Serafina and the Splintered Heart

by Robert Beatty

  Reluctant to separate, the two of them embraced, held each other for several seconds, and then said good-bye.

  “I’m glad you’re home, Sera,” he said softly.

  “Me too, Pa,” she said in return. “Thanks for the help.”

  “You stay dry, now,” he said.

  As she went back upstairs to find Braeden and the others, her mind was filled with thoughts of her pa and what was ahead of her.

  She knew Uriah was coming for her and her friends. She knew they had to defeat him. But how? The same question kept rattling around her head: How do you destroy an enemy who can’t be destroyed?

  She knew she had to stay bold no matter what, but the problem before her seemed impossible. She wasn’t strong enough to fight Uriah, and neither were her friends.

  But then, deep in the most shadowed recesses of her mind, something began to lurk. The faint movement of an unseen shape. The shaded trace of an idea. It was a dark path, fraught with dangers that could lead to the deaths of her and her friends, and ultimately the destruction of Biltmore.

  In many ways, the idea seemed to make no sense at all.

  And therein lay its beauty.

  Set down the hammer, she thought.

  Serafina and Braeden walked together toward the Conservatory, the greenhouse with its tall, arched windows and its slanted glass rooftops shining in the morning sun. Many of the glass panes had been broken by the night’s storm, but the brick structure was still standing.

  As they entered the thick heat and steaming moisture of the building, the sun filtered down through the palms, ferns, and bromeliads that grew all around them and up over their heads, shading them in a junglelike canopy.

  Serafina and Braeden quickly made their way through the plants of the central palm house to join Rowena and Waysa in the orchid room, where they met in the shroud of hundreds of delicate blooms.

  They all knew they were there to figure out their next move against Uriah, but Rowena repeated the challenge that they had already faced many times: “How are we going to kill an enemy who can’t be killed?”

  “I think the trick is that we don’t,” Serafina said.

  They looked at her in confusion.

  “We can only hide for so long before he comes for us,” Waysa warned.

  “I don’t think that’s what she has in mind,” Rowena said as she studied Serafina.

  “We can’t hunt Uriah down and fight him with tooth and claw,” Serafina explained. “We can’t beat him in a battle. And even if we do, he won’t stay dead.”

  “But we have no choice,” Waysa said.

  “I think there may be another way,” Serafina said slowly. She looked at Braeden. “In the angel’s glade, the night you freed my spirit, I gave you something to keep safe…”

  “The silver clasp,” Braeden said.

  “Do you still have it?” Serafina asked.

  “I asked a hellbender in the marsh to hide it in the mud where no one could find it.”

  “Oh dear,” Rowena said, shaking her head. “My father’s going to be looking for that.”

  But Serafina smiled. It was perfect. The hellbender was a gigantic, two-foot-long, atrociously ugly brown salamander. The mountain folk called it a grampus, a snot otter, or a mud-devil. If there was anything that could hide the silver clasp, it was the hellbender.

  “But what are you thinking about, Serafina?” Waysa asked.

  Serafina turned to the sorceress. “It depends on Rowena.”

  “Do tell,” Rowena said.

  “If Braeden can retrieve the silver clasp,” Serafina asked, “can you use it?”

  “Use it to do what?” Braeden asked in alarm.

  But Serafina kept her eyes on the sorceress. “Can you do it, Rowena?”

  Rowena stared back at her in disbelief. “Well, you little rat catcher…” she whispered, her voice filled with the devilish conspiracy of it.

  “What?” Braeden asked. “What’s going on?”

  “You want to remake it…” Rowena said.

  “Remake what?” Braeden asked, his voice strained with apprehension.

  “The Black Cloak,” Serafina said.

  “I knew it!” Braeden said. “No, Serafina, not that! We just got rid of that infernal thing! We don’t want it back again!”

  Serafina expected Braeden’s reaction, but she fixed her eyes on Rowena. “Can you do it? Can you use the silver clasp to restore the Black Cloak to its full power?”

