She and Braeden had only known each other for a short while, but she let the memories of their time together wash over her. To someone like her, it felt like a lifetime of friendship. She was like a starved animal wolfing down a scrap and thinking it had eaten a full meal. But she had no idea if he missed her the way she missed him.
She walked for hours, following the river until it flowed into a much wider, flatter river that she hoped was the French Broad, but she wasn’t sure. She was tired, hungry, and sore from her wounds. She just wanted to get home.
As the sun slowly withdrew behind the trees in the western sky, she tried to push herself faster. She didn’t want to get caught in the forest another night, for that’s when the mountain lion, the Man in the Black Cloak, and whatever other demons might crawl out of the cemetery would be on the prowl. But it was no use. The sun abandoned her, the birds and the other daytime sounds went dead, and the darkness settled into the trees like a black oil.
Exhausted, she stopped to catch her breath and rest a spell. She knew it was dangerous to linger in the open. Wet and shivering, she crawled into a hole beneath the hollowed roots of a tree at the river’s edge, curled into a little ball, and peered out into the darkness.
She was a failure. That’s what she thought. She had come to the forest to see the world, but all she’d found was wretchedness.
From her little cave beneath the roots, she looked downstream along the gravelly shore of the river. The air around her was cold and still, but the river rippled with a steady rushing sound, and she could taste its moisture on her lips. The waxing moon rising above the mountains cast a silvery light across the deep-flowing black water. Mist oozed out of the forest and drifted across the river like a legion of ghosts.
A wolf called in the distance, a long, plaintive, lonely howl that put a shiver up her spine. The wolf was miles away, up on the mountains. But then she nearly jumped out of her skin when a much closer wolf answered the call with a returning howl.
Red wolves were elusive, almost mythological beasts, seldom seen by anyone, but they were well known for being fierce warriors that fought in packs, tearing their enemies with their gleaming white fangs.
The wolf close to her howled again, and a dozen wolves on the other side of the river lit up the air with a bloodcurdling chorus of howls. Goose bumps rose on her arms.
She did not hear it approach for it moved like a ghost through the mist, but she saw the wolf come slowly out of the forest and look out across the river. She stayed very still among the roots and watched it. She could smell the musky scent of its coat and see its moonlit breath in the air.
It was a young wolf, long and lean, with a deep coat of reddish-brown fur, a slender nose, and tall ears. The fur on its right shoulder was bloody from a wound.
She held her breath and stayed quiet. The wolf doesn’t know I’m here, she thought. I’m one with the forest. I’m camouflaged and silent.
But then the wolf turned its head and looked straight at her, its eyes as keen and penetrating as any creature she had ever seen.
Her muscles bunched as she prepared herself for the attack.
But then the wolf’s ear twitched. Serafina heard it, too. There was something large moving through the forest, traveling along the river shore toward them.
The wolf looked in the direction of the sound, and then he looked back at her. He stared at her for several seconds, even as the sound moved toward them. Then, to her astonishment, the wolf walked into the river. He kept walking until he was up to his shoulders in the water, then the river swept him away and all she could see was his head as he tried to fight against the current. He was swimming toward the howls of his brothers and sisters on the other side of the river. And he was swimming away from the thing coming toward her.
Suddenly, she felt abandoned, vulnerable.
The river made too much noise for her to hear exactly what was coming toward her, but it was getting closer. Sticks breaking. Footsteps. Two feet. It wasn’t the mountain lion or another wolf that had scared the red wolf across the river, but a man. Was it the Man in the Black Cloak?
As she huddled down into the dirt, a hideous giant centipede crawled across her hand. She flinched and stifled a scream.
Her lungs demanded more air. Her legs tensed, wanting her to run. But it was too late. The attacker was too close. A smart rabbit doesn’t break cover when the predator is upon her. She hides. She pushed herself farther back into the dark little hole beneath the roots.
A flickering light came through the trees. She heard the pushing of bushes and the scraping of bark and the muffled clanking of metal and wood.
It’s a lantern, she thought. The same kind of lantern the Man in the Black Cloak used the night he took Clara Brahms.
Trembling, she crouched low and readied herself for battle.
Serafina watched the man raise his lantern and look around him as he broke through the underbrush. It was clear that he was searching for something, but more than that, he was frightened. Even with his lantern and the nearly full moon, he could not see as well in the forest’s darkness as she could. When the man took another step, she recognized the familiar creak of his leather work boot. That’s when she realized that it wasn’t the Man in the Black Cloak. It was her pa, in a long, dark brown weather cloak. Despite his warnings, and despite his fear, he had delved deep into the forest to rescue her.
She gasped, crawled out of her hole, and ran toward him.
“I-I’m here, Pa! I’m here!” she stammered, crying as she threw her arms around him.
He squeezed her tight for a long time. It was like being hugged by a gentle bear. She clung to his huge, warm body.
As he exhaled in relief, she could feel the shattering worry pouring out of him. “Sera, aw, Sera, I…I thought you’d disappeared like the other children.”
