The townspeople did not know of a witch powerful enough to pose a threat to us, but there was one who knew of us.
One evening, when Luna had gone on one of her solitary walks, she summoned me with two words.
Come alone.
I was surprised when I heard her in my mind, for this witch was not someone I ever expected to hear from. But I put my book down and went immediately.
When I got to her home, I stood outside it for a long moment, staring at the house and the changes that had been made to it. More rooms had been added at the back and it had been painted white. There was also a white fence around it now.
The front door opened not long after I arrived and she appeared in the doorway. I walked up to her, joy in my heart.
She was still exceptionally beautiful, even though she was almost ninety-one years old by this time. Her caramel-coloured skin was marred with few wrinkles and she still had a full head of white, wavy hair which was in two French plaits, the way she had worn it since she was a little girl. Unlike most of the elderly I had come across, she stood tall and straight before me, and it would not have been hard to believe she was thirty years younger than she actually was.
“Lina. It really is such a pleasure to see you again after so long. Like Luna, you have grown more beautiful with age.”
Although her manner appeared aloof, she allowed herself a small smile.
“Can I come inside?” I asked.
The smile became slightly colder.
“You don’t need my permission to come in this here house. See for yourself.”
I did and was surprised I was able to enter. “How is this so?”
She led me to the living room, the same one I had materialised in so many times during those years away from Luna, wishing the shoes I saw drying near the fire were my shoes, and the man sleeping beside her was me. All of that was so long ago.
“The same way you was able to enter Luna’s cabin all them years ago. It seems none of my mama’s descendants has any protection against you.”
“Well, know this, Lina. You will never have a reason to need protection from me.”
“I suppose that’s true, ‘cause magic like that don’t lie. But an open door works both ways and there ain’t no easy way to shut it once it’s been opened. So you ain’t got no protection from her, neither. Something that should scare you a whole lot more than you realise.”
I laughed, for she must have been joking. But she stared at me gravely. The laughter soon trailed away.
“Why do I get the feeling you did not call me here for a social visit?” Her gaze became much sadder.
“Sit down, Mr Wentworth.” I sat down as she moved to a table in the centre of the room. “Grandma used to talk of you eating like us humans, which I ain’t never heard of before in all my years. But I made you some tea.”
She placed it before me. I was briefly reminded of my first ever visit to Mama Akosua’s home and felt a tinge of sadness. It had been years since I had seen her spirit at the lake and I missed her terribly.
“I miss her too.”
I paused with the cup to my lips. “You can read my thoughts?”
“No, unfortunately.” Again that cold smile. “Only my grandmama had that kind of power. But I didn’t call you here for small talk.
“My Ebenezer died years ago, God rest his soul, but I kept on living, for too long, and I know it’s ‘cause there’s something I’m still needed on this Earth to do. Once it’s done, then I can follow my Ebenezer home. No, I ain’t called you here for a social visit. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“About Luna?”
“Yes, but this is something I has to show you, with my thoughts.”
I nodded, feeling a whisper of anxiety for the first time.
She sat down and stared at me. “I’m ready.”
The first thing I saw was Luna. Instant apprehension gripped me when I saw where she was.
She was walking toward the slave quarters at our mansion. She came to a stop before she reached the cabins and I was able to pick up the other things in the vision, like her heightened state of emotions.
The fury that was usually hidden deep beneath was free and it twisted, leapt and raged. A prickle crept along my neck when I felt it, especially since outwardly, she was still, her hands clasped loosely before her. The focus of her thoughts and heightened emotions was Celesta and that’s who she reached out to, waking the child. She then sent her images and I looked on in dismay as the images reeled out, seeing exactly what Celesta had seen.
The Morrisons’ old boss was returning home late at night when his horse came to an abrupt stop. Luna stood before the horse, staring up at him. She didn’t give him a chance to speak, or even a moment to wonder what she was doing there alone at night. She knocked him off his horse and dragged him deep into the woods.
Alone in the woods with no one to hear his screams, she beat him brutally. When he was lying on the ground bloodied, her fist came down on his spine, and I winced at the sound of his bones crunching. She didn’t want to kill him. No, that was too easy for him. She wanted to make sure he lived to suffer for a very long time.
