“Or just go ahead and die…” Serafina said bitterly.
She wanted to get down to the bottom of what Rowena was hiding, but she began to hear a deep pounding sound all around.
She looked up to see a dark cloud passing over the top of the forest. The stars disappeared. Her legs flushed with a cold surge of sudden fear.
The sound was low in volume at first, but it got louder and louder as it came closer. The earth and trees began to shake, a heavy heartbeat pounding the air. Boom…boom…boom…
A swirling wind rose up, and the leaves on the trees began to vibrate. The sticks on the forest floor lifted up and rose slowly into the air, levitating around her. She tried to be brave, but her arms and legs began to tremble, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Rowena’s goats bleated as they scurried around the lair in terror.
Rowena ran inside and came back out clenching a potion-filled flask. Ducking down in panic, she looked up into the blackened sky and all around her, ready to fight, holding the flask up in her shaking hand like she was going to throw it at the attacker.
“He’s found us!” Rowena whispered over to Serafina. “You need to go!”
“But who is it? What’s happening?” Serafina asked as she took cover behind a large tree.
“Don’t be a fool, cat,” Rowena shouted at her. “Get out of here!”
Serafina ran through the forest to escape the storm. The trees twisted and thrashed as branches cracked overhead and came crashing down around her. A gust of wind buffeted her so hard that it knocked her off her feet and threw her tumbling across the ground. She scrambled back up and kept running, but then heard Rowena scream behind her.
Gasping for breath, Serafina turned and looked back.
Serafina could see Rowena cowering by her lair. A great blow of force came crashing through, breaking the limbs of the trees all around. The strength of it pushed Serafina back like a giant wave, lifting her off her feet and dragging her along. She grabbed the swampy earth to stop herself and held firm. Then she began fighting her way back toward Rowena, who was consumed in battle against the unseen attacker.
With the dark, swirling wind and flying branches, Serafina couldn’t see everything that was happening, but she saw the figure of Rowena running into her partially destroyed lair, grabbing a potion, and threatening to throw it. “Don’t hurt me!” she screamed, her voice shaking in both fear and anger. “I swear I’ll fight you!”
Serafina looked all around, searching the trees for a glimpse of the attacker, but she couldn’t see him.
Serafina felt her feet getting wet and sticky. She looked down. The mossy ground welled with a dark blood. Insects and worms oozed out of the ground around her.
“Stop it!” Rowena shouted. “Leave me alone!”
A blast of force sent a large, broken tree limb sailing through the air at Rowena. The branch slammed into the girl, knocking her to the ground with a brutal blow. The branches attacked her like tearing fingers, ripping terrible, jagged cuts across her back.
Serafina gasped when she saw not just the fresh bleeding wounds on Rowena’s bare back, but the scars of the past all across her back and sides. This wasn’t the first time she’d suffered this attacker’s wrath. For all her ability to cast spells and change shape, it appeared there were some scars that even a creature of her ilk could not heal.
But Rowena didn’t stay down for long. She quickly got back up onto her feet, wiped the blood from her swollen mouth, and looked out into the forest in fierce defiance. Before the next attack came, she scrambled to her cache of potions. She grabbed a flask and hurled it into the forest, filling the bog with a dense mountain mist.
As if in angry reply, a blazing ball of fire came hurtling out of the forest straight at Rowena.
She threw up her arms with an explosive flurry of ice and snow, extinguishing the fireball in a burst of steam.
Through all this, Serafina looked for the attacker, but she couldn’t see him.
“Tonight!” a voice blared. “Get the cloak tonight or I’ll kill the boy myself!”
“If you kill him, you’ll never find the cloak!” Rowena screamed angrily.
But as if to make the final point, another massive fireball came barreling out of the darkness straight at her, this one coming twice as fast as the one before. She leapt out of the way just in time, but the fireball struck the tree behind her and exploded, throwing burning sap in all directions.
