Wherever the dress came from, Serafina loved the lustrous deep-blue fabric, which reminded her of a certain mountain stream she knew. It wasn’t a full, old-fashioned ball gown like she had seen the ladies wearing at the summer ball, or a light, lacy dress for an evening garden party. Those would have to wait until next year. This dress wasn’t for any particular occasion, but a lean and formal dress for wearing to dinner with the family each night. And when she thought about that, it made her smile. That was just about perfect. This was her home now and her life.
She took a lovely warm bath, washed her hair, and then dressed for dinner in the red-and-gold Louis XVI room on the second floor like she had before, with Essie doing her hair. “Aw, Miss,” Essie said, as Serafina stood before her for inspection. “The dress goes so well with your black hair. You look right lovely tonight, with the biggest smile that I’ve ever seen on you.”
Serafina and Braeden arrived at dinner together arm in arm. Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt smiled and hugged Serafina, overjoyed to see her, and asked her how she’d been. As they sat down to dinner, Serafina was happy to talk with them.
Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt seemed to be in warm and pleasant moods, relieved that the storms were over and looking forward to the coming of their child. As there were no guests in the house, it was just the four of them this evening, with Cedric and Gidean lying nearby. Nothing felt out of the ordinary or awkward about any of it. It just felt right. She had to remember where to place her napkin and which fork to use, but her pa had trained her well, and facing a new challenge always did excite her.
Braeden seemed pleased to be sitting at the table with her and his aunt and uncle, content that everything was as it should be. He’d gone out riding in the forest earlier that morning, making sure that everyone was on the mend. She noticed a new brightness in his eyes, and a new confidence in his smile and his manner.
“I was talking to Mr. McNamee this morning about the plans for repairing the gardens,” Braeden said. “It all sounds very interesting.”
“I’m glad those awful storms have stopped,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said.
Mr. Vanderbilt nodded his agreement as he dabbed his mustache with his napkin. “Time to rebuild.”
“You’re going to rebuild?” Serafina asked, looking at him with interest as she thought about the farms and the village and the other areas that had been damaged.
“Oh, yes, we’ll rebuild,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “No matter what happens, we always rebuild.”
“I’m going to help,” Braeden interjected. “I’ll be working on the plans and the reconstruction with Mr. McNamee, learning everything I can. I’m looking forward to it.”
“We’ll make everything even better than it was before,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, nodding. “That’s how we keep moving forward. Especially now.”
When he said these words, he smiled a little and looked at his wife, who touched her hand to her belly. “We’ve decided on a name for our little one here,” she said happily. “Shall we share it with you two?”
“Oh, yes!” Serafina said excitedly before Braeden could reply.
“Can you keep a secret?” Mrs. Vanderbilt asked, winking at Serafina.
“Believe me,” Braeden said. “She can definitely keep a secret. And so can I.”
“Well,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said happily, “we’re going to name our little darling after George’s beloved grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt. So if it’s a baby boy, he’ll be Cornelius. But if it’s a baby girl, she’ll be Cornelia. But no one knows about any of this, so you mustn’t tell anyone until it’s official.”
“That’s a wonderful name,” Serafina said.
“Yes, we thought so, too,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said with satisfaction.
“And what did you two get up to while we were gone?” Mr. Vanderbilt asked Braeden and Serafina.
“Oh, the same old thing,” Braeden replied, never wanting to lie to his uncle. For him and Serafina, “the same old thing” meant prowling through the night, fighting sinister demons, and living on the edge of constant death.
“I hope not,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, knowing all too well the kind of trouble they were capable of getting into.
It was clear to Serafina by the keen look in Mr. Vanderbilt’s eye that he had figured out that something significant had occurred while he was gone. Mr. Vanderbilt knew she had been the one who found the missing children a few months back, and that she’d helped rescue Cedric and Gidean from the cages up in the pine forest. Now that he’d returned from his trip, she was pretty sure that he had noticed the strange scratches on the windowsill above the Banquet Hall and the tears in the room’s Flemish tapestry.
