We arrived at the dried out well where I let Kato go. He fell to the ground and promptly got to his knees, irritation marking his face. Then he saw where I had brought him. He quickly got to his feet and raced to the well, anxiety working his features.
He began pulling up the barrel Minny had been shut in, seeming to have completely forgotten about me. I dipped into the ether and returned to the cotton field. Julia’s corpse lay exactly as I had left it. I felt tears fill my eyes as I stared at her. It seemed I still could not rid myself of the irrational hope she would miraculously come back to life.
I picked her up and took her with me into the ether. When I returned Kato had managed to bring the barrel out of the well and opened it. He said nothing when he saw me move out of the ether with Julia in my arms. I lay her on the grass a short distance from him and stroked her face. When I faced Kato, he was staring at me with something akin to pity. He quickly returned to his task and lifted the half-naked girl out of the barrel and laid her on the grass.
The wounds she had sustained from the whipping had been left unattended. Some had crusted over, but blood still seeped from her back. She did not stir, although she was still alive—barely. I took a step back as the scent of her blood filled my nostrils, calling to the demon within. How could I want more after all I had drunk?
“She ain’t gonna make it,” Kato said, looking deeply shaken, the arrogance gone before the weight of the possible death of the young girl.
“Bring her to me—slowly.”
At first he glared at me in defiance. But after another glance at Minny, he did as I commanded.
I drew my nail across my wrist and blood gathered along the cut, but unlike human blood, it stubbornly refused to drip from the wound.
“What you gonna do?” Kato demanded as I knelt by her side.
I gently took her by the back of the head and brought her lips to my wrist. He made to push my wrist away. I shoved him aside, much harder than I had meant to, and he lost his balance and fell on his side. He scrambled to his knees and glared at me, although anxiety was alight in his green eyes as he glanced at Minny who had begun to stir. She started to struggle feebly when she saw the cut on my wrist, perhaps knowing what it was I meant to do.
“Naw,” she moaned.
I ignored her protest and forced her lips to my wrist, commanding her mentally to drink. When I released her, she merely stared up at me, bewilderment in her eyes as she wiped at her mouth. But she was already alert, strength and colour flowing into her eyes and face.
“You should be completely healed in a short while,” I said and took a step away from her, the scent of blood still stirring the frenzied lust for death that had seen me slay hundreds of people in less than an hour.
Kato was immediately at her side. He took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders, covering her nakedness. He helped her to her feet, and although he was still glaring at me, the anxiety was gone and his thoughts revealed no arrogance, only a relief and gratitude that he never would have uttered.
Minny faced me. She stared hard at me in confusion, her thoughts lingering on the blood staining my face and clothes. Before the confusion could clear and be replaced with horror at what the blood on my face and clothing signified, I entered her mind and altered what she saw so the blood on my person disappeared.
“You’s one of them now,” she said eventually.
I nodded.
“What ‘bout...”
She did not need to finish the question, for the answer could be found lying a short distance from her. She pulled away from Kato and moved to Julia’s corpse. Kato followed close behind. It was a few moments before I could join them. I looked on in silence as she knelt before the corpse.
“Oh Lawd!” she breathed.
It was all she said, but her thoughts and emotions came to me, making me wish I was far, far away from them. She was focusing on that singular moment when Julia grasped her hand. She had observed none of the disdain other whites showed at a Negroes touch, just that of one human being to another, and the kindness and concern she had shown at Minny’s apparent distress. She was genuinely aggrieved by Julia’s death—something that surprised me, especially since we were probably the only two people on this Earth who would truly mourn her passing, for there were very few people in Julia’s short life that had ever known her true worth. This slave had seen it immediately.
I again marvelled at how wrong I had been about these Negroes. I did not need these supernatural abilities to see what everyone else chose not to see, that they were just like us whites, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Yet they were viewed as no more than cattle.
“When is you gonna bury her?” Minny asked when she got to her feet. She looked alarmed when I didn’t answer. “You is gonna bury her, ain’t you? You gots to bury her, you can’t let her—”
“Minny!” Kato murmured in warning.
She glanced at him and was silent for a few moments before she met my gaze again.
“You ain’t never gonna be at peace now,” she said gently. “But your wife can. You gots to bury her.”
I stared down at Julia. I had lost so much in just a matter of days and soon I wouldn’t even have this corpse.
I met Minny’s gaze and nodded, surprised yet again when she breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t really understand why she seemed to care so much, not only about Julia, but about me.
“I can take you away from here. If you tell me—”
“That’s mighty kind of you,” Kato began, the condescension back in his tone. “But we be just fine by ourselves.”
I stared at him, leafing through his thoughts and memories as if I were flicking through the pages of a book.
“The river,” I said after a few moments. “You stay here,” I directed at Minny. “I will take Kato back so he can retrieve whatever possessions you wish to take with you and anything else of value you come across.”
I looked directly at Kato. I will take you as far as the river. Then you’ll take Minny and get as far away as you can. Only then may you tell her what I’ve done and that they are all dead.
His face hardened. I ain’t never gonna tells her. Like she says, you and I ain’t never gonna have no peace. But at least she can if I tells her they’s all got away like we has.