Rowena screamed in pain as the searing liquid scalded her bare skin and lit everything around her on fire.
Serafina rushed forward to help her, dodging between the flames. She dropped to her knees beside Rowena as the girl twisted in pain from the burning sap. Knowing that she had to help her, Serafina closed her eyes and let a part of herself fade down into the porous ground, sinking down to where the water lay. Then she focused her mind and swept up her arms and with the force of sheer will began to pull the water up through the spongy moss of the bog, flooding everything around them. The rising water doused the lingering flames and flowed over Rowena’s body, sweeping the burning sap away, before receding back into the bog beneath them.
Stunned by what she’d done, Serafina collapsed to the ground in exhaustion next to Rowena.
She and Rowena lay in a heap of scorched, soaking-wet, shredded trunks and branches. The attacker was gone and the fire was out.
The two of them lay there for several seconds, just recovering.
Then Rowena opened her eyes. She slowly crawled out of the wreckage, gathered herself, and struggled to her feet. She seemed barely able to move. Her robes had been torn from her bleeding, dirt-stained body, and she had suffered many bruises and burns. But she was alive.
She gazed desolately around at the destruction, then she took a long breath and seemed to steel herself.
Going into the part of her lair that was still intact, she opened a vial and started rubbing a viscous gray mud onto her burned arms and legs, wincing and gritting her teeth against the pain.
Rowena didn’t say anything to Serafina, but the sorceress seemed to understand that Serafina had saved her life, or at least the agony of immeasurable more pain than she had already suffered.
In the next moment, Rowena grabbed her satchel and began to quickly gather some of her crystal flasks and other accoutrements of her dark arts.
Serafina watched in fascination. Rowena did not wallow in fear and misery. She did not cry. She seemed filled with new urgency, a new, angry determination to fight and survive.
Just when Serafina thought she had seen everything strange under the moon, Rowena pressed her hands flat to the top of her head and ran her palms slowly down the length of her hair, changing her hair color from red to black. Then she touched two fingers on each hand to her face just below her eyes. She pressed her fingers onto her cheeks, wiping in a hard, steady motion, changing the contour of her face as she went. Next, she reached down to her feet, pulled off her shoes, and pushed the little toe into each foot until it disappeared. Finally, she touched the center of each of her eyeballs with the pad of her index finger, tinging her eyes with a golden-amber color.
Serafina stared in mystified disbelief. Step by step, Rowena had transformed herself into someone else. Someone who looked disturbingly like her!
It was as if Serafina was looking into a mirror, but the girl who was looking back at her was far more beautiful and alluring than she was.
“Wait, Rowena,” Serafina said. “I don’t understand. What are you doing?”
“You heard him,” Rowena said. “I want this over.”
“But who was that?” Serafina asked. “Who was attacking you?”
Rowena pulled her torn robes around her and started walking fast through the forest, following the same path Serafina had used to come here.
“Hold on, just stop, where are you going?” Serafina asked desperately. “Please, tell me what you’re going to do.”
“Stop pestering me, cat, I have a summer ball to go to,” Rowena said.
Serafina followed Rowena through the forest, knowing that Braeden was in grave danger. But in the early-morning hours a thick cloud of mist lingered in the mountain valleys and floated along the ridges, drifting slowly, white and eerie, through the trees, obscuring Rowena’s path. Serafina wasn’t sure if it was a natural fog or one of the sorceress’s concealing potions, but one way or another, Serafina finally lost track of her.
As she looked for Rowena’s trail, Serafina felt the coolness of the mist on her skin, and sensed that if she stood still a little too long, she’d slip into the vapor, whether she wanted to or not. Dust to dust, and now mist to mist.
She had learned to enliven some of the elements in tiny ways, and she had shifted into the water in the stream, but the more she interacted with the elements, the more she sensed herself slipping into them.
It broke her heart to think about leaving the people she loved behind, but she knew there probably wasn’t anything she could do about dying now. As Rowena had said, she was already on her way. It felt like she had one more night, maybe two, before she was gone.