  Rowena held her gaze, as if gauging the depth of her conviction, but she did not speak.

  “Serafina, what are you doing?” Waysa said, grabbing her arm. “We don’t want to do this.”

  Serafina looked at him. “Waysa, think about it. The cycle of injury and rebirth, of struggle and rising, it must apply to the cloak as well…I destroyed the cloak once and it came back. That means it can come back again.”

  “The silver clasp is the heart of the cloak’s darkness,” Rowena said. “The cloth is but its skin.”

  “But can you do it?” Serafina asked her again, more forcefully this time.

  Rowena looked at her. “We would need the wool of black goats, the sheddings of black rat snakes, the entrapping mucilage of pitcher plants, the skin of timber rattlesnakes, and the silk of black widow spiders.”

  Serafina swallowed. The list got worse as it went. “We should be able to find the goats and maybe the snakes…” she said, trying to think it through.

  “But we need satin fabric made from the silk of black widow spiders,” Rowena said.

  “I can’t believe you two are even talking about this,” Braeden said. “It’s way too dangerous to bring the Black Cloak back! What if it falls into the wrong hands?”

  “Uriah’s hands,” Waysa said. “I agree with Braeden. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “And it’s also impossible,” Rowena said firmly. “I was able to use spider silk thread to sew the areas of the cloak that had been torn, but only my father knows the spells that will force the black widow spiders to weave entirely new fabric.”

  Serafina’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you saying that the spiders don’t just provide the silk for the thread, they actually weave the material?”

  Rowena nodded. “The spiders weave the fabric, one spider’s thread over the other, like a very tight web. I know the binding spells and the other spells we need, but only my father knows the spells to make the fabric itself.”

  “Then we’re stopped before we’ve started,” Waysa said. “We have no choice but to gather our allies, track Uriah down, and strike with everything we’ve got.”

  “We’ve already hammered that nail and it’s not going in,” Serafina said, bringing looks of bewilderment from her friends. She turned again to Rowena. “There has to be a way, Rowena.”

  Rowena shook her head. “There’s no way for me to force the spiders to make the cloth we need.”

  Braeden looked around at his friends in obvious disbelief, incredulous that they would even be thinking about this dire course of action.

  “This is a horrible idea,” he said.

  Serafina knew that he had far too much experience with the Black Cloak to want to bring it back into the world. But as they were talking, she saw Braeden’s expression change, and he turned away from them.

  “Braeden…” Serafina said.

  “Is it wrong to use an evil weapon to fight against evil?” he asked, without turning toward them.

  Serafina watched him in silence, unsure of where this path was leading him.

  “Is this what it has come to?” he asked as he stared at the ground. She thought he was talking about the situation they were in, but then she began to understand.

  This was his talent. This was his love. Through the bond of friendship, he could commune with animals, speak with them. But just how far could he go? And even if he could, was it the right thing to do? Was it right to create a terrible weapon if it was meant to be used to fight evil? Or was the weapon itself too terrible a thing
to bring into the world?

  Finally, after a long time, Braeden slowly turned and looked around at the others.

  “These black widow spiders you’re talking about…” he said. “Has anyone actually tried asking them to make the silk fabric we need?”

  Rowena stared at Braeden and then looked back at Serafina. “If Braeden can persuade the spiders to willingly weave the warp and weft of the black fabric, then it will create a much tighter intertwinement than a coercion spell. That means the Black Cloak will be far more powerful than it was before.”

  “More powerful?” Braeden said in dismay. “It was bad enough before!”

  “We’re going to need that power…” Serafina said.

  “But hold on,” Waysa said. “Even if we can remake the Black Cloak, how does that solve our problem? What are we going to do with it?”

  Over the next few days and nights, the four companions worked and watched, knowing that Death was coming. A stolen breath, a crushing blow, a ball of fire, Death was surely coming.

