But it wasn’t metal.
It was blood—her own blood flowing through her veins into her tongue and her lips.
She tried to clear her throat, but then all at once she took in a sudden, violent, jerking breath and sucked in a great gasp of air, as if it was the very first breath she had ever taken. As her blood flowed, a tingling feeling flooded into her arms and legs and all through her body.
My body…she thought, trying to comprehend it. I’m in my body…I’m alive…I’m truly alive…
She frantically tried to think back and remember what had happened to her, but it was like trying to grasp the fleeting details of a powerful dream that drifts away the moment you wake.
She pulled air into her nostrils, hoping to draw a clue from what she could smell around her.
Dirt, she thought. I’m surrounded by damp, rotting dirt.
Serafina quickly twisted around inside the coffin that surrounded her, pressing her hands against the cold, hard wood.
Her palms were sweating. Her breaths were getting shorter. Her lungs tightened, making it more and more difficult to breathe. A surge of panic poured through her. Her soul had reunited with her body. She was alive! But now she was going to run out of air and die!
She kicked her feet against the end of the coffin. She pounded her fists. She scratched and she scurried, she twisted and she pried, but she could not escape. Just as before, the boards surrounded her on all sides, close and narrow and low.
She hissed with frustration. After all she’d been through, she was going to suffocate in a black coffin buried six feet under the ground! It wasn’t right! It wasn’t fair! She wanted to scream and cry!
“Quit your mewling, girl, and get on with makin’ yourself useful!” she imagined her pa telling her. “Figure out what needs to be done and do it!”
Gritting her teeth, she tore off her dress and wrapped it around her head to protect her nose and mouth. Then she spun around onto her stomach, put her shoulder to the center of the coffin’s lid and pushed. She pushed and she kept pushing, over and over again, hammering her shoulder against the center board, bang, bang, bang.
When she finally felt the board cracking, she spun around and pulled at the edge of it with her fingers. A massive heap of dirt poured on top of her, crushing her down.
She shoved the dirt into the corners of the coffin until she had packed away as much of it as she could. Then she pushed her head up into the hole and started digging, scraping frantically with her bare hands. The loose earth poured down around her head and shoulders, collapsing onto her faster than she could dig it away.
She felt the pressing, suffocating weight of it all around her, closing in on her, crushing her chest, trapping her legs, but she kept clawing, kicking, squirming her way blindly up through the darkness, desperately trying to breathe.
She dug frantically toward the surface, but she knew she wasn’t going to make it. She was too small, too weak, too frail, too dull. Her puny, soft, skin-covered fingers were nothing against the dirt. She was going to die.
“No! No! No!” she growled deep in her throat, until she was making one continuous growl.
She had one moment, and the moment was now. She could stop moving, stop breathing, let the earth win. Or she could envision what she wanted to be and become it.
She growled and she kept growling, the anger building inside her. She felt it coming now. She felt her whole body beginning to change. It was unstoppable now.
She envisioned her mountain lion mother and her black panther father. She was a catamount through and through. She was the Black One, the warrior-leader of the forest. It came like a great volcano, exploding from deep within her.
Suddenly, the earth around her expanded with a great heave, giving way to her newly muscled girth. She felt her tail twisting, her four feet clenching and clawing against the dirt. She began digging anew, filled with panther strength and power.
Her claws tore into the earth, ripping it away with lion ferocity. Her powerful legs pushed her upward toward the surface, toward air, toward life.
Her face and whiskers pushed against the dirt, her panther ears pressed back against her head as she shoved herself upward. Her powerful chest filled with a deep, dark, throbbing growl, like the roll of thunder through the ancient mountains where she’d been born into the darkened world.
As she dug, she heard a frenzy of scratching noises, digging down toward her.
Her upstretched claws clacked with the claws of another catamount. It was Waysa, digging frantically, and Gidean digging at his side!
“You’re almost there!” Braeden shouted as he dug toward her.
