Serafina and the Black Cloak

by Robert Beatty

  Serafina woke the next morning to the sound of Braeden’s aunt knocking urgently on his locked bedroom door.

  “Braeden, it’s time to get up,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “Braeden?”

  Serafina slipped off the bed and looked for a place to hide.

  “Here…” Braeden whispered as he pulled back a decorative brass vent cover on the wall beneath his desk.

  “Braeden, are you all right in there?” his aunt asked through the door. “Please open up, darling. You’re worrying me.”

  Serafina crawled into the air passage, and Braeden replaced the cover behind her. She watched him through the grille as he shoved the dress under his bed then glanced around the room to make sure there wasn’t any other evidence that she’d been there. Gidean studied his master with interest, the dog’s pointed ears raised upward and his head tilted to the side in inquiry.

  “You don’t say a word,” Braeden warned him, and Gidean lowered his ears.

  Finally, Braeden walked over to the door and opened it. “I’m here. I’m all right.”

  His aunt swept into the room, wrapped her arms around him, and held him. That’s when Serafina realized that Mrs. Vanderbilt really did love Braeden. She could see it just in the way she clutched him.

  “What’s happened?” Braeden asked his aunt uncertainly.

  “The pastor’s son disappeared during the night.”

  When she heard the news of another victim, Serafina felt a terrible knot in her stomach. That made three children in three nights now. It was like something was driving the attacker anew, pushing him harder and harder. She’d been so relieved that she and Braeden had been able to escape the Man in the Black Cloak by hiding in Braeden’s locked room, but now she realized all that meant was that he got someone else. Another child was gone. She had eluded the demon, but she had not stopped him.

  Knowing that she had to find some way out other than through Braeden’s room, she crawled down the passage to see where it would lead. She came to an intersection of two other passages. She took the one on the right, where she came to another split. There appeared to be a whole network of secret passages running through the house. So this is where the rats have been hiding all these years.

  She crawled past vents that led into the various private rooms of the house—sitting rooms, hallways, bedrooms, even bathrooms. She saw maids making beds, and guests getting dressed for the day. Everyone was whispering in worry and confusion. No one understood what was happening. They were talking about shades and murderers. Biltmore had become a haunted place where children disappeared.

  She saw the footman, Mr. Pratt, walking hurriedly down a corridor with Miss Whitney. “No, no, Miss Whitney, this is no normal killer,” Mr. Pratt was saying as they went by.

  “That’s an awful thing to say!” Miss Whitney protested. “How do you know they’re dead?”

  “Oh, they’re dead, believe me. This is a creature of the night, something straight from hell.”

  The phrase shocked Serafina. Creature of the night, he’d said. But she was a creature of the night. She’d used the phrase herself. Were creatures of the night evil? Did that mean she was evil? It horrified her to think that she was in some way associated with or like the Man in the Black Cloak.

  “Well, what are we going to do about it? That’s what I want to know,” a man shouted.

  She crawled a few feet through the passage in the direction of the man’s voice and looked down through a metal grate into the Gun Room. From her vantage point, she could see a dozen gentlemen standing and talking about what was going on.

  “There is nothing we can do,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We have to let the detectives do their job.”

  Mr. Vanderbilt knew all the ins and outs of Biltmore better than anybody. He designed the place. Why all the hidden staircases and secret doors? And he was rich, so he had the money and power to do whatever he wanted. And he was a Vanderbilt, so no one would ever suspect him. Was this why he’d built a mansion in the middle of a dark forest?

  So now here Mr. Vanderbilt was, telling everyone that there was nothing they could do but wait for the detectives to do their work. He was undoubtedly the person paying the private detectives, so they’d come up with whatever answer he wanted them to.

  The other gentlemen shook their heads in frustration.

  “Perhaps we should bring in one of the well-known detective agencies from New York,” Mr. Bendel suggested. “These local chaps are asking everybody a lot of prying questions, but they don’t seem to be getting the job done.”

  “Or perhaps we should organize another search party,” Mr. Thorne suggested.

  “I agree,” Mr. Brahms said. “The detectives seem to think that one of the servants is taking the children, but I don’t think we should rule out that it could be anyone in the house. Even one of us.”