  All across the grounds, large crews of men worked to protect and repair the storm-damaged roads, bridges, house, and gardens, even when the rain poured down.

  Each night, Serafina prowled the grounds with Waysa in feline form, patrolling the estate’s boundaries, running together through the forest darkness, their eyes scanning every shadow and their ears prickling to every sound. She knew that their only hope was to be ready.

  Serafina loved running through the night. Waysa was fast and strong, always knowing the way. They often ran side by side, challenging each other to greater speed. Other times they hunkered down near a stream or at the edge of a rocky ledge and just listened to the night forest. When they were in their catamount forms, they were together in body and soul.

  But she had learned from hunting rats that she should not follow the same pattern every night, lest her quarry learn to avoid her. So on the third night, as they walked outside for their nightly run, she said, “You follow our normal path tonight. But I’ll go a different way, and we’ll meet back here.”

  Waysa was reluctant to separate, but he nodded, understanding the reason. “Remember that we’re only patrolling. If you see Uriah, do not approach him on your own. Run like the wind.”

  “I will,” Serafina agreed.

  Shifting into her panther form, she went out into the night. She traveled southward at speed, through Biltmore’s mud-damaged gardens, past the flooded bass pond, then down along the swollen creek. The area that had once been a small and secluded lagoon where the swans flew was now a large, flooded lake. Whole hills had disappeared. It was frightening how much the landscape had changed and was still changing.

  From there she crept through the forest to the flood-breached shore of the mighty French Broad River. She stopped and gazed across the water, looking for any sign of their enemy.

  She followed the river northward, wary of mists and shadows and creaks in the night.

  Near midnight, she went up into the low, flat ground in the bend of the great river, into Biltmore’s vast farm fields. The fields were flooded. She crossed through acre after acre of ruined corn, potatoes, spinach, and dozens of other crops. She skulked quietly through the darkness past where Biltmore’s barns should have been. The rushing water had torn the barns into twisted heaps of broken lumber and washed them away. The farmers had moved the animals to the highest reachable ground, but many were still in danger. The herds of tan Jersey milk cows that Mr. Vanderbilt had imported from England were standing in their pastures in a foot of water. The black Angus cows were huddled together in groups on the mud-wrecked hills that rose like small islands out of the lake that had once been their pasture. The chickens, sheep, and goats were stranded on small strips of rocky ground. But for all the disruption, the animals of the farm were quiet tonight, just a soft rustle of movement in the distance, as if they knew there were more dangers to come.

  It made her sad to see Biltmore’s once proud and productive farms brought to these conditions. The farms had always been such an important part of life at Biltmore. Mr. Vanderbilt had told her that his vision wasn’t just to build a pretty house, but to create a self-sustaining estate that provided its own food for the family, the guests, the staff, and the workers and their families. In a time when the rest of the country was moving into cities, building great factories, and steaming quickly through their lives on black machines, Biltmore was meant to be a community all unto itself, a quiet, pastoral place where people lived close to the earth.

  Mr. Vanderbilt had been so successful in his goal that he began donating hundreds of gallons of milk to the hospital, orphanage, and other establishments in Asheville. Biltmore’s milk, butter, and cream became famous for its rich taste and high quality. And a new business was born.

  Soon, hundreds of horse-drawn wagons emblazoned with “Biltmore Farms” were delivering fresh milk in glass bottles to doorsteps throughout the region. Serafina had sometimes seen the milk wagons trundling down the road in the early mornings.

  But now the milk wagons were toppled over and broken to pieces by the storm, and the roads flowed like rivers.

  Leaving the farms behind her, she came to where the Swannanoa River met with the French Broad, but instead of one river flowing into another, there was a flooded lake for as far as she could see.

