“Here!” Essie called as she threw open the carriage door from the inside, and Serafina leapt in, tumbling onto the carriage floor with her arms still wrapped around the crying baby.
“Fly, Nolan, fly!” she shouted as she clambered to her feet in the swaying carriage, the baby in her arms.
Nolan drove the running horses with wild shouts and snapping reins, their steel-shod hooves clattering on the cobblestones of the courtyard, rising up into the night and filling the house with ominous, echoing sound.
As the galloping horses charged out through the main gate, Serafina peered through the small window at the back of the carriage. The last thing she saw was the lights on Biltmore’s second floor coming on. And the last thing she heard was a terrifying sound rising up into the night, a shriek that could only be one thing: a mother screaming for her missing child.
The carriage swayed back and forth as the horses traveled down the road at a fast, steady clip. The baby was quiet now, but looking up at her with uncertain, worried eyes.
“I’ve got you, Nell,” Serafina whispered to her reassuringly, and the baby replied to her with soft cooing, babbling noises.
“What are we doing, miss?” Essie asked, her voice strained and anxious as she stared wide-eyed at her from the opposite seat.
“We’re keeping the baby safe,” Serafina said.
They were traveling down the Approach Road, which wound its way through the forest for three miles toward Biltmore Village, where there was a collection of small houses, shops, and a train station. She thought that if they could just get through Biltmore’s outer gate and reach the village, then they’d somehow be safe.
“I don’t know my way around the village, Essie,” she said. “I’m going to need your help when we get there.”
“But why isn’t the mistress with us?” Essie asked. “Did she tell you to do this?”
“The truth is, she didn’t, but it needed to be done to protect the baby.”
“Who was that man coming out of the house behind you with that stick? It looked like Mr. Vanderbilt.”
“Yes, it was him,” Serafina said soberly, knowing that it wasn’t going to settle well with her companion.
Essie swallowed hard as she gazed at her, and then said, “Are you sure we’re doin’ the right thing, miss?”
“I don’t understand it all, either,” she admitted. “But there was no time to talk to anyone. We just needed to get out of there.”
“But we’re goin’ back, right?” Essie asked. “I mean, we ain’t really leavin’.”
It was hard to imagine, but once they reached the village, she might have to keep going, as far away from Biltmore as she could get, all the way to Asheville and beyond if she had to.
As she and Essie were talking, Serafina saw something through the back window of the carriage. She leaned forward and peered through the glass. In the distance, a group of dark shapes were coming up behind them on the road.
It took her several seconds to make out that ten or twenty men on horseback were following them, whipping their running horses mercilessly.
Serafina threw open the side window and screamed up at Nolan, “Riders behind us! We can’t let them catch us!”
“Got it, miss!” Nolan called back to her.
He snapped the reins and shouted “Yee-haa!” to his team of horses. The carriage lurched forward as the horses accelerated into a canter, pulling the carriage at great speed, thundering down the road, Nolan’s wild shouts driving them on.
But when Serafina looked back behind them, she saw that the riders were still coming.
Their carriage crossed stone bridges over rushing creeks, and rounded tight curves that snaked through the hilly terrain, but their pursuers did not relent. The men behind them were closing the distance between them, spurring their horses on, striking them with their crops, coming closer and closer.
“We need to go faster, Nolan!” Serafina shouted again.
“I’m trying, Miss!” Nolan cried out. With the next snap of the reins the four black horses bent their necks and broke into a full-out gallop, yanking the carriage forward at startling speed. Serafina held Baby Nell tight as the carriage was buffeted back and forth, the baby’s bright, wide eyes gazing up at her in bewilderment.
“Oh Lord, please don’t let us die!” Essie screamed.
“Faster, Nolan!” Serafina screamed. Hearing the turmoil in her voice, Baby Nell began to wail for her mother.
“There’s another carriage!” Nolan shouted.
Had she misheard him? How could another carriage have caught up with them so quickly? And then she realized that it wasn’t behind them.