Wide awake, Celesta’s breathing was rapid as the images of what Luna had done to her old boss suffused her mind. She sat rapt, seeing him being battered like a doll, with only Luna to hear his cries for help between his pleas for her to stop. When he lost consciousness, she revived him and, to my growing disquiet, healed him so she could begin the assault afresh.
When she finished showing Celesta what she had done, she turned and slowly walked back to the mansion where I was waiting. She took a few moments to steady herself before she walked in to meet me. And, as oblivious as always, I only noticed how radiant and beautiful she looked, and that being apart from Luna, no matter how short the separation, was always too long. I saw absolutely nothing amiss even though she was quieter than usual.
The next thing Lina showed me was Luna at a location I had never seen before.
She stood outside what appeared to be a humble home surrounded by grasslands, watching the front door as she manipulated and confused one of the minds within so a woman went to the door believing a friend was outside who desperately needed to enter. A few moments later, the door was opened. Luna was inside the house in less than a second. The white woman she lured to the door was impaled when Luna hit her, her fist punching a hole through her chest and the door behind her. Luna pulled her arm away from the door, the choking woman rising along with the arm, and swung her arm to the side, throwing the woman off her arm and across the room to crash into the fireplace. There were three men in the house. In the time it took Luna to kill the female, they only had time to get to their feet.
The first one screamed as his private parts were crushed, just by the power of her thoughts. It was reduced to a bloody pulp as he fell to his knees, bent double and squealing in pain, blood soaking the front of his trousers and spreading to his thighs. The second man was thrown across the room headfirst. His skull was crushed and his neck broken. The third man only had time to stagger back. She was upon him, her fangs ripping into his neck. She crushed his arms in her hold as she drank his blood. Then she let him fall to the ground to bleed to death.
Screams alerted her to the two children, who having been awakened by the commotion, came to the living room doorway. Had she known there were children in that house? I do not know. But mercifully, she killed them quickly and painlessly.
Then she turned her attention to the first man, a young man with blond hair and blue eyes, whose private parts she had crushed. He was crying, dribbling in pain. She knelt by his side. She intended to spend at least a few hours with him and make sure he fully understood the meaning of pain before he died.
What I had seen so far was bad enough, but the last thing Lina showed me made the blood drain from my face.
At first I only saw a hand, a male hand. It shook violently as it came to hover over a ropy dark, wet substance. Then I saw him fully. It was the Negro slaveholder we came across shortly after Luna returned to me. He was lying on his back, splattered with blood. His face was ashen and he was struggling to breathe, forcing the air in and out of his lungs. His trembling hands hovered over his own entrails which spilled from what was left of his stomach. He locked gazes with the person before him, a silent plea in his eyes. It went unanswered and she moved away, leaving him to die slowly, and painfully.
“I think you’ve seen enough,” Lina said.
I was completely silent for at least fifteen minutes. She didn’t speak while I sat there, struggling to come to terms with what she had shown me.
How did I feel? Broken in a way I couldn’t even articulate.
“How...how long? How long has she been killing?”
“I can’t be sure, ‘cause it started slowly. But at least fifteen years.”
I could only stare at her.
“So...so what I always feared has come to pass. The entity from the chapel has a hold on her.”
“This ain’t no spirit!” she spat. “This is all her. Ain’t nothing controlling her.”
I got to my feet without realising I had risen, moving much faster than I intended to.
“You think this is Luna? Absurd! This is not Luna. Luna would never commit such...such heinous acts of her own volition!”
I only realised how threatening my stance must have appeared to her when I saw her move one hand to her pocket. She made no reply, nor any move to escape me. She just looked up at me with perfect equanimity.
Struggling to control my tortured emotions, I got my chair, moving slowly, and pulled it forward so it was a few feet from hers. I sat down and took the hand on her lap in both of mine.
I spoke as calmly as I could in spite of the whirlwind of confused and conflicting emotions.
