Serafina and the Black Cloak

by Robert Beatty

  She looked around her. And then she saw them. First one, and then another. They were surrounding her. The hoarse croaking sounds came from a conspiracy of thirteen ravens moving through the branches of the trees, calling to one another, speaking in their ancient codes. But the ravens weren’t just conversing with each other—they were looking at her, flying around her, trying to communicate with her. As if frustrated by her lack of understanding, several of the ravens began diving at her with their claws. Were they attacking her or were they warning her? She didn’t know.

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted. She covered her head with her arms and ran to escape them. She dove into a thicket of brush, where the large birds couldn’t fly. Driven by fear, she just kept running.

  When she finally stopped to catch her breath, she looked behind her to see if they were still following. She found herself standing on something hard—some sort of flat surface. She looked down and saw a long, straight edge of gray stone. Now what? she thought.

  It was half buried, but she knelt on the ground and wiped away the dirt and leaves to expose the smooth, flat granite underneath.

  Serafina read the words that someone had etched in blocky letters into the stone:

  HERE LIES BLOOD, AND LET IT LIE,

  SPEECHLESS STILL, AND NEVER CRY.

  She felt a cold sweat pass over her. She looked around. There was another flat gray stone just a few feet away. She pulled the brush aside and read:

  COME HITHER, COME HITHER, AND LAY WITH ME.

  WE’LL MURDER THE MAN WHO MURDERED ME.

  CLOVEN SMITH 1797–1843

  All right, I don’t like this place at all. These are graves.…

  She wiped her clammy hands on her shirt, then she took a few more steps, finding more graves beneath the undergrowth of the forest. The graveyard seemed like it went on and on. There were graves as far as she could see, most of them overgrown with vines and trees.

  Many of the headstones were so close together that they couldn’t possibly have bodies beneath them, just like the stories she’d heard. It was as if people had gone missing, their bodies never found, and these were but markers of the lost.

  But as she delved deeper into the oldest parts of the abandoned cemetery, she saw mounds where bodies had definitely been buried, and other graves that were empty holes, as if the coffins had been plundered or the dead had crawled out of the ground on their own.

  She swallowed hard and tried to keep moving despite the trembling in her limbs.

  In some places, the layers of earth appeared as if they had shifted, exposing broken, rotting coffins to the air. Some of the coffins jutted up out of the earth or were tangled beneath gnarled tree roots. She kept walking and reading the stones. A hundred years of old people, young people, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies, husbands and wives.

  She had heard stories about this old cemetery, filled with hundreds of gravestones and monuments, even though no one alive could remember burying the people. Many of the local mountain folk wondered where all the dead people in this cemetery had come from. Whole families seemed to have perished in short spans of time.

  There were tall tales that the mountain folk no longer used this cemetery because burying your loved ones here didn’t necessarily guarantee that they would stay. The coffins shifted in the unstable earth. The bodies went missing. Your dead loved ones were seen wandering their old homes and streets, as if searching for a place to rest.

  There were tales, too, of human beings shifting into the shape of wild animals, of sorcerers and witches with surpassing power, and horrible, disfigured creatures crawling through the forest.

  She came upon two small mounds so close together, side by side, that they were nearly a single grave. One tombstone identified the two young sisters within:

  OUR BED IS LOVELY, DARK, AND SWEET.

  COME JOIN US NOW AND WE SHALL MEET.

  MARY HEMLOCK AND MARGARET HEMLOCK

  1782–1791 REST IN PEACE AND DON’T RETURN

  When she read the words don’t return, the hairs on the back of her neck tingled. What kind of strange place was this?

  She had come in search of an old village, but all she’d found was its cemetery. She had a feeling that this was all that was left.

  As Serafina walked, the dry autumn leaves crunched beneath her feet. Tree branches lay like emaciated dead fingers on the ground among the gravestones and monuments. Many of the monuments had toppled to the earth and lay broken and strewn while others had sunk deep into the ground. A few of the gravestones remained standing, sticking up several feet with spires or crosses, but they were so thickly covered in black and green moss and overgrown with vines that they were nearly indistinguishable from the wretched forest around them.

