FREE
Dark Genesis
(The Darkling Trilogy Book One)
by A.
D. Koboah
Dark Genesis, A. D. Koboah's debut novel, is currently FREE. Also available: Rising Dark. You can also read my blog post on Peace,
a novel set in modern-day London.
Description
Life for a female
slave is one of hardship and unspeakable sorrow, something Luna knows only too
well. But not even she could have foreseen the terror that would befall her one
sultry Mississippi evening in the summer of 1807.
On her way back from
a visit to see the African woman, a witch who has the herbs Luna needs to rid
her of her abusive master's child, she attracts the attention of a deadly being
that lusts for blood. Forcibly removed from everything she knows by this
tormented otherworldly creature, she is sure she will be dead by sunrise.
Dark Genesis is a love story set against the savage world of
slavery in which a young woman who has been dehumanized by its horrors finds
the courage to love, and in doing so, reclaims her humanity.
Excerpt
Many slaves came to visit Mama Akosua
for her medicines, and her skills were known far and wide. It was also rumoured
that she dealt in more than just herbs and was actually a witch. Whether that
was true or not, she was feared by many, even some of the whites, and few dared
incur her wrath.
As I got nearer to the cabin, I saw that
the door had been left open and a light was burning inside even though the sun
had yet to go down. I approached gingerly. Already feeling the unease that
always possessed me in the presence of the African woman, I walked up to the
door, and stopped.
“Mama Akosua.”
There was a short spell of silence and
then her voice floated out to me.
“I have been expecting you.” The voice
was low and dry like the sound of rustling leaves.
She probably said that every time someone
came to her door, no doubt to help foster the belief that she was a powerful
all-seeing, all-knowing witch. But the words still sent icy fingers trailing
down my spine and I swallowed before taking her words as permission to enter.
The cabin, which consisted of only one
room, was rich with the slightly bitter, but not unpleasant, smell of dried
herbs. Most of the room was taken up by a long wooden table, which held
bottles, bowls and an assortment of other instruments that were used to prepare
her concoctions. Every wall in the room was lined with shelves holding bottles,
jars and baskets of fresh and dried herbs. The only evidence that someone lived
in the cabin was the pallet in the corner. This was the most furniture I had
seen in any slave cabin, but as her Master profited from the sale of her herbs,
it was in his interest to make sure she had everything she needed. There was
another smaller table in the centre of the room and that is where she sat,
peering at me by the light of an oil lamp.
She was a small lithe woman with
delicate features like mine. Her head was cleanly shaven and she would have
been considered beautiful were it not for the scars, rows of lines about an
inch long, marking her forehead and cheeks. It was rumoured that those scars
had been self-inflicted when she was first brought to America as a slave. Some
people whispered that she had done it to honour the customs of her people,
others, that the journey, the horrors of the middle passage, had driven her to
scar her face in madness and despair. Although I would never dare to ask her, I
didn’t believe she had been driven insane. The shrewd dark eyes that met mine
belonged to a strong, sharp mind and I doubted that anything could, or ever
would, be able to break it.
“Evening, Mama Akosua,” I said as I
walked into the circle of light.
There was still daylight outside but it
didn’t seem to reach the small window in Mama Akosua’s cabin and so it was
always dark in here no matter what the time of day.
She gestured to the chair opposite hers,
her eyes never leaving my face. I moved to the chair and when I sat down, she
pushed a small cup toward me.
“Drink,” she said.
I picked up the cup and sipped the cool
concoction, which tasted vaguely of mint leaves. Whatever it was, it seemed to
have an immediate effect because I no longer felt as hot and the fatigue, which
had been pulling on me like lead weights, seemed to evaporate.
Feeling slightly better, I was able to
meet the force of her gaze fully. She seemed to have aged a great deal since I last
saw her, nearly four years ago. The lines around her eyes and the ones running
from her nose to the corners of her mouth had deepened and although she was not
yet forty years old, she looked much older.
She studied me for a few moments and a
soft sigh escaped her when she finally shifted her gaze away from my face.
“It is as I feared,” she said and stood
up, wincing from the small movement.
“You hurt?”
“It is a small price to pay,” she
mumbled, more to herself it seemed.
She reached into a basket on one of the
shelves and pulled out a small black cloth bundle. Moving back to the table she
placed the bundle before her and when she sat down again she closed her eyes
for a few seconds. She was clearly in a lot of pain.