Everyone dies, she told herself, trying to stay brave, but I need to protect the people I love.
But how? That was the question now.
She’d seen the violent force terrorizing Rowena, bringing in storms, casting fireballs, and burning her as it demanded she retrieve the Black Cloak. Braeden and Waysa were playing a dangerous game by hiding it, but maybe it was the only thing keeping them alive.
All through the afternoon, she searched for Rowena, looking for tracks and other signs, but the sorceress had disappeared.
Finally, she headed back to Biltmore, dreading what was going to happen. It was the night of the summer ball.
She emerged from the forest trees near the statue of Diana, goddess of the hunt, atop the hill that provided the most dramatic view of Biltmore’s front facade.
From there, a long stretch of green grass ran down a steep hill to the Esplanade, the flat expanse of manicured grass with its carriageways on each side leading up to the entrance of the house. Biltmore House rose up with its intricately carved limestone walls, its fine statues and strange gargoyles, its steep peaks and slanted rooftops, and the rolling layers of the mountains in the distance. She had once stood here in this spot in a beautiful red-and-black gown, with Braeden and Gidean standing at her side, the three of them gazing down at the house together. But not tonight.
Tonight, she was alone, standing in the moonlight, still wearing the torn, dirty, bloodstained dress that Braeden had buried her in.
Flickering torches lined the grand carriageway that led up to the main door of the mansion, and all the windows of the house were aglow. The slanted, spiraling windows of the Grand Staircase were ablaze with glittering brilliance. But it was the intricate glass panes of the domed Winter Garden—the center of the ball—that shone the brightest of all. It was difficult to imagine, but it seemed as if it would be there that Rowena would try to weave her web around Braeden.
Serafina watched a steady chain of horse-drawn carriages ride through the mansion’s gates. The main road to the estate had been muddy and partially flooded, but the bridges were holding, and the carriages had managed to get through. They proceeded in a long line, one after the other, up to the front doors of the house, where two tall, perfectly matched footmen in their formal black-and-white livery uniforms welcomed the arriving guests.
Quiet and watchful, Serafina walked down the hill toward the incoming carriages.
“Oh, it’s positively breathtaking!” one fine lady said to her gentleman husband as she opened the carriage window to see the house more clearly.
“Look at it, Mama, it’s like a fairy tale!” a young girl in the next carriage said to her mother.
“More like a horror story these days,” Serafina grumbled quietly to herself.
Most of the carriages were pulled by two horses, while the wealthiest members of society had carriages that were pulled by four. But then Serafina spotted something she had never seen before.
One of the carriages didn’t have any horses at all. It looked like a carriage, with four spoked wheels, lacquered wood sides, and four passengers sitting on tufted leather seats, but it appeared to be moving by its own magical power. Serafina’s eyes darted around as she looked for the sorceress, thinking that she must have cast some sort of spell, but Rowena was nowhere to be seen.
The carriage with no horses made an odd puttering sound, and the man in the front seat wore a funny hat and goggles. It took Serafina several seconds to realize that it wasn’t her enemy’s dark magic, but some sort of newfangled machine.
All her life, her pa had been telling her that times were changing, that all over the country men and women were inventing things that were going to change the world. She never knew exactly what he was talking about. But maybe this strange, horseless carriage was the beginning of it. She wished her pa was there to see it and tell her what it was.
Still on the lookout for Rowena, Serafina slipped through the line of carriages, up through the congestion of four-legged hoof stompers, top-hatted coachmen, and glittering ladies.
She skulked up the steps and hid behind the Guardians, the marble lion statues that she had always imagined protected Biltmore from evil spirits. But tonight she was the spirit; she was the strange ghost of the night creeping into the house.
