Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (27 page)

“
We will not be gone for
long,” Akan said with a calmness he did not feel.

Dread crept into Jow’s
eyes when she realised Akan actually meant to take the divine one
out of the temple.

“
This...this is unheard
of! You cannot take her out of the temple. The—”

“
Step aside, Jow. I will
not hesitate to trample over your dead body on our way out of this
temple.”

“
Do not threaten me, Akan
or I will call the guards! If you are caught with her we will all
be killed. I—”

“
Please
, Jow.”

Jow turned to the child
huddled in Topa’s robe, only her eyes visible. The anger fell away
from the old woman’s features. Perhaps it was her fear of the child
goddess that directed Jow’s actions, but she moved aside and let
them pass.

They were soon out of the
tunnel and into the night. The goddess gave a little squeal of
delight when she felt the crisp night air. She turned her face up
to the sky. A gasp escaped her.

“
Look at the sky—at the
moon. It is shining so much brighter than I remember. It is almost
as if it is doing so just for me, its goddess.”

“
Yes, for its
goddess.”

He took her through the
village, keeping away from the homes but trying to let her see as
much of the village as possible. He eventually took her to the
field of flowers and removed Jow’s robe, letting her roam
unrestricted. She darted through the field, often swooping to pick
a flower. At times she darted out of sight, hidden by the night
time shadows, and Akan’s heart would clench painfully for a few
seconds until her tiny form reappeared, another flower added to the
ones she already had in her hands. Soon her arms were laden with
them. She eventually came out of the field, her face half-obscured
by the flowers in her arms, a huge smile on her face. He covered
her in Topa’s robe once more and took her to the top of the hill
near his home. Her hand in his, they stood looking down on the
village stretched before them in all its beauty, the sacrificial
altar the only blight on the landscape.

“
It is so lonely in the
temple, but when I look upon my village, I understand and it is
worth the loneliness.”

“
Come, Goddess, we have to
get back.”

“
Is that your home?” She
was staring behind her to his house.

“
Yes, Goddess.”

“
Is your son inside? I
would like to see him.”

“
Well, all right. But you
have to be very quiet as we cannot wake them.”

He took the flowers from
her arms and they moved to the house, entering it silently. When
they entered Akan and Rutia’s sleeping space the child goddess
pulled her hand out of Akan’s and moved forward into the gloom to
peer at Rutia, Tanu tucked in her arms, the two of them fast
asleep. She didn’t move or speak at all, but merely stared at them
for some long minutes whilst Akan waited by the door. They had
already been gone for far longer than he had intended.

He moved to the living
idol’s side and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“
Divine one,” he
whispered. “We have to go.”

She was silent, her gaze
fixed on his wife and son, her expression one of visceral
yearning.

“
I want to stay,” she
whispered.

Fear touched Akan like the
cold hand of a corpse.

“
Goddess,
we...”

He was silenced by
movement from the sleeping pair. Tanu awoke, twisting towards the
sound of his father’s voice, waking Rutia in the process. Tanu
stared ahead, his little face twisted with sleep and confusion for
a few moments before his face fell slack and his eyes widened at
the sight before him: the child goddess all but swallowed up by the
dark robe, only her face visible.

Rutia’s gaze was alert as
she awoke and took in the two of them standing before her. Fear
instantly flooded her eyes when she saw the divine one. She looked
to Akan and then back at the celestial being, pulling Tanu to
her.

“
Goddess, please,” Akan
whispered.

The divine one did not
resist when he picked her up, for she already knew her desire to
stay was a hopeless dream. She had seen the fear in Rutia’s eyes,
the same fear she saw in the gazes of everyone who beheld her save
Akan and Mutata. In Mutata’s face she saw a mask of acquiescence,
behind which rage burned along with the desire to
destroy.

There were tears streaming
down the child goddess’s face as Akan exited the house with her in
his arms. He hurried away. The goddess kept her gaze on the
receding house, intense longing in her eyes. Just before they drew
out of sight of his home, Akan looked back to see Rutia standing
outside the house, almost lost in shadow. He hurried on, not
knowing what he would say to Rutia when he returned.

The child goddess had
ceased crying by the time they reached the temple.

Jow said nothing when they
returned, but the setting of her shoulders and the relaxed turn of
her lips let Akan know she was relieved they had returned. The
others seemed relieved too, the fear hanging around the temple
having diminished slightly.

When Akan placed the
living idol on her feet, he knelt before her so he could peer into
her eyes.

“
Goddess, if I could, I
would not hesitate to take you with me and never return. But your
destiny means you cannot live like a normal child. You are our
goddess, the saviour of the Enwa people.”

She merely stared at the
floor for a few moments.

“
What is his name?” she
asked.

“
Who?”

“
Your son.”

“
Tanu.”

“
I wish I was him, asleep
in my mother’s arms instead of here and that I was just called Tanu
instead of goddess.”

“
You will always be my
goddess, not even the true goddess could make me forsake you. But
if you want me to call you by your earthly name, then I shall. Do
you remember your earthly name?”

A weak smile came to her
lips. “It is Alayai.”

Akan rose to his
feet.

“
Goodnight, Alayai, my
goddess.”

He left her, the silvery
marks her tears had dried to still on her face. He returned home to
the questions he was sure were waiting for him.