“I have prepared what you need,” she
said pulling open the cloth bundle to reveal six paper sachets of herbs.
There was no need for her to ask me why
I was here. I would only risk making this dangerous journey for one reason.
“Take this tonight.” She pointed to the
larger of the bundles. “The rest is to be taken for five nights after, to stop
the bleeding.”
She tied up the bundle and pushed it
across the table toward me.
“Thank you, Mama Akosua.”
“Is it the son this time?”
I looked up and met her intimidating
gaze, but on this occasion, I couldn’t hold it. She knew how much these things
shamed me yet it didn’t stop her from asking about them. When I answered, my
voice was barely a whisper.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“He... he be at my cabin near about
three times a week now since Easter.”
“He is worse than his father, no?” It
wasn’t a question; it was a statement.
“Yes.”
I fought back tears as an image came to
me from a few weeks before. I was standing in my tiny cabin and Master John was
behind me gazing at our reflections in a small handheld mirror. I don’t know if
making me look at myself was one of the many ways he had of tormenting me or if
he really was oblivious to the fact that I despised my face. Either way, he
would make me stare at my piercing dark brown eyes framed by long sooty
eyelashes, deep mahogany skin, small delicate features and large sensuous lips.
My springy, unruly hair was pulled away from my face, something he insisted on,
as my hair was the one thing a man like him could find no beauty in. It was
always the same ordeal with the mirror whenever he came to my cabin. And I
honestly don’t know which face I hated more, that of the blond-haired,
blue-eyed man I had come to despise even more than his old, decrepit father, or
my own. The face he was enamoured with. He eventually pulled the mirror out of
my hand, and placing it on the bed, held his arms out.
“Dance with me,” he had said in a soft,
silky voice.
I remained where I was, my face a blank
mask but rage no doubt burning behind my eyes. I may not have had a say over
his nocturnal visits, but I would not play these little games or pretend that I
wanted him in my wretched little cabin.
Fast, so fast that I didn’t have time to
protect myself, he raised his hand and slapped me, sending me crashing to the
floor. Pain bloomed along my temple and the left side of my face. I had also
bitten my lip when I hit my head. His foot came down on my neck and I felt the
dirt on the sole of his boot rubbing into my skin as he pressed down, cutting
off my air supply. I struggled in vain to breathe and was close to losing
consciousness when he slowly removed his foot and hauled me back onto my feet
as if he were picking up a sack of potatoes. Then he held out his arms again,
that smile, which never seemed to leave his face, swimming before my eyes as I
struggled to clear my vision.
I was bristling with anger and yet fear
won out because he could do anything he wanted to me and there was nothing I
would be able to do to stop him. No one I could go to for protection. I had
been born and bred purely for men like him, not only to do with as they
pleased, but to increase their riches by breeding more slaves for them to own.
“Dance with me,” he said again.
Tasting blood in my mouth, I did as I
was ordered to do.
“Massa Henry used to please hisself and
leave,” I told Mama Akosua. “But Massa John... he like to play.”
Featured Review
Luna is a slave who is repeatedly sexually abused by her Master and then
his son when he becomes the Master. Her mother is sold away from her when she
is a very young child and she has no-one else. She finds her only solace in a
ruined chapel on the grounds of the plantation, but even that is no longer safe.
This story is truly intense. It is told from the view of a young woman
who finds a journal telling the life's story of an ancestor of hers, Luna.
Through her we feel terror, horror, humor, romance, sex, safety, loss, joy, and
sorrow. Each page brings new enticing information to keep pulling you into the
story.
Well written, this story is not for the faint of heart or for children.
This story has scenes of rape, murder, demons, beating, the worst of slavery,
and the best in humanity. It will make you angry, happy, sad, and get your
adrenalin pulsing. I would not read it in the dark ... Unless you are very
brave.
From the Author
I am of Ghanaian descent and spent the first few years of my life in
Ghana before moving to London which is where I have lived ever since. I
completed an English Literature degree in 2000 and although I have always
written in my spare time, I didn’t start writing full-time until a few years
ago.
My first novel Dark Genesis
was inspired by my thoughts on dehumanization. I was fascinated by the ways in
which people are able to dehumanize others, the impact it has on the psyche and
whether it is possible for people to find their way back from being
dehumanized. This led me to Luna and the ruins of a haunted chapel deep in the
heart of Mississippi.
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