“I ain’t disappeared, Pa,” she said, her voice quivering like she was a little girl again.
Seeing her torn clothing and the scratches on her arms even in the poor light of his lantern, he asked, “What happened to you, Sera? You have another run-in with a raccoon?”
She didn’t even know where to begin in telling him everything that had happened to her, and she knew he wouldn’t believe her anyway. He would think it was just another one of her cockamamy stories.
“Got terribly lost,” she said, shaking her head in shame, and it was the truth. Tears streamed down her face.
“But you’re all right?” he said, looking her over. “Where’s it hurt?”
“Just wanna get home,” she said, burying her head in the folds of his cloak. She remembered how angry she’d been at him for not telling her about her birth, and how she’d convinced herself that he wasn’t on her side, but she realized now how foolish she’d been. Nobody in the world had ever done more for her than her pa, and nobody in the world had ever loved her like he did.
When the wolves across the river exploded into howls, it made her pa flinch.
He looked around. “I hate wolves,” he said with a shudder as he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her along. “Come on. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
She happily went with him, but as the wolves continued their howling, it sounded different to her than it had before. The howls weren’t the lonely searching calls spread across the vast distances of mountain ridges, but excited yip-howls, all from the same location. She couldn’t help but feel that they weren’t howls of menace, but of joy and reunion. You made it, brother. She thought of the wounded red wolf crossing the river. You made it home.
Her pa held the lantern out in front of them as they traveled, like a guide leading them through the night. She was glad to let him lead the way.
“You got to the river and followed it like I taught ya,” he said as they walked.
“I wouldn’t have made it otherwise,” she said.
Soon, they left the trees of the forest behind them and then continued for another mile. Finally, they climbed up the bank of the great river a
nd saw the Biltmore mansion shining in the moonlight on the high ground in the distance. They still had a ways to go, but at least she could see it now. The faint smell of wood smoke drifted on the cold winter air and filled her with a powerful longing for home.
The local folk called the magnificent house “The Lady on the Hill,” and tonight she could see why. Biltmore looked majestic with her light gray walls and slate-blue rooftops, her chimneys and towers stretching upward, and the reflection of the moon glistening on her gold and copper trim, like something out of a fairy tale. Serafina had never been so glad to see her home in all her life.
Her pa took her gently by the shoulders and looked into her face. “I know you’re drawn to the woods, Sera,” he said. “You’ve always been pulled by your curiosity, but you’ve got to stay outta there. You’ve got to keep yourself safe.”
“I understand,” she said. She sure couldn’t argue with him that it wasn’t dangerous.
“I know you’re good in the dark,” he said, “best I ever seen, but you gotta resist the urges, Sera. You’re my little girl. I’d hate to lose you all the way.”
When he said all the way, it haunted her. She realized then that he felt like he was already losing her. She could hear the despair in the raggedness of his voice and see it glistening in his eyes as he looked at her. This was his greatest fear; not just that she would be hurt or killed in the forest, but that her wildness would draw her in, that she’d become more and more wild. More wild than human.
She looked up at him and met his small brown eyes, and saw the reflection of her amber eyes in his. “I’m not gonna leave ya, Pa,” she promised.
He nodded and wiped his mouth. “Come on, then,” he said, wrapping his arm around her. “Let’s get ya home and dry, and get some supper in ya.”
By the time they reached the mansion, the workers had come in from the farms and fields. Most of the mansion’s doors had been closed up and locked. The shutters and shades had been drawn against the demons that lurked in the night.
As Serafina and her pa headed for the basement, she was surprised to see that the stables were filled with people and activity. Oil lamps glowed brightly in the night.
She and her pa couldn’t help but pause to see what the commotion was about. A returning mounted search party, a dozen riders strong, stormed into the inner courtyard, filling the air with the clatter of horse hooves striking the brick paving. They’d been looking for Clara Brahms and the other victims. As the riders dismounted and the stablemen hurried out to tend to the horses, the parents of the missing children gathered around.
Nolan’s pa, who was the stable blacksmith, begged for news of his son, but the riders shook their heads. They’d found nothing.
Poor Mr. Rostonov was there as well, struggling to ask questions in his Russian-hindered English as he held on to his daughter’s little white dog. The shaggy creature barked incessantly, growling at the horses as if chastising them for the failure of the search.
Watching Mr. Rostonov, the Brahmses, and Nolan’s pa in their desperate struggle to find their children, Serafina’s heart filled with an aching sadness. It made her guts churn to think about it, to think about her part in it all. She had to find the Man in the Black Cloak.
“Come on,” her pa said as he pulled her away. “This whole place is comin’ apart at the bolts, equipment breakin’ for no reason, folks losin’ their children. It’s a bad business all around.”