“Come on, cat, dig!” Rowena urged as she pulled handfuls of dirt away.
Finally, Serafina thrust her panther head up into the air and took in a long, deep, desperately needed breath. She felt the warm night air pouring into her mouth and down her throat and into her lungs. She felt her lungs filling with blessed air, expanding like a great bellows, her chest heaving, pushing easily against the loose dirt still around her. She felt her heart pumping, her bones pushing, and every muscle in her body at her beck and call.
“You made it!” Braeden shouted, as she clambered the rest of the way out. “You made it!”
Standing on four feet now, she threw the dirt from her black coat with a mighty shake. The entire world loomed large. She saw the angel’s glade and the forest, and the stars above the trees. Her lungs could finally breathe! She was alive in the world, whole and complete! She was alive! She lifted her yellow panther eyes, and gazed at the smiling faces of her friends all around her.
Serafina shifted into human form and looked around her at the angel’s glade, trying to understand what had happened.
“We destroyed it,” Braeden told her excitedly.
Serafina looked over at the statue of the angel and saw the molten remnants of the Black Cloak lying in a pile on the ground below the angel’s sword. The tight spider weave and binding spells of the cloak’s fabric had disintegrated into a hot, smoldering heap as it released the energy within it. The smoky effluent drifted across the angel’s glade and the graveyard beyond. They had pierced the cloak on the angel’s sword, just as she had done months before when she freed Clara Brahms and the other victims trapped inside the cloak. Even though she knew she should have been expecting it, it took Serafina several seconds to comprehend that destroying the cloak had broken its spell, reunited her three splintered parts, and freed her from its dark imprisonment.
“When we destroyed the cloak, we thought we would find you lying on the ground, like when you freed Clara and the other children,” Braeden said. “But we didn’t.”
“The damaged cloak had torn you apart,” Rowena said. “When the spell broke, your freed spirit fled to your human body in the grave.”
“And the essence of your panther body was pulled in as well,” Waysa said. “It wasn’t until I heard you digging that I realized what happened and told the others.”
“We all started digging as fast as we could!” Braeden said.
Serafina was amazed. Their plan hadn’t worked exactly the way they had expected, but it did work.
She looked at Braeden. She could see the exhilaration and relief sparkling in his eyes, a large smile on his face.
“I can’t believe it!” he said. “You made it! After all this time, you’re truly here! You’re alive!” He moved toward her and embraced her, so pleased that he lifted her off her feet and swung her around.
She laughed in joy at his enthusiasm. It felt amazingly good to wrap her arms around him and hug him, to finally embrace him, to truly feel her friend’s warm, living body.
As she held on to him, she could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest, the movement of air through his lungs as he breathed, and the tremble in his hands as he held her. She could feel everything, and she knew he could feel her. This was the world, she thought, the true and living world, and she was in it. In the distance over Braeden’s shoulder,
a blaze of falling stars streaked across the glistening darkness of the nighttime sky. Down in her soul she felt as infinite as the heavens upon which she gazed, filled with a deep gratitude just to be back with the people she loved.
“Thank you for not giving up on me, Braeden,” she said as she held him, unable to control the quiver of appreciation in her voice.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I knew that if we could find a way, you’d come back to us.”
As she slowly separated from Braeden, she looked at Waysa, who had shifted into human form. Waysa stood before her now, tall and grinning and happy.
“Welcome back,” he said, and they embraced. She felt the strength in her friend’s arms and the pride in his chest. She felt the warrior in him, the satisfaction of finally winning a battle against their enemy. And she felt the serenity in him, the happiness that they were finally back together. She and Waysa had shared so much together. They had run through the forest, slept behind waterfalls, and swam in mountain pools, but nothing compared to the joy of this moment.
She gazed at Braeden and Waysa and she smiled. Her two friends had waited for her, fought for her, did everything they could to make this night happen, and they had finally succeeded.