She peered out ahead of them. A black coach was barreling down the road toward them. Nolan pulled the reins, steering their carriage around a sharp bend in the narrow road, the whole carriage careening wildly. Essie screamed and pressed her outstretched hands to the inner walls as the carriage tilted dangerously to the side.
“Hang on, everybody!” Nolan shouted.
Serafina tucked her knees, wrapped her arms around the baby, and held on tight.
The wheels of the carriage skittered off the edge of the road, biting into the gravel, throwing dirt and rocks in all directions until the wheels collapsed into the ditch and the whole carriage toppled over with a terrific crash, and then scraped along its side, tearing itself apart as the horses neighed and battled against their twisting harnesses.
The crashing carriage heaved her and banged her body, one blow after another as she tumbled against the walls and the roof, holding Baby Nell tight in her arms.
When they finally came to a stop, she found herself upside down, crumpled on top of herself, cradling the baby to her chest. She quickly hugged the baby close and cuddled her reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” she whispered to the little one. “We’re gonna make it out of here just fine. You watch.”
But the truth was that the roof of the carriage had come down on top of them, and the walls had collapsed like an accordion with them inside.
She heard the movements and gasping breaths of someone digging them out of the wreckage, frantically pulling the debris away.
“Come on, we’ve got to get them out!” the voice shouted, and a second person joined in the effort.
But who was it? It couldn’t be Nolan or Essie. They were undoubtedly just as buried as she and Nell were.
“Are you hurt?” the voice asked in a shaking, worried tone. “Take my hand.”
Serafina reached up to the boy’s outstretched hand and grasped it in astonishment. The moment they touched she knew exactly who it was.
It felt like it was impossible, but her eyes were telling her that Braeden was right in front of her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again as he helped her to her feet. “Is Cornelia all right?” He examined the baby, running his hands over the little one’s head and body with the anxious concern of an older cousin.
“I think she’s all right,” Serafina said, cradling the baby.
As Serafina glanced at the wreckage of the pulverized carriage, a coachman in a long greatcoat and tall hat was helping Nolan scramble out of a tangle of horse reins and busted-up boards. And closer to her, a second pile of the wreckage began to move.
“Are we all dead and gone?” Essie asked loudly as she pushed aside the debris and crawled out.
“Oh, Essie, are you hurt?” Serafina gasped, hurrying toward her.
“My head took a wallop,” Essie said, as she rubbed her temple and squinted her eye, “but I ain’t no worse for it.”
Braeden looked around at all of them, and then brought his gaze back to Serafina. “What were you all doing out here at this time of night with the baby?”
“And why were you going so fast around that turn?” the coachman challenged.
As if in reply, the thundering sound of running horses came barreling around the bend in the road.
“Stop right there!” one of the riders shouted as a dozen grim-faced men surrounded them
and aimed their rifles at Serafina.
She sucked in a sudden breath and froze. With the baby in her arms, and Braeden and the others around her, she could not fight them or run.
The riders dismounted and surrounded her, pointing their rifles directly at her head.
“What are you doing?” Braeden shouted at them, shocked by their behavior.
“Do not try to move!” Mr. Doddman ordered Serafina, ignoring Braeden.
The security manager was a heavyset, thick-necked man with massive hands and callused knuckles, aiming the long black barrel of his rifle straight at her, just inches from her face, as if he was trying to make sure that when he pulled the trigger he wouldn’t hit the baby in her arms.
Knowing she was a single finger-twitch from death, Serafina remained perfectly still. In all her life, she had never had the muzzle of a gun pointed at her. Now there were twelve. If any one of these men decided to pull the trigger, or even sneezed, she was dead.
“Stop this!” Braeden shouted at them.
“Step away, Master Braeden,” Mr. Doddman ordered him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Braeden asked angrily.
In the distance, beyond the men who surrounded her, Serafina saw two more riders approaching.
Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt rode up on their cantering horses and came to a sudden stop. Serafina’s stomach knotted at the sight of them.