“Well, for my part,” Mr. Vanderbilt said finally, “I’m just glad that you’re back, Serafina. Your home is here with us at Biltmore. And I must say, I feel that Biltmore is a safer place for it.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, nodding slowly to him. “I truly appreciate it. I was gone for far too long, but in my heart, it felt like I never left you and Mrs. Vanderbilt and Braeden.”
Later that night, Serafina and Braeden walked up the Grand Staircase to the fourth floor and then into the Observatory. From there they climbed the circular wrought-iron staircase to the room’s upper level, opened the window, and climbed out onto the roof.
Serafina remained quiet as they walked in the moonlight past the copper dome of the Grand Staircase, among the mansion’s tallest towers and slanted slate rooftops, its many reaching chimneys, and its carved stone gargoyles of mythical beasts.
“Do you think we’ve actually defeated him for good, Serafina?” Braeden asked her. “Is it truly all over?”
“Yes, I think it is,” Serafina said, nodding. “But you and I are both the Guardians of Biltmore now, the protectors of this house, its people, and the forest all around, so we must keep a watchful eye and stay ready for whatever danger comes.”
“Do you think there’s other evil out there?”
“I’m sure there is,” she said.
“But what will it be? What form will it take?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But whatever it is, we’ll face it together.”
She and Braeden sat on the rooftop to enjoy the warm evening with its graceful breeze rolling through the tops of the trees. She could feel it lifting her long hair and gently touching the skin of her neck. She thought about the wind and earth and water. For a little while, she had caught a glimpse into the movement and flow of the world, and the power of her own soul, and she looked forward to learning more about what she could do.
They gazed across the sweeping lawns, and the gently flowering gardens, and the deep forests that surrounded the house, with the glass of the Conservatory below them glinting in the moonlight and the glow of the house’s lights touching everything around. They looked out across the darkened canopy of the trees and the layers of rolling mountains in the distance, with the glistening sweep of the glowing stars and planets rising above.
Suddenly, she remembered a moment from the previous autumn. It seemed so long ago now. She was just a lonely little girl, so small and quiet, standing in the basement at the bottom of the stairs listening to the crowd of fancy folk above, wondering whether she should go up there and tell them that she had seen a girl in a yellow dress get captured by a sinister man in a black cloak.
She remembered that all she wanted to do at that moment was to help.
From that very first moment, with her looking up at that stairway that led from the darkness of the basement to the brightness of the world above, all she wanted to do was to be part of something. That was all she ever wanted, not just to see, but to be seen. Not just to hear, but to be heard. Not just to feel, but to be felt by other people, to touch them, affect them in some way, to make their lives different, and to be made different by them. And here, on this night, at this moment, on this rooftop, she knew that time had finally come.
She remembered how it felt when her soul was split from the rest of her, when she was but
a lost spirit wandering the living world, but never truly touching it, never truly feeling it or engaging with it.
And she thought back to the conversation she’d had with her pa, that many things changed over time, always becoming something new and always becoming something old. She realized now that the physical things were always changing. Even we ourselves change, learning and growing, getting pulled down and then rebuilding ourselves again.
But for all that, there was a rare and hidden thing, maybe the most important thing, that never changed, and that was the spirit deep inside us, the thing we were when we were a child, and the thing we were when we grow up, the thing we are when we’re at home, and the thing we are when we go out into the world—it’s always with us—that inner spirit stays with us through it all, no matter how our body changes from year to year or how the world changes around us.
And through all of this, there is one thing we seek. To be connected to the people around us, to touch and be touched, to have a true family and friends of all kinds with which we share the world and its changes. Like our own spirit within us, our family is the hidden, inner core that deep down never changes, the river that is always flowing.
She turned and looked at Braeden. She studied his face, his hair, his eyes, the way he gazed off into the distant forest.
Her heart began to beat strong and steady in her chest.
Her hand began to tremble.
Then she slowly reached over and put her hand on his.