Finally, Serafina turned and looked at Rowena. The sorceress in her dark robes, with her hood and her long red hair coiled loosely around her shoulders, stood quietly nearby. She was watching them, her green eyes bright and alive, but flickering with an uncertain wariness.
“I’m not going to embrace you if that’s what you’re thinking, cat,” Rowena said.
Serafina smiled and nodded. “I know,” she said. “But thank you, Rowena. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You saved me.”
“I put you there,” Rowena said, reminding her. “And now I brought you back.”
Serafina wasn’t sure if she was saying that she had righted the wrong, or that they were even, or maybe something else, but either way, Serafina said, “I thank you for what you did tonight.”
As Serafina spoke with her friends, she couldn’t help but take in the world around her. She felt her two feet firmly on the ground, so simple, but so profound, to have weight, to have effect, to not be floating in the air or disintegrating into vapor, but to have substance, to have presence, to truly be in a place and in command of her body. She smelled the willow trees around the glade and heard the soft orchestra of buzzing insects. Gone was the feeling of being a droplet of water or a mote of dust. Gone was the feeling of being a gust of wind that might drift away at any moment. She was alive, truly alive. She was whole again, solid and firm, body and soul, and had never felt better in her life.
And as she stood there looking around her in amazement, she slowly began to realize there was something else, too, something new. When she tuned her ears just right, she could hear the gentle movement of the breeze in the boughs of the trees far above her. She could sense a drop of dew clinging to a leaf, feel it falling through the vibrating air, and hear it hit the ground and soak into the dusty soil. She could see the breath of the trees with her eyes and the rise of water to the clouds. Everything around her felt closer, finer, more acute.
The rising of the moon, the falling of the stars, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—she knew she’d come close to dying. She had walked in between. Her spirit had lingered in the world…but now she sensed that the world lingered in her. She felt the quiet rocks of the earth, the flow of distant rivers, and the drift of the clouds above—she could see and feel the spirit of the world all around her.
As she gazed from one point to the next, trying to understand her new senses and powers, she noticed a faint glint of moonlight on the ground over by the destroyed remnants of the Black Cloak. It was but a small reflection of light at first, but as she walked toward it, the glint became so bright that it was almost blinding to her.
She reached down beside the black pile of the ruined fabric and picked up the cloak’s silver clasp. It felt heavy in her hand. In the past, the clasp’s design had been a twisting weave of thorny vines. She’d even seen the little faces of children behind the vines. But tonight, the clasp was blank, without any design at all.
Serafina turned and walked back toward Braeden. He smiled at her, still elated with their success.
“You better hide this,” she said as she slipped the clasp into his hand.
It still amazed her to think that Braeden had hid the damaged cloak from their enemies all that time, fearing its black, hissing power, but clinging to the hope that one day, somehow, someway, he would be able to bring her back into the world. And tonight was that night. He’d done it!
She moved toward him to embrace him again, but Rowena stepped between them.
“This is a sweet reunion and all, we’ll be sure to all have tea together sometime,” Rowena said in a biting tone. “But my father is going to sense the destruction of the cloak. He’s going to come, and when he does, he’ll be bent on a black vengeance like nothing you’ve ever seen, angry that the cat has escaped, but even angrier that I helped her do it.”
Serafina knew Rowena was right. She gazed around at her friends. “Whatever happens, the four of us are in this together now.”
As soon as she arrived at Biltmore, Serafina ran down to the workshop. She stopped to catch her breath just outside the door. Then she stepped slowly into the room and gazed upon her pa.
He was near his cot behind the supply racks, the cot he’d slept in for all the years she could remember. He was performing a simple task, straightening the blanket on his bed, but to her it seemed to be the most profound of actions.
Here was the man who had raised her, who had fed her and cared for her all her life, who had taught her all that he could teach her, who had guarded and protected her, and held her close every night.
She was so quiet, so still, standing there behind him, that for a moment, she almost wasn’t sure whether she was spirit or whole.