  “Maybe it’s you, Brahms,” Mr. Bendel snarled, clearly not appreciating his implication.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, getting between them. “It’s not one of us. Just calm down.”

  “The womenfolk are terrified,” said a gentleman she didn’t recognize. “Every night, another child disappears. We’ve got to do something!”

  “Do we even know if the attacker is an outsider or someone inside Biltmore?” someone else asked. “Maybe it’s a total stranger. Or one of our own men—Mr. Boseman or Mr. Crankshod.”

  “We don’t even know if there is an attacker,” Mr. Bendel said. “We haven’t found any proof that these are kidnappings. For all we know, these children just ran away!”

  “Of course there’s an attacker,” Mr. Brahms argued, becoming more and more upset. “Someone’s taking our children! My Clara would never run away! Mr. Thorne is right. We need to organize another search.”

  Mr. Rostonov said something in a mix of Russian and English, but no one seemed to pay him any mind.

  “Perhaps the children are falling into some kind of hole in the basement or something,” Mr. Bendel suggested.

  “There aren’t any holes in the basement,” Mr. Vanderbilt said firmly, offended by the suggestion that Biltmore itself might be a dangerous place.

  “Or maybe there’s an uncovered well somewhere on the grounds…” Mr. Bendel pressed on.

  “The main thing is that we need to protect the remaining children,” Mr. Thorne said. “I’m especially concerned for the young master. What can we do to make sure he stays safe?”

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We’ll keep Braeden safe.”

  “That’s all well and good, but we have to organize another search party,” Mr. Brahms said again. “I have to find my Clara!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Brahms, but I just don’t think that’s going to do any good,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We’ve searched the house and grounds several times already. There’s got to be something else we can do, something more effective. There has to be answer to this terrible puzzle.…”

  Mr. Rostonov turned to Mr. Thorne and touched his arm for assistance. “Nekotorye ubivayut detyey,” he said to him.

  “Otets, vse v poryadke. My organizuem novyi poisk, Batya,” Mr. Thorne said in reply.

  Serafina remembered that Mr. Bendel had mentioned that Mr. Thorne spoke Russian, but it still surprised her to hear it. Mr. Thorne went on to translate what was going on for Mr. Rostonov and tried to reassure him.

  She thought it was kind of Mr. Thorne to help Mr. Rostonov, but suddenly Mr. Rostonov became very upset and looked at Mr. Thorne in extreme confusion. “Otets?” he asked him. “Batya?”

  Mr. Thorne blanched, as if he realized that he’d made a dreadful mistake in his Russian. He tried to apologize, but as he did so, Mr. Rostonov became even more upset. Everything Mr. Thorne said to him made him more and more agitated.

  Serafina watched all of this in fascination. What had Mr. Thorne said to Mr. Rostonov that caused him such anguish?

  “Gentlemen, please,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, frustrated with the arguing. “All right, all rig
ht, we’ll do it. If that’s what you think should be done, then we’ll organize another search effort, but this time we’ll search slowly and systematically from one room to the next, and we’ll post guard positions in each room that we’ve completed.”

  The other men heartily agreed with Mr. Vanderbilt’s plan. They were clearly relieved that some sort of agreement had been reached and there was something they could do. The feeling of uselessness was unbearable. It was a feeling Serafina had in common with them.

  The men streamed out of the room to organize the search—all but poor Mr. Rostonov, who remained behind, red-faced and upset.

  She frowned. Something wasn’t right.

  She had planned to use the air vents to find a way to get down to the first floor and then make her way to the basement to rejoin her pa, but now she had a different idea.

  She turned around and crawled quickly back to Braeden’s room. She stopped at the vent cover and listened. When she didn’t hear Mrs. Vanderbilt’s voice, she slowly cracked open the vent and peeked inside. Gidean stuck his nose into the crack and growled. Surprised, she recoiled, her back arching like a witch’s best friend as she hissed at him. “It’s me, you stupid dog! I’m on the good side, remember?” At least I think I am, she thought, remembering Mr. Pratt’s comment about the evil nature of creatures of the night.

  Gidean stopped growling and stepped back, his face happy with relief and his little tail nub wagging.

  “Serafina!” Braeden said excitedly as he pulled her out of the vent. “Where did you go? You were supposed to wait for me in there, not crawl away! You’ll get lost in all those passages! They’re endless!”