The master and mistress of Biltmore quickly dismounted, handed their reins to one of the men, and hurried toward her and the baby.
“Serafina, what are you doing?” Mrs. Vanderbilt demanded, her voice roiling with dismay.
“I was trying to help—” Serafina cried, the anguish ripping through her body.
“But why did you take Cornelia?” Mrs. Vanderbilt shouted at her.
Braeden watched all of this in confusion.
“I swear I would never do anything to hurt the baby,” Serafina pleaded with Mrs. Vanderbilt. “I was trying to protect her!”
Mr. Vanderbilt strode straight at her, pulling off his leather riding gloves as he came, his dark eyes glaring with fury. Surrounded by his men, she was defenseless against him.
“Get the baby,” Mr. Vanderbilt ordered, the tenor of his voice vibrating with harshness.
Mr. Doddman immediately shouldered his rifle and stomped forward. He ripped Cornelia from her arms and thrust the now crying baby at her mother.
Serafina didn’t try to resist him as his giant hand shoved her brutally to the ground. “Down! Now!” he shouted at her, his spittle hitting her in the face.
“Stop this!” Braeden screamed, charging forward and trying to hold Mr. Doddman back from hurting her.
But Serafina didn’t cry out or fight back. She knew she couldn’t, not here, not like this.
She lay on the ground where Mr. Doddman pushed her. As she looked up at Braeden, and Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt, and all the surrounding men, she knew she couldn’t explain everything she’d seen and she couldn’t accuse Mr. Vanderbilt of murder. No one would believe anything she said.
The physical pain of the carriage crash and being shoved down to the rocky ground at the side of the road began to radiate through her body, the aches and bruises, but worse than that was the sickening feeling of what she had done to poor Mrs. Vanderbilt and how it must look to all of them.
“Aunt Edith, why are you treating Serafina like this?” Braeden beseeched Mrs. Vanderbilt.
“She kidnapped Cornelia, Braeden!” Mrs. Vanderbilt screamed at him.
“If she took the baby from the house,” Braeden said firmly, “then Cornelia’s life must have been in danger. Don’t you see that?”
As Serafina gazed up at Braeden, her heart began to swell.
He believed in her.
He had seen for himself that she had been fleeing the house with the baby in the middle of the night. And now they were all shouting at her and pointing their guns at her, accusing her of a most heinous crime. All the evidence in front of Braeden’s eyes was clearly and obviously against her. But it didn’t seem to matter to him. He believed in her, without doubt, without question.
“Uncle,” Braeden said, moving toward him. “You know Serafina is the Guardian of Biltmore, the protector of our family. Why would you ever doubt this? Why?”
“You don’t understand what’s been happening here, Braeden,” Mr. Vanderbilt told him.
“Look at her,” Braeden said, gesturing toward her on the ground. “You don’t think she could just flee from you right now and disappear into the darkness if she wanted to? You don’t think she could fight all of you? She was obviously trying to protect the baby, and she still is!”
“But where were you taking her?” Mrs. Vanderbilt cried out at Serafina.
Away from your husband, the murderer! Serafina wanted to scream in reply, but she knew she couldn’t.
“If Serafina thought Cornelia was in danger, then she was in danger,” Braeden said bluntly, the force rising in his voice. “How many times does she have to save all of your lives for you to know this?”
“But she snatched Cornelia out of her crib and skulked away with her in the middle of the night!” Mrs. Vanderbilt said, straining with shaking emotion as she spoke. “She should have spoken to me!”
“She obviously had to act quickly. So now you chase her down and aim guns at her?” Braeden said, boiling with frustration.
Mr. Doddman, provoked by Braeden’s insolent tone, pushed toward him and shouted at him in his gruff, commanding voice, “Tell us, boy, just how did you get here anyway?”
Braeden turned toward him and faced him head-on. “How did I get here?” he replied, his voice edged with sharpness.
“The trains do not arrive at the station in the middle of the night,” Mr. Doddman challenged him.