As they ate their dinner together huddled around their little cook fire in the workshop, her pa talked about his day. “I’ve been working on the dynamo, but I can’t figure out how to fix it. The floors upstairs are pitch-black. The servants had to pass out lanterns and candles to all the guests, but there weren’t enough of them to go around. Everyone’s frightened. With all the guests in the house and the disappearance of the children, this couldn’t have come at a worse time.…”
She could hear the pain in his voice. “What are you going to do, Pa?”
“I’ve gotta get back to it,” he said. It was only then that she realized that he’d stopped his work in order to look for her. “And you need to go to bed. No hunting tonight. I mean it. Just hunker down and keep yourself safe.”
She nodded her head. She knew he was right.
“No hunting,” he said again firmly; then he grabbed his tool bag and headed out.
As her father’s footsteps receded down the corridor, heading for the stairs that led down to the electrical room in the subbasement, she said, “You’ll figure it out, Pa. I know you will.” She knew he would never hear the words from so far away, but she wanted to say them anyway.
She found herself sitting alone in the workshop. The Man in the Black Cloak had taken a victim each night for the last two nights in a row. With the dynamo broken, she imagined him walking through the darkness of Biltmore’s unlit corridors tonight with a crooked smile on his face. It was going to be easy pickings for him.
She sat on the mattress behind the boiler. When she was out on the mountain ridge in the rain, this was all she wanted—to be dry and well fed and comfortable in her bed. But now that she was here, it wasn’t where she wanted to be. Her pa had told her to go to sleep, and she knew she should—her body was tired and sore—but her mind was a swirl of memories and sensations, hopes and fears.
There was only one person in the world who would believe what had happened to her in the forest that day. There was only one person who’d understand everything she’d been through, and he lived in a room on the second floor at the far end of the house. She missed him. She was worried about him. And she wanted to see him.
When she and Braeden were stranded in the carriage, they were together, they were on the same side, they were as close as close could be. But now that they were both back home again, he in his bedroom and she in the basement, he seemed farther away than when she was lost in the mountains. There were too many forbidden stairs and doors and corridors between them.
They ain’t our kind of folk, Sera, her pa had said, and she could only imagine what Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt would say about her if they knew she existed.
Using a wet rag she found in the workshop, she tended to her wounds and cleaned herself up the best she could. Although she lived in a dirty place filled with grease and tools, she liked to keep herself clean, and her adventure in the mountains had left her as muddy as a mudpuppy on a rainy day. She took off her wet clothes, wiped her face and neck, her hands and arms, and all the way down her legs until she was spotless once more.
When she was done she changed into a dry shirt, but she’d lost her only belt. She found an old leather machine strap on one of the shelves and used a knife to slice it lengthwise so that it was about an inch wide. She poked holes in it and cut thinner strips of leather to fasten it. When she was done, she cinched the leather belt around her waist to see what it looked like on her. She was so thin that she could wrap it around her waist twice, but she thought it looked very nice. If her pa had been there, he would have said that it made her look halfway to half-grown. She had always wanted to wear a dress, too, like all the other girls, but she’d never been able to find a discarded one, and she didn’t think it was right to steal one. For now, she was happy with her new belt. She bowed and pretended she was a young woman meeting a friend at the market. She smiled and twittered and pretended to tell a story that made her friend laugh.
Somewhere between washing the blood and mud off her face and seeing herself in her new belt, she decided that if she could survive a haunted forest, find her way through a misty cemetery, and narrowly escape a highly perturbed mountain lion, then maybe she could sneak into a Vanderbilt’s bedroom while he was sleeping. One way or another, she needed to solve the mystery of the Man in the Black Cloak, and that wasn’t going to get done with her taking a nap behind the boiler. The Man in the Black Cloak was going to walk again tonight. He was going to take another child. She was sure of it. And the one he wanted was Braeden Vanderbilt. She had to protect him.
&nbs
p; The house was quiet and dark. There was a palpable fear in the air. With no electric lights, the Vanderbilts and their guests had gone to bed early, holing up in the safety of their rooms, next to their small brick fireplaces. A once bright and grand home had been robbed of light and had become a dark and haunted place.
She knew Mr. Vanderbilt’s room and Mrs. Vanderbilt’s room were both on the second floor, connected by the Oak Sitting Room, where they shared their breakfast each morning. She didn’t want to go anywhere near there. She turned left down the corridor toward the southern end of the house, where she knew Braeden’s bedroom overlooked the gardens.
She crept past door after door, but they all looked annoyingly similar. Finally, she came to one adorned with a running horse carved in relief in its center panel, and she smiled. She’d found him.
Crouched outside Braeden’s door, she realized that the real risk she faced wasn’t just that someone would catch her, but that Braeden wouldn’t want her there. He hadn’t invited her to his room that night. He hadn’t even said he wanted to see her ever again. What if her whole theory of their friendship had been pure and utter imagination on her part? What if he was glad to get rid of her in the forest that morning? Maybe he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore. He certainly wouldn’t want her sneaking into his room late at night.
Serafina and the Black Cloak Page 12