She felt the warmth of it, the living pulse of it, the soft skin and the bones beneath. This was her ally, her friend, the boy she fought her battles with.
Braeden turned and looked at her, somewhat surprised.
Nervous, she felt like she needed to give him a little bit of an explanation of why she had touched him in this way.
Thinking back on everything they had been through, she said, “I just wanted to make sure that I was truly here.”
Braeden smiled, understanding.
“You are,” he said. “We both are.”
Thank you for reading this third book in the Serafina series. I hope you enjoyed it. This concludes the story of the conjurer Uriah and the Black Cloak, but it is not the last you’ll hear from me, or from Serafina and Braeden.
Disney Hyperion will be publishing my next book, which is called Willa of the Wood. This next story takes place in Serafina’s world in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but is focused on a new character named Willa, a twelve-year-old forest girl with special powers that I think you’re going to like. In the future, Willa’s story will blend and intermingle with Serafina and Braeden’s story. I hope you’ll join us for these future books.
If you enjoyed Serafina and the Splintered Heart, I encourage you to let people know about it, post reviews and comments online, and share your impressions with others. Thank you for helping to spread the word. But please avoid revealing how the story starts with Serafina in spirit form, the appearance of Rowena and the Black Cloak, and other details. Enjoying this book depends on the reader knowing no more than Serafina does at any particular moment, so it’s important to avoid spoilers.
I would like to touch on a few elements of this story. The Cherokee are an important part of our community here in Western North Carolina today. I would like to thank the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians (EBCI), the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Western North Carolina University, and members of the Cherokee tribe for their assistance with the depiction of Waysa, the Cherokee people, and the Kituhwa dialect of the Cherokee language that is spoken here in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
When you read this story, you may have thought that the idea of making fabric from spider silk sounds a bit far-fetched, but in reality, spider silk is an exciting new area of textile research. This includes using natural spider silk, creating synthetic spider silk, and gene-splicing spider silk DNA into other animals to achieve enhanced qualities. One of the most impressive uses of natural spider silk is a golden-colored cape made from silk harvested sustainably from thousands of golden orb spiders. Creepy but true.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous author notes, Biltmore Estate is a real place, which you can visit and explore. I’ve worked hard to be historically accurate with my depiction of the house and grounds. I would like to thank Biltmore Estate and the descendants of George and Edith Vanderbilt for their continued support and encouragement of my writing efforts, and for all they are doing to preserve and protect an important part of our American history.
I write at home, nearly every day, and work in close connection with my family. I would like to thank my daughters, Camille, Genevieve, and Elizabeth, for helping me to create this story and improve many of its details. And I would like to thank my wife, Jennifer, for working closely with me to refine the writing. My family is an integral part of my writing process.
And once again, I would like to extend my thanks to my agent, my beta readers and consulting editors, and everyone on the Serafina Team in Asheville and around the country who have helped make the Serafina series what it is.
I would also like to give my sincere gratitude to Laura Schreiber and Emily Meehan, my editors at Disney Hyperion, and the rest of the wonderful Disney Hyperion team. I am so honored to be part of your efforts to bring high-quality, imaginative books to readers of all ages.
Finally, I would like to thank you, the reader. In an era of easy distraction, I am so thankful for your willingness to journey with me into the heart and imagination of Serafina’s world. Thank you for reading my stories, and for all your support and encouragement.
Stay Bold,
—Robert Beatty
Asheville, North Carolina
Books by Robert Beatty
Serafina and the Black Cloak
Serafina and the Twisted Staff
Serafina and the Splintered Heart
Willa of the Wood*
*Coming in July 2018
ROBERT BEATTY lives in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and three daughters. He writes full-time now, but in his past lives he was one of the pioneers of cloud computing, the founder/CEO of Plex Systems, the co-founder of Beatty Robotics, and the CTO and chairman of Narrative magazine.
Visit him online at www.robert-beatty.com.
If you enjoyed this book, please spread the word by adding a review to the online review site of your choice.
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