  She read another:

  DEATH IS A DEBT TO NATURE DUE,

  WHICH I HAVE PAID, AND SO WILL YOU.

  In another area, she found row upon row of crosses. An old, weathered plaque explained that these sixty-six crosses were the graves of an entire company of Confederate soldiers who were found dead one night, even though they never fought in any battle.

  Farther on, Serafina came to a glade, a little clearing in the trees strangely without bushes, vines, or undergrowth of any kind. This one particular part of the cemetery had not become overgrown, but remained an area of perfect green grass. In the center of the glade stood a stone monument carved into the likeness of a winged angel. Stranger still was the fact that although there was fog all around the glade, there was no fog in the glade itself. Sunlight filtered through the mist and illuminated the angel’s face and hair and wings with a gentle light.

  “Now, she’s pretty,” Serafina said as she stepped closer and read the inscription on the pedestal of the statue:

  OUR CHARACTER ISN’T DEFINED

  BY THE BATTLES WE WIN OR LOSE,

  BUT BY THE BATTLES WE DARE TO FIGHT.

  Serafina looked up at the angel and studied her. Dappled layers of green and gray moss and lichen covered the angel, and the black streaks of a hundred years of aging stained her long dress and her beautiful face. Dark tears seemed to be falling down her cheeks, as if she had known great sadness. But her wings stretched upward into a fury, her head raised into an apocalyptic cry, as if calling those around her into a great battle. What kind of battle? Serafina wondered. In her right hand, the angel held a sword. The statue itself was made of stone, but the sword appeared to be made of steel, and the metal gleamed as if it was untouched by time. Curious, Serafina slowly reached out her hand and touched the edge of the blade. She gasped and pulled back, blood oozing from her finger. The edge of the sword was razor-sharp.

  Then something caught her eye. She felt a pulse of fear. Her muscles tightened, readying themselves to flee. At the edge of the glade, a gravestone had tumbled over where a gnarled old willow tree had fallen and its upturned roots had created a small cave. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw one of the shadows slowly move.

  Then she was sure of it.

  There was something stirring by the old grave.

  Serafina had to remind herself to keep breathing, to stay calm. She felt her chest tightening, her breaths getting shorter and shorter. She wanted to turn and run, but she stayed and watched, her curiosity too strong to overcome.

  She crept quietly through the graveyard to get a closer look.

  She feared it might be a corpse crawling out of the ground. She imagined its rotting white hands digging through the dirt as it broke the surface. But as she got closer, she realized it wasn’t a corpse at all, but a very living creature.

  It was some sort of small wildcat with yellowish-brown fur, black spots and markings, and a long tail. It took her several seconds to figure out that it was a baby mountain lion.

  Suddenly, a second lion cub appeared. They charged each other, grabbing each other with their paws and tumbling in play, meowing and howling and swatting each other. They had the most adorable little yellow faces marked with black streaks and spots, and long
white kitty whiskers.

  Smiling, Serafina watched the cubs play in the bright green grass of the stone angel’s sunlit glade. The fear she had felt just moments before began to melt away. She had always loved kittens.

  She crouched down and moved a little closer. One of the cubs spotted her. Its ears perked up, and it stared at her, studying her. She thought that it would run away in fear. But it didn’t. It gave her a raspy meow and ambled toward her as if it didn’t have a care in the world.

  She extended her arm, holding her hand still. The brave little cub slowed down, but it kept coming toward her, watching her, inching closer and closer. When it reached her, it sniffed her fingers and rubbed the side of its mouth along the length of her hand. Serafina smiled, almost giggled, pleased that the cub didn’t fear her.

  She sat down in the grass, and the cub climbed right into her lap, pawing playfully at her fingers. She wrapped her arms around the cub and hugged its warm, fuzzy little body to her chest. It was good to have some company that didn’t scare the living daylights out of her. The other cub came over, and soon she was lovin’ on both of them as they tumbled and rolled around her, and they rubbed themselves against her and purred.