“Lina, you are Luna’s child. You mean as much to me as my father’s and brother’s children. You could use whatever you have in that pocket against me, and I would never lift a hand against you in defence. You have nothing to fear from me.”
After a few moments, she appeared slightly embarrassed and pulled out a little ball of twisted herbs.
“What does it do?”
“It would’ve stopped you from being able to move for a couple of minutes. And when you stepped foot in this house, you was caught in a spell that means you can’t leave unless I’m still alive to release you. It’s the opposite of the magic that means you can’t step foot inside a home unless you’re invited. So you would’ve been trapped here for however long it took for you to die.”
I was speechless for a few seconds.
“I do not understand. Why do you think I would ever harm you?”
She hardened again. “Well now, Mr Wentworth, I know you wouldn’t. But I couldn’t be sure you’s coming alone.”
It took a few moments for what she said to sink in, and when it did, I carefully released her hand and stood up, moving as far away from her as I could.
“You think Luna, your mother, would harm you?”
“My mother died a long time ago, Mr Wentworth. That thing out there is a killer and there ain’t much that kin stop it, so understand this. Ain’t no chapel devil doing this. It’s Luna, and it has to stop.”
I was silent again as it dawned on me that she thoroughly believed what she was saying.
“She’s shed a lot of blood over the years,” she continued, her tone milder, though there was a band of steel around every word. “You saw the torture and the cruelty behind them killings. It has to stop. I called you here ‘cause my grandmama believed in you. I’m giving you a month to make her stop or I’ll kill her.”
“You do not know what you are saying. Luna is your mother.”
“That thing going around killing folks ain’t my mama.” She was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “You think I wants to kill her? I don’t. So I’m giving you a chance. Make her stop, or I will.”
I moved to the door and then paused, turning to face her again.
“I have clearly been blind to much—very blind. And I may be wrong about a lot of things, but of this I’m certain. Luna would never harm one of her descendants.”
She gazed at me, that hard light in her eyes.
I stepped into the night, completely devastated. When I returned to the mansion, Luna was still not back, something that immediately sent a chill through me now I knew what she had been doing on those solitary jaunts of hers.
I sat on my own in the drawing room until around eleven, when Samuel came in to ask if I needed anything done before he went to bed.
I shook my head. Noticing my grim mood, he hung around for a few moments, seemingly unsure of whether or not to ask what was wrong. Then he bade me goodnight and moved to the door.
As he was leaving, I did something I had never done before and spoke into his mind.
You should have told me.
He inhaled sharply and came to a stop by the door, his mind awhirl with thoughts. Questions, mainly. But he knew exactly what I was talking about. What surprised me was that he faced me again, his gaze calm and only mildly apologetic.
“Is you able to protect us? Against her?”
I was silent and would have been enraged at what his words signified about their perceptions of my weakness, if I couldn’t see his thoughts and the simple reasoning behind the words. When he first came to us for help, he had known I would not harm them, but he had never put much faith in Luna.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, Mr Avery. I’s happy she be killing them mens. I’s happy she be able to do what I’s wanting to do my whole life but too afraid to do. Why shouldn’t one of us be able to get even for once?” He was quiet for a few seconds. “You think that makes me evil?”
I wanted to say yes, but there was a field of dead slaves that prevented me from uttering that word.
“The difference is she isn’t one of you anymore. An evil man can easily be stopped with force. But Luna cannot be stopped easily. What she’s doing isn’t about the wrongs these men have done, it’s about the thrill of the kill, and it’s a disease, one that’s starting to swallow the goodness in her. Those moments of kindness and compassion she showed with your daughter will be swallowed up and there will be nothing left of the woman I love.”
He didn’t move but stared at me, the gravity of my words weighing down on him. I rose then and went to the chest where we kept some of our valuables. They all knew there was a lot of money in that chest, but there had never been any need for us to keep it locked. I took out a wad of money and handed it to him.
“Here. You’ll have to pack quickly, packing only the essentials. I will take you to the church in the next town. We are weaker during the day, but that does not mean we are any less formidable. Father Butler is a good man. He will either accompany you to New York, or find another white to do so in order to make sure no trouble comes your way. This money should be more than enough for you to establish yourselves. Father Butler knows many people who will be able to help you. Please, make sure Celesta continues her education; we would love to see her become a teacher.”