But then, with hot tears welling up in her eyes, she finally said, “I came home as soon as I could, Pa.”
Her pa froze in his movement. He did not turn or say a word.
For several seconds it was as if he had not heard her at all. Or perhaps he did not believe what he had heard.
But then he slowly turned his head to the side, as if waiting for the sound to come again. And then he turned his body and looked at her.
He gazed upon her with awe, like a believing man who has come face-to-face with a winged angel. At first, he was unable to speak, but finally, he smiled, and his face wrinkled, and he wiped tears from his eyes, and he said, “Now you come on over here and see your pa.”
She walked forward and collapsed into his arms, not just crying, but bawling.
“I’m sorry, Pa, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t get home, I tried and tried, but I couldn’t get home,” she wailed.
He pulled her against his barrel chest, wrapped his thick arms around her, and held her tight.
She pressed her head against his chest and she held him in her trembling arms. As she let herself fall into him, she pulled in a long, dreaming breath, her chest heaving with the exhilaration of being there with him at this moment. She felt the warmth of his embrace and heard the sigh of his breathing as he held her. It was a miracle. She could feel him, truly feel him, and he could feel her.
Around her, she smelled the cotton fabric of his shirt, and the grease he’d worked with that day, and the familiar musk of his body, all mixed with the smells of the workshop, the solid oak benches and the half-burned coal in the little stove where they cooked their meals and the gritty stone of the floor and the oiled metal of the hammers, wrenches, and other tools. She was alive. And she was finally, finally, finally back—back in the workshop, back in her pa’s arms. She was finally home.
In the time that followed, she took a long, warm bath, washed off the grave dirt and the bloodstains, and changed into a simple, clean dress. It felt as if she was living in the lap of luxury.
As they settled in for the night, i
t seemed like neither of them could quite believe that it was truly real. They kept looking at each other, touching each other, as if constantly wanting to make sure.
Her pa cooked an elaborate supper of chicken and dumplings with his favorite gravy, fried okra, and grits smothered with warm butter and cheese. She was so famished that she ate it all and wanted more. Whether it was drinking a glass full of cool, clear water or eating a meal with her pa, the simplest routines of her life had become the most glorious pleasures.
“You’re doin’ a good fine job on your supper there,” her pa said happily as she scraped down to the bottom of the metal plate.
“It just tastes so good,” she said, meaning it true, and it brought a smile to his face.
Over supper, her pa started talking, not with any particular purpose in mind, but just to talk, just to celebrate, like everything was all right again. He spun his usual tales of mending machines and solving the challenges of his day-to-day life. She had always loved his stories in which he was the humble hero fighting against impossible odds with wrench and hammer in hand, and she had never loved the stories more than on this night.
She wanted to tell him that she had seen the beautiful faerie lights he had strung in the garden on the night of the evening party, his shining beacon for her to follow home. And she wanted to tell him how proud she was of him the night she’d seen him smiling, dressed in his suit, in the glow of the glittering summer ball.
Later on, as they washed their dishes, her pa took on a more serious tone.
“I know ya might not be too keen on talkin’ about it just yet, Sera,” he said, “but what happened to you all this time?”
It was difficult to know how to answer his question in a way that he, or anyone, could understand, but she did the best she could.
She was pretty sure that her pa had an inkling that somehow her mother was a mountain lion, but she didn’t think he knew that she too walked on four feet when she wanted to. If he did suspect it, it was something he didn’t like to think about, like he didn’t like to think about haints and demons and other creatures of the night. To him, she was his daughter, a human being, a twelve-year-old little girl that he cherished more than anything in the world, and he didn’t like to think of her in any other way. And she was sure that it would come as quite a shock to him if he ever saw her as a crouched, snarling, clawing, leaping black panther. But she knew he had some idea of the strange and unusual things that happened in the dark of night, for he had warned her of them many times.
Serafina and the Splintered Heart Page 17