the woodlands and
the breathing of the sleeping slaves around us. Then she reached
across the table and placed both hands over mine, the first time
she had touched me. I gripped her hands, needing the comfort of
that touch.

“
You were in
time.”

I nodded, tears filling my
eyes.

She exhaled, her face solemn. “Perhaps
I should have told you, prepared you, but I could not be sure he
would be alive by the time you got there.”

“
Thank you,” I said when I
could speak.

We remained with our hands
clasped for a while
.

The trip to England gave me a stronger
sense of purpose when I returned to America and from then on, I
focused all my energies on amassing a great deal of wealth. I now
had two families to care for, Luna’s and my own. So I acquired land
all over America and in England, not necessarily by honest means. I
also established businesses, managed for me by others. Mama advised
me greatly in these matters, her intuition over which ventures I
should pursue proving to be right time and again. I soon became an
extremely wealthy man and provided for Luna and my own family when
needed. I also gave generously to abolitionist movements, hoping I
would live to see the evil of slavery, which had destroyed so many,
come to an end.

So life went on around me and I
continued to walk among men.

I tried to forget Luna, and time was
supposed to be the great healer, but instead of decreasing the
anguish I felt at losing her, the pain deepened as the years wore
on. There were other women during those years, but many did not
last more than a few months. Perhaps my interest could be captured
by beauty, or a seemingly quick mind, but no one could compare to
Luna, and I quickly lost interest. Luna was simply unique. There
was no one who could ever replace her, so I continued to yearn for
her and all I had given up.

In those years my friendship with Mama
Akosua deepened. I discovered her refusal to be freed had nothing
to do with ill feeling toward me. She had merely not wanted to
leave Ebenezer, a little boy on the plantation who had become like
a son to her. But she was eventually freed and I had a small house
built for her not that far from Luna’s home.

Every Wednesday I arrived at her home
and the front door was always left open for me.

“
Good evening, Mama
Akosua,” I said when I entered.

“
Wɔfa
Avery, what have I said to you about calling me Mama?” This
was an argument we’d had on many occasions. “How can you address
someone who is younger than you as Mama? In my culture we must show
our elders respect at all times. How can I let you call me
Mama?”

“
Mama,” I insisted. “Your
wisdom has earned you the term. It would not be right for me to
call you anything but Mama Akosua.”

She grumbled and scolded, but could
not get me to stop calling her Mama. But I sensed it pleased her
somehow.

She told me everything
there was to tell about herself and Luna, and she no longer
bothered to keep her thoughts hidden from me, although I kept her
mind shielded from mine as a matter of respect. But occasionally,
something slipped through as it did one night when we were
playing
Awore
, a
game from her native land.

It had been my turn to play, but I
stopped and glanced up at her in consternation.

“
What happened?” I
asked.

She looked up, puzzled for a few
seconds, before she realised what I was referring to.

“
Ah,
Wɔfa
Avery. It is only now you
realise Luna is angry with me? I thought you had seen that long
before now.”

“
But it has been years.
What could cause her to be angry with you for so long?”

“
She knows you come and
sit with me. She feels betrayed.”

I leaned back in my seat, deeply
worried. “But does she not know that—”

She waved my words away.
“
Wɔfa
Avery, that
is the least of my worries when it comes to Luna. I had always
believed the powers of our ancestors were lost when it came to
Luna, but I am beginning to see I was wrong. She is an incredibly
powerful witch, much more so than I am.”

“
Go on.”

“
You remember something
blocked me when I tried to find you. I believe it was
Luna.”

“
But she would have told
me this.”

“
That is the frightening
thing. I do not think she is aware of what it is she has done. You
see why I am worried?”

I nodded.

“
The power she has is such
that has never been heard of among my people. It is dangerous for
someone to have that kind of power, so much so if they use it
without even being aware of it.”

“
I see. So what should we
do?”

“
If there is anything that
can be done, I do not know of it.”

We lapsed into silence again. She had
successfully steered the conversation away from their disagreement,
but it worried me.

Although living without Luna was like
living with an incurable wound, I was relatively content during
those days. But the grim spectre of death had begun to stalk my
waking moments. It first reared its head with Julia. She had been
with me for many years now and I treated the horse almost as if it
were a child that was to be pampered and indulged every moment of
her life. But I still could not keep her with me. Time had begun to
prey on Julia and old age soon laid claim to her.

One morning, I went down to the
stables to check on her, as I did every morning before I retired
for the day and found she could not stand. She had been suffering
with pain for some time now and I numbed her mind to it. But seeing
her crippled like this made me face the inevitable. She was going
to be taken from me and there was not much I could do about it,
unless I chose to curse the horse by turning it into an
abomination. I knelt down and stroked her. She laid her head
against me in a gesture of surrender and weariness that tore at my
heart. Tears filled my eyes as I rose to my feet. There was only
one course of action I could take. I went back to the mansion to
get what I would need before I lost courage.

I took Julia with me into the ether.
We materialised in the grasslands where I found her all those years
ago. It was deserted, the sky a grey wasteland. She merely watched
me steadily, as if she knew what it was I meant to do. When I
pulled out the gun and aimed it at her head, she closed her eyes
and brought her head down to the ground. My hand shook and I had to
take a few moments to steady it. I pulled the trigger as tears
blurred the scene before my eyes.

I wept as I buried her under the empty
sky. I remained by the grave long after dawn drifted into morning.
Then I went home. Anxiety gripped me along with my grief and I was
not able to sleep that day. As the weeks wore on, it diminished,
but did not leave me entirely.