He stared at the money in his hand in disbelief before he gazed at me, tears in his eyes.
“But why? Is it ‘cause you’s mad at—”
I shook my head, halting him in mid flow. “As you quite rightly indicated a few moments ago, Luna is much stronger than I will ever be and it is only out of love that I have been able to keep her darker side in check, or so I thought. That may all change over the next few weeks, or even days, so it is in your best interest to be as far away from this town as possible.”
Again he looked down at the money in his hand. He was ashamed of himself now. He had gained so much pleasure in Luna’s exploits and all those white men she had killed. But here was a white man who had shown him nothing but compassion. He was wishing now that he’d given me the respect I deserved and told me of what he had known.
I sighed and moved away to stand by the fireplace. I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t protect them, and to be honest, would I have believed him? Only Lina could have shown me what had happened and who was responsible.
“I am not a man,” I said in response to his thoughts. “That’s why I have been able to show compassion. People are a product of their surroundings. Who’s to say that if I had been raised here and didn’t have the powers I have to see that Negroes are not animals, I wouldn’t be just like the Fortier brothers? Who’s to say you wouldn’t be like them if it was what society had taught you to be?”
We stared at each other across the room. It was something he had never considered before.
“Give me a week, Mr Avery. I can get them settled and then come back and stay for as long as you need me.”
“Thank you,” I said, managing a small smile for the first time since Lina revealed the truth to me. “But you don’t owe me anything, Samuel. You should go and get ready, I don’t know when she will be back.”
He nodded and lingered for only a second before he left the room. I heard him round them up, listening to the quiet urgency in his tone, the muffled panic from Alba and only silence from Celesta. I went out into the field of Queen Anne’s lace and waited. When I heard Luna’s footsteps in the drawing room and heard her settle down, I went out to the old slave quarters.
It was the first time I had been there since they moved in and I was surprised at how homely it was. I didn’t take much note of the strained, frightened expressions that met me. I listened instead to make sure Luna was still in the drawing room, then I spirited them away to the church.
The parting was awkward. Samuel merely stood before me and fiddled with his hat. He eventually held out his hand. I shook it warmly, and then Alba’s. She looked so tiny, her eyes large in her thin face. The third surprise that night was Celesta. I nodded in her direction, expecting little more than a mumbled goodbye. But she surprised me by hugging me. She didn’t move away from me straight away, but looked up at me intently, concentrating. I let her thoughts reach me.
I ain’t able to write well yet, but I left Luna a letter. I hid it under a flower pot by the window so my mama wouldn’t find it.
I nodded.
Relieved, she scurried away into the church. But the surface thought was repeated over and over again. The note. Tell her ‘bout the note.
I turned away from the church and the anxious voices within. I felt a profound loss. Since finding Luna, I had worked so hard to try and regain my humanity and attempt to atone for my past sins, even though I never truly would. But at moments like this, to see how these people had accepted me, especially Celesta, it was so precious and hard won. But my salvation had come at a cost: Luna’s soul.
Reluctantly I left the church to do what I had been dreading since leaving Lina’s home.
Luna was still in the drawing room writing in her journal. She paused when she became aware of me standing by the window, watching her. Her back was to me and I marvelled again at how fragile she always appeared to be even though she was such a powerful being. She caught a scent of my surface thoughts and a soft sigh escaped her. She resumed writing.
“I should have known that meddlesome daughter of mine would find a way to reach you. So tell me, Avery, what tales has she been telling you?”
“I saw everything she has seen and heard. I saw the bodies in her mind’s eye, Luna and the sadism in your killing sprees are truly extraordinary.”
“No more than yours was that night you took your revenge on the Fosters and all their helpless slaves. The brutality I inflicted on those men was no worse than what they have inflicted on countless Negroes over the years. They had gone unpunished for far too long for their wickedness. They deserved to die.”
“Did their children deserve to die? And the Negro slaveholder?”