I knew then that I could leave her with him and he would care for her and never leave her side. As I moved toward him, I noticed something glinting in the grass. I moved to it and picked it up. It was a gold chain with a cross.
“This must be yours.” I held it out to Minny.
Instead of reaching for the cross, she merely stared at me in awe whilst Kato looked on in fear.
“What is it?” I asked.
When Minny spoke, she sounded breathless.
“You can touch the crucifix. The others weren’t able to touch no crucifix. They could control us and make us take it off, but they couldn’t touch it nor bear to look at it, neither.”
She moved closer to me, showing absolutely no fear. I took a step back from her.
“It was the onliest thing that they couldn’t touch. A crucifix,” she said.
I didn’t understand why a small smile had lit up her face, or why Kato looked anything but happy about this latest development. I held the chain out to her again. She shook her head, again closing the space between us.
“Don’t you see?” she said, placing her hand against my arm. “Them creatures never could touch no crucifix ‘cause they’s evil. But you can, so there’s hope for you. There’s hope.”
I stared at the crucifix, something that had been a dear part of my life for as long as I could remember.
“I want you to keep it,” she said. “Hold on to it and keep remembering that you ain’t lost to the Lawd.”
Her thoughts, and the sincerity they revealed, made me place the chain around my neck.
With an anguished last glance at Julia’s corpse, I took Kato by the arm and we disappeared.
When we returned with clothing and money he found at the mansion, Minny was kneeling by Julia’s corpse, apparently praying. It was a sight that tore at my soul and I was eager to get them away from the plantation, knowing I would never have to lay eyes on them again.
When I returned to the plantation, it had stopped raining and the place was completely deserted. Everyone who could escape had left long ago and only the dead and the darkness remained. I returned to the mansion and took off the clothing Emory had given me. Then I put on my old clothes, carefully arranging the white necktie against my coat. The very act of putting on the clothing soothed my tortured soul even though I knew that wearing them was sacrilege.
I spent the rest of the night burning everything: the cotton field with its countless dead, the mansion, and the slave quarters. I watched it all burn, wishing I could burn away the memories of the last few days along with the pain that was now a permanent resident in my soul. I returned to Julia.
I took her into the woods, finding a beautiful spot that did not have too many distinguishing landmarks because, like Minny had said to me, Julia could be at peace now and I did not intend to blight her last resting place by returning to it.
It seemed as if it had been an incredibly long night that had no hope of ever ending. Surprising as it was, the sun began to rise, calling an end to the blood and terror I had unleashed during those long dark hours. The soft peach light it cast through the dense canopy of trees threatened instead of welcomed now I was no longer a man. I held tight to Julia, desperately eager to hold on to her even as the pain began to tear into my bones, urging me to get out of the way of the coming dawn. But in the end I could not bear to part with her, so I pushed through into the nothingness and re-materialised upright beneath the soil with Julia pressed tight to my chest, the two of us enclosed in earth.
I gave a heavy sigh, letting the earth close tighter around us as the pain began to lessen. I felt almost safe beneath the earth with my wife in our makeshift grave, the horror and despair lessening somewhat.
I allowed myself to sleep, wishing I could remain in this grave with her for all eternity.
But the sun could not continue to keep watch over the Earth indefinitely, and when it was chased away by the moon, I awoke, as did the demon within and the abhorrent hunger for blood that made me its captive.
Feeling as though my soul was being rent into two, I called the nothing to me. Julia and our grave disappeared and I burst into the woodland.
She was gone. I accepted that properly for the first time. The sun had not completely left the Earth to the moon, but the night was already alive as night creatures came out of their hiding places to scour the woodland and other predators took to the gloom to search for prey. As I, too, would do this night and every other night for all eternity. But first I bade goodbye to the sweet and gentle soul who had been in my mortal life for far too short a time.
I stood in the waxing twilight, which was bright before my unnatural gaze, and recited words I had said many a time before, but with none of the angst and grief I felt now.
“Julia. My darling Julia. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.”
I was all too aware of the fact that this was an abomination—a demon presiding over the grave of a righteous, God-fearing woman. But I said those words in all sincerity over her grave. And I suppose I spoke them for myself too, wanting to believe that Minny was right, that there was hope and perhaps God would give me the peace I knew was forever lost to me.
Then I watched the sun disappear completely into the horizon and night creep into being all around me. The thirst became overwhelming. I stood alone in the darkness surrounding me. It wept with its many secrets and with the atrocity it had been witness to when I slaughtered nearly every living thing on the Foster plantation.
Then with one last look at this peaceful spot which would be Julia’s resting place, I turned my back on it and looked into the night. Fear touched me for the first time. Her grave was the last thread of my humanity and now I was looking into the unknown, a void that stretched forth for an eternity.
But I wasn’t completely bereft. I had only the clothing on my back and three things to hold on to. A gold cross, and a child’s heartbeat which I had somehow heard amidst the blood roar which had consumed me. That had to be proof of God’s mercy. I also had the image of the beautiful darky and those three words.
Wait for me.
So I disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind everything that I was.