As each carriage pulled up to the house, the footman flipped down the carriage’s steps and opened the carriage door. The gentleman inside exited first, then offered his hand to help the lady as she alighted in her voluminous gown, carefully navigating the tiny carriage steps in her sparkling shoes. Once she was safely to the ground, she took the gentleman’s arm, and they walked through the grand arched doors together into the Vestibule and up the red-carpeted steps into the house.
The light and heat and sound of the ball, with hundreds of guests already inside, poured out of the mansion’s broad doorway, and hundreds more were still arriving. As Serafina slipped into the house, it felt as if she were being absorbed into a hot, glowing, gigantic organism.
The only thought on her mind was whether she could find the sorceress in time to stop her from hurting Braeden.
As Serafina entered Biltmore’s main hall, it was thick with the aroma of burning candles, fine clean wool, and women’s perfumes, all mixed together with the scent of the thousands of roses and lilies that had been strung along the archways and beams of the house. The genteel murmur of the guests’ voices mixed with the sounds of rustling satin, pouring wine, and tinkling glasses. There were so many people in the room from wall to wall that the arms of strangers touched each other where they stood, and friends leaned to one another to say a private word, but all the guests seemed happy and respectful, honored to be a part of the grand festivities. Serafina scanned the crowd but did not see Rowena or Braeden.
The gentlemen at the ball wore formal evening attire, dark tailcoats and trousers, neatly pressed white shirts with wing collars, dark waistcoats, and white bow ties or cravats. Some of the men were lean, others heavy, some with long handlebar mustachios or neatly trimmed beards, others clean-shaven. They all wore white gloves on their hands, and many had watches in their pockets, with long dangling gold or silver chains. A few even had silver-topped canes or formal walking staffs, but none were twisted.
What struck Serafina most was just how pleased the men were to see each other, to be talking and drinking, laughing and carrying on, like a great, gregarious flock of black-and-white jays cawing to each other, with no idea that a young boy of their ranks had buried a body nearby and that the fading, lost spirit of a dead girl walked among them.
The ladies wore long, full, shimmering dancing gowns made from satin, taffeta, and many other fine and luxurious materials, in dark purples, strawberry creams, peach chiffon, lilac, and blue—an endless variety of colors that reminded Serafina of the summer’s blooms.
She peered suspiciously at each of the women and girls in the crowd, searching
for a girl that looked like her. She had a hunch that the sorceress would be hiding in there someplace among the others, for deceit was her specialty.
Serafina watched the sometimes slow, sometimes flighty interactions between the young ladies and the young gentlemen. Many of the ladies and older girls held embroidered fans, opening or fluttering them to signal interest to a possible suitor, closing or snapping them shut to signal disdain.
As she studied the young ladies and gentlemen maneuvering and interacting with one another, it reminded her of the sandhill cranes that sometimes stopped on their migration to practice their mating dance in the spring fields, hopping and raising their wings, dipping their heads and tossing sticks to one another, spinning and chortling with abandon.
She didn’t know exactly why the cranes and the young ladies went through all that or what it all meant, but she sensed that it was a hidden language all its own.
The younger children who weren’t yet cranes gathered in small groups together, whispering and watching all the various proceedings in the room. Gaggles of giggling girls pulled each other excitedly through the crowds toward unseen adventures. Clutches of young boys gathered near the food tables.
Among the adults, the room was full of society types and fashion plates, industrialists and politicians, authors and artists, ambassadors and dignitaries of a nature that Serafina did not understand. She missed her old friend, the smiling, storytelling Mr. Olmsted, who had returned to his home far away.
As Serafina made her way into the room, the soft, lovely sound of harps and violins began to fill the hall, and then the deep sound of cellos and other instruments joined in. Row upon row of musicians, each one in black coat and tie, were arranged in the center of the main hall playing the most beautiful, sweeping, romantic music she had ever heard. Mr. Vanderbilt hadn’t just arranged for a soloist or a string quartet. He had brought an entire orchestra into his home!
Serafina and the Splintered Heart Page 12