  “What are you sweet little babies doing here?” she asked. After all she’d been through, it felt more than agreeable to be accepted by these wonderful little creatures. It felt like a homecoming.

  Soon, they were all up and about. She chased the cubs around the glade, pretending to swat at them with her paw, then they chased her. She got down on her hands and knees. One of the cubs ran behind the pedestal of the stone angel, came around the other side, and peeked at her, his dark little eyes blinking as he pretended to stalk her. He darted out playfully, running sideways with his back arched into a mock attack as he leapt upon her. Then the other cub joined in, grabbing her arms and legs, trying to tackle her, and soon they were all brawling and growling. The adorable, kittenish attack made Serafina laugh out loud.

  And her laughter carried through the misty forest.

  She kept playing and wrestling with the cubs, feeling a pure and oblivious childlike pleasure that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Then she sensed severe and immediate danger. She turned and saw something hurtling toward her out of the mist. At first, it seemed to be floating like a ghost, but then she realized it wasn’t a ghost at all.

  It was running. Fast. Straight toward her.

  A wave of dread washed through her as she realized that by playing with these cubs she’d made a terrible, terrible error in judgment. The angry, full-grown mother mountain lion charged toward her. The lioness would kill her to defend her cubs.

  Fear jolted Serafina into motion. The lioness leapt through the air, her claws and teeth bared. Serafina knew she was going to die, but she tried to duck. The impact of the lioness’s attack slammed into her so hard that it knocked her off her feet. She and the vicious beast tumbled across the grass in a brawling, snarling mass of hissing, teeth, and claws.

  Serafina battled with all her strength. She had never in her life fought anything so physically powerful. She knew there was no way to defeat her; she was but a kitten compared to this wild beast. Her only hope was to get away as fast as she could. She kicked her feet and flailed her fists. She beat the lioness with a stick, screaming all the while.

  When the lioness tried to bite her neck and deliver her deadly blow, Serafina slammed her hands into the lioness’s face and tore at her eyes, then whirled herself into a wild, twisting frenzy. Her attacks distracted the big cat just long enough to break herself free. Then she sprang up and darted away like a scalded dog.

  The lioness chased her, but Serafina sprinted with an incredible burst of fear-induced speed. She scrambled into the thick bushes like a squirrel and just kept running. She ran and she ran. She ran until her whole chest hurt with thumping pain.

  She crossed a rocky stream, then went through a thick stand of pines, and then delved into a thicket of thistles and blackberry thorns. She climbed up hills and over rocks and just kept running as far as she could.

  Finally, exhausted, she ducked beneath a bush like a rabbit and listened for the sounds of her pursuer. She did not hear her.

  She imagined that the lioness, satisfied that she had chased off the intruder, had returned to her cubs. She could picture the mother lion scolding them for playing with a stranger and pushing them angrily back into their den beneath the roots of the tree.

  Panting and wounded, Serafina pressed on through the forest, determined to put as much distance as possible between her, the cemetery, and the mountain lion’s den. She vowed to never return to that terrifying place.

  When she finally stopped for a moment to catch her breath, she looked around her. Nothing looked familiar. It was then that she realized that she was completely and utterly lost.

  Serafina kept moving and soon found herself traveling along the top edge of a rocky, tree-covered ridge. In her panic to escape the lioness, it seemed that she’d run halfway up a mountain.

  Exhausted, she finally stopped to rest and check her wounds. Her clothing had been torn. The length of twine that once held her pa’s shirt around her body had broken and was gone. Claw marks sliced her arms and legs. Her head hurt. Several tooth marks punctured her chest. She was pretty torn up, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as she had expected.

  It hurts, but I’m gonna live, she thought. Assuming I can find my way home. She had thought that the forest couldn’t be nearly as bad as her pa described, but it turned out to be a far darker, more dangerous place than she’d ever imagined. With everything she’d seen so far, she didn’t think she could survive another night here. But she was still miles from the house, stuck on a ridge, and she didn’t even know which direction to go.

  She looked up at the dark, cloudy sky, trying to find the position of the sun, then she scanned the surrounding landscape for clues and landmarks. With no compass, no map, and no idea where she was in relation to Biltmore Estate, how could she make sure she was going in the right direction?