  As she traveled eastward, skirting the edge of the lake, she came to Biltmore Village, where years before Mr. Vanderbilt had created a small community for Biltmore’s artisans, craftsmen, and other workers. There were many shops and cottages in the village, a school, a train depot, and a beautiful parish church, which Mr. Vanderbilt had named All Souls Church because he wanted folk of all walks of life to join him and his family in worship each Sunday. The village streets were lined with lovely trees, wrought-iron streetlamps, and fine brick sidewalks for its citizens, but tonight, she could see that the village had been ravaged by the recent storms. Most of the cottages had been flooded or outright destroyed. Many of the trees had been toppled to the ground, their great trunks and branches lying across the streets. The once smooth brick sidewalks were wrinkled and broken with strange, snakelike patterns, as if the tree roots beneath had coiled and twisted.

  Still in panther form, Serafina prowled through the darkened and abandoned streets of the village. Instead of joyous neighbors out and about enjoying the summer evening, or houses lit up with family warmth, the streets were empty and the houses dark. Slips of whispery ghost fog drifted through the village. Just out of town, she came upon a massive black iron beast half-buried under the wet shifting earth. She stared at the hissing hunk of iron with her panther eyes for several seconds until she finally understood what it was: a train locomotive, knocked on its side, the coals still burning in its belly, half-buried in mud. She could not tell if the train’s engineer had managed to escape the iron wreckage or not.

  Feeling far more disturbed than she expected by the sight of it all, Serafina turned and started heading southward again, back toward home. She was more sure than ever that somehow she had to stop Uriah. What had started out as a blood feud against Mr. Vanderbilt and his estate years before had become a war not just against her and her companions, but against everything. Uriah wanted to destroy it all, and if she didn’t fight him, he would soon succeed.

  She dove back into the forest again and traveled over the hill and dale of the land back toward the house. Finally, she passed through the house’s main gates, coming upon the mansion much like the line of carriages had a few nights before. But tonight was a very different kind of night, still and quiet.

  As she looked upon the house, it was dark—not a single lantern, Edison light, or candle was lit. For the first time in her entire life, the house actually looked abandoned.

  As she walked toward the house in panther form, she marveled at how quickly its spirit could change, how it could be the brightest, most vibrant and dazzling display of grandiosity one had ever seen, then fall into a dark and moody slumber.

  Sh
e and her companions had been locking all the doors of the house each night, so she slipped inside using one of her old secret ways through the air shaft in the foundation, then went upstairs.

  Waysa had not yet returned. Braeden, her pa, Rowena, and the servants were all asleep. The main floor of the house was empty, dark, and quiet.

  For a little while, she took the opportunity to walk the deserted halls of Biltmore in the form of a black panther, her long black body slipping through the shadows, her tail dangling behind her, her bright yellow eyes scanning the darkness. It was a delicious feeling to finally be home in the form she was always meant to be. She remembered creeping through these darkened corridors at night as an eight-year-old girl, wondering why everyone had gone to bed. Back then, her bare feet had made a soft, almost undetectable noise as she walked, but tonight her furred paws were utterly silent on the smooth, shining floors. She had prowled these halls all her life, but never quite like this. It amused her to imagine one of the servants getting up in the middle of the night to use the water closet and coming face-to-face with a black panther.

  Shifting back into human form, she continued walking from room to room, watching and listening. She was a twelve-year-old girl and the Guardian of Biltmore.

  As she stood in the darkness of the unlit Entrance Hall, the main room in the center of the house, she heard movement down toward the Library.

  She walked slowly down the length of the Tapestry Gallery, listening and scanning the shadows ahead, the moonlight falling through the windows casting white slanting rectangles across the floor. The colors in the tapestries that covered the wall and the intricately painted beams on the ceiling seemed to glow in the light.

  Then she heard the sound again. Something touching the glass windows. The shuffle of footsteps. Voices. It sounded as if someone outside was trying to get into the Library.

  Serafina crouched down, her heart beating heavy in her chest. Her lungs pulled in slow, full breaths, readying her for whatever was about to happen.

  She crept forward, using the fine chairs and other furniture in the Tapestry Gallery for cover, but always looking ahead through the archway that led into the darkened Library.