The night before the
exorcism, I was outside in the field of flowers with a notepad in
my hand. The air was warm and fragrant with the sweet scent of
Queen Anne’s lace, the sky a rich expanse of smouldering violet. It
was another night when the world around me felt thin and transient
as if I was only a breath away from shrugging off my body and
leaving this world behind me. My thoughts were on the walled
village and Alayai. I still could not reconcile the fact that the
child I had been getting to know over the past few weeks was the
evil entity that had slaughtered so many of my descendants. And I
wondered whether or not I would be able to vanquish the spirit when
I got to the chapel now I knew it had once been a child.

Avery came out a while
later and sat down beside me.

When I faced him and found
him staring at me, worry creasing his brow, I smiled at him
although I knew it probably didn’t reach my eyes.

“
Don’t worry, Avery. I’m
okay. I feel miles better now. Maybe my body is getting used to
just vampire blood and I won’t get any weaker,” I lied.

I looked away and up at
the night sky. It was a few moments before I spoke
again.

“
Avery, do you remember
what Mary Holbert looked like?”

“
Mary? Of
course.”

The image was there in his
mind for me to see. I almost gasped as her face unfolded before me,
but I managed to suppress it. I also felt a surge of frustration
when I remembered the many days and nights I had spent in the past
wandering the streets searching for a face that would ignite a
memory of Mary. It was all so senseless when the face I was
desperate to see again—along with all I ever really wanted or
needed in this world—had been waiting for me at the mansion. All
I’d had to do was come to Avery. He would have never refused me
something as small as this.

I flipped open my notepad
and began to sketch whilst Avery lay back and watched me. It was
difficult to hold back tears as Mary’s smile, her gentle,
amber-coloured eyes, the beautiful face of the woman who had cared
for me when my mother was taken away, formed on the
page.

It was the face I’d had an
image of so long ago in Central Park which let me know Alessandra
was someone I could trust. I stared at it for a few long moments
before I handed the notepad to Avery.

“
What do you
think?”

“
As beautiful as she was
in life,” he said with a smile. “You’re very talented.”

“
Thank you. I had to draw
her as I couldn’t really picture her properly from Luna’s journal.
She became Luna’s mother when Mama Akosua was taken from her, but
although some of my family know about Luna and Mama Akosua, no one
knows anything about Mary. She’s like so many slaves whose lives
and struggles have been completely forgotten. This is just my way
of remembering some of them.”

He was staring intently at
me now, his brow furrowed.

“
Don’t look at me like
that, Avery. I’m not a complete airhead.”

“
I would never call you an
airhead.”

I smiled because despite
how silly I sometimes was now, Avery didn’t see me as an airhead.
He saw me as sweet and quite innocent. I was sure he was the only
person in the entire world who saw me that way.

The sound of the phone
ringing tore his gaze away from me and toward the house. He ran
inside to answer it. The shrill ringing cut off moments later and
his voice drifted out to me as he spoke to the person on the other
end.

I continued to stare at
the drawing of Mary.

Before the memories,
slavery had been something in a textbook I always thought was far
removed from my life. I realised that, like whatever remained of
Alayai in that chapel, its ghost had never really been laid to
rest. I thought of the mistake I made shortly after Avery rescued
me from slavery when I offered my body to him, believing it was the
only thing of value I had. Two centuries later I was making the
same mistakes, relying on my sexuality when I came to the mansion,
still playing the role that had been forced on black females during
slavery: That of the sexual temptress. It made me wonder what other
ways in which I had let the echoes of slavery play out in my life
both then and now.

I sighed, frustrated with
myself. It felt as if I had come so far yet taken practically no
steps forward at all.

My thoughts drifted to the
exorcism that was almost upon us and the heaviness in my heart
deepened. There was a very strong possibility I would not come back
from that chapel. What would that mean for Avery? More years spent
with only the ashes of our love, making his world a grey landscape
that was completely without joy? And even if I did return from the
chapel, there was nothing to suggest he would ever grow to love me
as I was. I was just so very different now from the woman I used to
be. I was young and silly, and if I was honest, I didn’t want to
return to the way I used to be, burdened with rage and hatred that
had been slowly eating me alive. But the woman he remembered is who
he would want me to be.

So where did this leave
us?

I had never understood how
Avery could say he loved me and yet let me go to marry Jupiter.
Seeing Avery in so much misery decades after my death was allowing
me to understand the sacrifice he had made. If I came back from the
chapel, there was a chance I would have to walk away from Avery if
it was what he needed.

I stared up at the night
sky for a few moments, tears filling my eyes. Death would be
preferable to living on this Earth without my beloved.

Deeply unhappy, I got to
my feet. My head spun and the field of flowers swam before my eyes
as I was overcome by that weakness. It passed fairly quickly, but I
was left wondering how much longer my preternatural body would be
able to survive without human blood. Would it be weeks or months
before all its strength, along with life, finally left it?
Clutching the drawing of Mary, I entered the mansion.

***

Not long after dawn
unfolded into a warm sunlit morning, I went downstairs to Avery’s
study dressed in pyjamas. The mansion had a fretful stillness to it
as Mallory had left with Shadrach just before dawn.

Avery turned to face me
when I entered, a smile coming to his lips.

“
Is everything okay,
Dallas?”

“
Um, yeah. I just need to
talk to you.”

“
Go on.”

“
I just...I just don’t
know what’s going to happen tonight. Whether we’ll be able to
banish this thing or if either of us will come back.”

The smile disappeared and
he frowned.