  She was already cold when it started raining.

  “Oh, great,” she said, shouting up at the clouds. “Thank you! That’s really nice, you stupid sky!”

  She hated getting wet. This was a miserable place. She just wanted to get home. She missed her pa something awful. She longed for a glass of milk, a piece of fried catfish, a warm little cook fire in the workshop, and her dry, cozy bed behind the boiler. Yesterday she’d been slinking gracefully across the plush carpets of Biltmore’s elegant rooms, and today she was stuck out in the cold, wet, stupid, raining world.

  As the rain poured down, she tried to hide under the boughs of a pine tree, but it didn’t help. The big drips onto her sopping head and neck just made her more miserable. Rivulets of water flowed across the rocky ground beneath her. Wet and bedraggled, she clung to the trunk of the tree, terrified that she’d slip down the steep slope of the mountainside. She wanted her pa to get his ladder and rescue her like he had when she was little, but she knew he wouldn’t even know where to look for her.

  Then, as she watched the water trickle across the ground, a thought occurred to her.

  Water runs downhill. Downhill, and into rivers.

  She had been following the contour of the ridge because it had been easiest, but now she had a different idea. What if she climbed straight down the steepest slope of the mountain and used the trunks of the trees and the branches of the rhododendrons as a sort of ladder? She’d get down a lot quicker.

  She stepped closer to the edge and peered tentatively over the cliff. It was a long way down, but she grabbed the first branch to see if it would hold her. Suddenly, her foot slipped in the wet leaves, her fingers broke free from the branch, and she plummeted down the mountainside.

  The swooping sensation of free fall instantly filled her entire body. She slid down feetfirst, screaming. She tried to stay upright and reached out for the bushes to break her fall, but then she hit a tree trunk, and it knocked the w
ind out of her. She pitched in one direction, then the next, hurtling down the mountain. She hit a branch. She spun. She hit a rock. She plunged. Suddenly, she was somersaulting end over end. All the while she fell, tumbling down the mountainside in a great wave of autumn leaves. The rush of speed and the wind against her face made her feel like she was flying, but then she hit another tree, the force slamming a painful grunt from her chest, and she flipped and rolled until she finally crashed, breathless and hurting, at the bottom of the ravine.

  She lay there for several seconds, unable to move. Her whole body hurt. She’d been punched and battered and stabbed.

  “Well, that was one way to get down,” she groaned.

  When she was finally able to get on her feet, she brushed herself off and limped on her way.

  She followed a small stream that trickled into a creek. Thirsty, she lay flat at the stream’s edge and lapped up the clear mountain water like an animal.

  The stream led her to a waterfall that crashed into a tumultuous pool thirty feet below.

  Does this waterfall have a name? she wondered. If she knew that, then maybe it would help her understand where she was and give her a better chance of finding her way home. What river is this?

  But then she realized that it didn’t matter exactly where she was. A river wasn’t a place. A river was movement. She remembered something her pa had taught her. All the rivers in these mountains wound through complicated, twisting routes, but eventually they all flowed in one direction, into the mighty French Broad River.

  The Blue Ridge Mountains were some of the oldest mountains in the world. The river had been flowing here for millions of years and had helped shape the mountains into what they were today. And, most importantly, she knew that the French Broad River flowed through the grounds of Biltmore Estate, right past the mansion. The river was the way home.

  She climbed down the wet, slippery rocks at the edge of the waterfall, then made her way along the craggy shoreline. Confident in her direction now, she traveled as fast as she could. She had to reach her pa, who she knew must be worried sick about her, and she wanted to see Braeden. She wasn’t sure if she had abandoned him by sneaking into the woods, or if he’d abandoned her by going home in his uncle’s carriage; but they’d separated, and it made her stomach hurt. The more time that went by, the less certain she became of how she should feel. Was Braeden actually her friend, or was her mind just imagining it, like when she imagined herself as being friends with the butler’s assistant who stopped and ate the cookies? All her life, she had pretended that she had friends, but was it true this time?