“They do if your family owns the railroad and all the trains on it, Mr. Doddman,” Braeden said fiercely as he stepped toward Serafina and pulled her up onto her feet. “Now put down your guns. This is foolish.”
It was at that moment that she realized that it wasn’t just luck that Braeden was here. He didn’t just happen to be traveling down the road for no reason. He had come from New York with great speed and purpose. And she could see that Braeden’s confidence in her was wearing down the resolve of her accusers.
“But what happened to you, Serafina?” Mrs. Vanderbilt asked, looking at her. “What did you see that made you do this? Why did you not speak to me first?”
Serafina stared back at her, trying not to glance over at Mr. Vanderbilt standing a few feet away.
“Tell us what you saw, girl,” Mr. Doddman demanded, shoving her with his hand.
She felt an overwhelming urge to bite him with her long panther fangs. But she had to get out of this. She had to get these men away from her so that she could talk to Braeden alone and tell him what was really going on.
As she looked around at Mr. Doddman and all of the other men surrounding her, an idea came into her mind. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it might be just the right amount of it.
“I saw two wickedly unnatural creatures,” she said, purposefully putting a tremor of fear into her voice. “They were lizardlike, but with sharp teeth and long, nasty claws. One killed a bear in the forest. Another killed my cat. Then I saw the creatures trying to scratch their way into Baby Nell’s bedroom.”
Everyone around her stared at her in shock. Several of the men couldn’t help but glance into the darkness of the forest behind them.
She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Mr. Vanderbilt saw the creatures, too.”
“What did you say, girl?” Mr. Doddman said, shaking her by the shoulder.
“I said that Mr. Vanderbilt saw the creatures.”
Everyone turned and looked at Mr. Vanderbilt.
The master of Biltmore studied her for several seconds. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about strange creatures crawling through the house. But now he had no choice. He looked around at the others. “It is true,” he adm
itted finally. “I did see some sort of unnatural beast.”
“One of the creatures attacked and killed Mr. Kettering,” Serafina said, hoping to stir a little more fear among her accusers, and sure enough, they all began looking out into the surrounding forest.
“And Mr. Cobere was killed as well,” Mr. Vanderbilt said.
Serafina gasped, shocked by the deviousness of his lie. He had killed Mr. Cobere, not the creatures!
She didn’t even know how to respond to what he had said, but she continued with her plan, turning to look at Mrs. Vanderbilt. “When I saw the creatures crawling into Baby Nell’s room, I had to get her out of there as fast as I could. I’m so, so sorry I took her like that, but I had to!”
Mrs. Vanderbilt stared back at her, speechless.
Serafina could see in her mistress’s eyes that maybe her anger and suspicion were finally beginning to subside.
Seeing the opportunity, Braeden stepped forward and spoke to everyone. “If there are nasty creatures prowling around, then we better all get to safety,” he said, and many of the men immediately agreed with the young master.
“Let’s mount up and get home,” Mr. Vanderbilt ordered the men. “I want four guards around my wife and daughter on the way back.”
“Yes, sir,” several of the men said in unison.
“Mr. Doddman,” Mr. Vanderbilt said as he turned toward the security manager. “When we get back to Biltmore, my family will be spending the rest of the night in my chambers instead of the nursery. Post additional guards around the room and throughout the second floor.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see to it,” Mr. Doddman said.
As she heard Mr. Vanderbilt’s orders, Serafina’s mind raced with suspicion. It made sense for all of them to get out of the forest, but the creatures were in the house as well. No place was safe. And Mr. Vanderbilt knew that. But Mr. Vanderbilt and the others were all so used to Biltmore being a place of refuge that their minds couldn’t think in any other way.
Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe Mr. Vanderbilt had a more sinister, hidden plan. Maybe it wasn’t about safety, but entrapment. How could she convince them all that Biltmore itself was the danger, that the man in charge was the one they should be most frightened of?
Serafina and the Seven Stars Page 14