She at last put the pen down and swivelled in the chair to face me. The silence between us crackled with tension before she answered. And then I wished she had remained silent.
“Why wait for those children to grow up and become monsters like their parents?”
She saw my horror at her words and looked away.
“I lost control, but even in the red mist of the kill, I saw reason enough to kill the children quickly and painlessly. They did not suffer.” She faced me again and a wry smile touched her lips. “Do you remember that one, Avery,” she added, sounding almost sad.
I moved toward her. “Do you remember what you felt when I told you that, and the horror and repulsion those words wrote on you? Do you remember a time when you held human values of remorse and compassion—and most of all, respect for life—in high regard? Do you remember that, Luna?”
She lowered her eyes and shrugged.
“Vaguely. I am no longer a human being, Avery. And neither are you. All we can do is mimic their limited existence in order to continue our lives. There is no use in denying what we are. We are killers. Those men deserved to die and I feel no remorse in killing them.”
I knew this was not true. A part of her was ashamed, not necessarily at the deaths, but the fact she had lost control. It frightened her, the ease with which the chapel entity—which had always been the unspoken Other on the periphery of our world—had been able to creep in. Not wanting to believe Luna was solely responsible, I latched on to that, hope rising for the first time since leaving Lina’s home.
“Answer this first. Is it the spirit from the chapel controlling you?”
She laughed. “God no. I’m too strong for it. I told you that.”
“Oh well, that makes it all better then. How much of a relief it is to know this evil is of your own will and volition.”
She stayed silent as my own anger, which rarely surfaced throughout the course of our marriage, was barely contained.
“It sickens me that you can be so calm about what you have done. They deserve to die? We are not gods, Luna. We are something else altogether. We do not have the right or the inherent good within us to be judge and executioner. If we do not shun the urge to kill, it makes way for the evil within us to rule and make us monsters. Look at what I was when I first came across you. I was no more than a mindless beast. And we are not invincible. You cannot continue on this path.”
She stood up. “My safety is not more important than those who are beaten down from morning till dusk, Avery. It may be easy for you to watch my people suffer, but I won’t do it any longer. You must decide, you are either with us or against us.”
“So you’re doing this for the benefit of your people?” I flung the image of the Negro slaveholder at her. She looked away. “And what of the others who were killed or tortured as punishment for the deaths of those whites? You are responsible. You tell me to decide which side I am on? Yours, Luna. Always by your side. Wasn’t I standing by your side that night as we battled furiously to protect your people? All those lives we could not save and you knew it was because of what you had done. And worst of all, you kept this from me.”
She appeared agitated for the first time. But she quickly regained her composure.
“I haven’t forgotten those men and women and...and I’ll avenge their deaths.”
“Have you not heard a word I said? You will do no such thing! I forbid it!”
Her anger flared and her face became like stone, her eyes dark, luminous jewels that blazed at me.
“You forbid it,” she said slowly. “As a white man to a nigger wench?”
“As man to wife!”
Her smile was bitter and cruel. She didn’t need to say anything. The years of arguments about that very point said all that needed to be said. She turned and sauntered out of the room.
I was left standing there knowing we had reached an impasse in our marriage that could prove impossible to breach. I remembered clearly Mama Akosua’s warning and wished with all my strength she was still alive to offer her wisdom, for it was sorely needed.
Luna left the mansion shortly after and I sat and worried, thinking long and hard about what to do, if there was indeed something that could be done. A few hours before dawn, I made my way to Lina’s home. I waited outside.
Unsurprisingly she wasn’t asleep. I heard her get out of bed a few moments later and make her way downstairs. I stared at the house I’d had built for Luna. How could I have known at that time what my presence in her life would do to her? I moved to the front door and Lina opened it a few moments later.
“I have thought about what you have said. There may be a way to weaken Luna, but I need you to promise you will not kill her. Whether or not you will agree to my plan depends on one thing: if you trust in my judgement that she would never hurt you, or any of her descendants.”
She stared at me for the longest time and I saw pity in her gaze. Then she pulled the door open to let me inside.