  “I wasn’t going to get lost,” she said. “I liked it in there.”

  “You have to be careful. Didn’t you hear my aunt say that another boy’s gone missing?”

  “Your uncle is organizing a search party.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Do you know what the Russian word otets means?” she asked abruptly, ignoring his question.

  “What?”

  “Otets. Or the word batya. What do those words mean?”

  “I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

  “Do you know anyone who speaks Russian?”

  “Mr. Rostonov.”

  “Besides him.”

  “Mr. Thorne.”

  “Definitely besides him. Anyone else?”

  “No, but we do have a library.”

  “The library…” she said. That was a good idea. “Can we go?”

  “You want to go to the library now? What for?”

  “We need to look something up. I think it’s important.”

  She and Braeden crawled rapidly, one behind the other, through the secret passages of the house. For all his talent in befriending animals and his other good qualities, Braeden sounded like a herd of wild boars trampling through the passage.

  “Shh,” she whispered. “Quietly…”

  “All right, Little Miss Softpaws,” Braeden retorted, and urged her forward with a push of his head. “Just keep moving.”

  For the next few yards through the passage, Braeden made every effort to move more quietly, but he was still too loud.

  “I’m going to get in big trouble if my uncle catches us doing this,” Braeden said as they passed another vent.

  “He can’t even fit in here,” she said happily.

  They crawled past the second-floor living hall and then down the length of the Tapestry Gallery until they reached the south wing of the house.

  “There it is,” Braeden said finally.

  She peered down through the metal grate into the Biltmore Library Room, with its ornate brass lamps, oak-paneled walls, and plush furniture. The shelves were lined with thousands of books.

  “Come on,” she said, and pushed through the grate.

  Thirty feet above the floor, Serafina balanced on the high ledge of the hand-carved crown molding that supported the vaulted ceiling, with its famous Italian painting of sunlit clouds and winged angels. She climbed down the upper shelves like they were the rungs of an easy ladder. From there, she scampered like a tightrope artist along a decorative wrought-iron railing. Darting quickly over to the high mantel of the massive black marble fireplace, she leapt lightly onto the soft Persian rugs on the floor and landed on her feet.

  “That was fun,” she said with satisfaction.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Braeden, who was still thirty feet up in the air, clinging desperately to the highest bookshelf, looking scared out of his wits.

  “What are you doing up there, Braeden?” she whispered up to him in confusion. “Quit fooling around. Come on!”

  “I’m not fooling around,” Braeden said.

  She could see now that he was truly terrified. “Put your left foot on the shelf right below you and go from there,” she said.

  She watched as he slowly, clumsily climbed down. He did pretty well at first, but then lost his grip on the last bit, fell a short distance, and landed on his bottom with a relieved sigh.

  “You made it,” she said cheerfully, touching his shoulder in congratulations.

  He smiled. “Let’s just use the normal door next time, all right?”

  She smiled and nodded. She liked how he was already thinking there was going to be a next time.

  She gazed around at all the books lining the shelves. She’d never been here in the light of day. She thought back to all the books her pa had brought her, and how she would spend hours poring over the pages under his guidance, sounding out the letters until they became words and sentences and thoughts in her mind. Always wanting more, she would keep reading long after he’d gone to sleep. Over the years, she’d read hundreds of books, each one opening a whole new world to her. She marveled at how this one room contained the thoughts and voices of thousands of writers, people who had lived in different countries and different times, people who had told stories of the heart and of the mind, people who had studied ancient civilizations, the species of plants, and the flow of rivers. Her pa had told her that Mr. Vanderbilt had many keen interests and studied the books in his library; he was considered one of the most well-read men in America. As she looked around the room at all the leather-bound tomes, the intricate knickknacks on the tables, and the inviting soft furniture, it felt like she could spend hours here just exploring and reading and taking afternoon naps.

  “That’s Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal chess set,” Braeden said when he noticed her looking at the ornately carved pieces arranged in perfect rows on a delicate rectangular table. She didn’t know who Napoleon Bonaparte was, but she thought it would be great fun pushing the beautiful pieces off the edge of the table and watching them fall to the floor.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a small, dark oil painting in a wooden frame sitting on one of the tables among a collection of other items. The painting was so faded and worn that it was difficult to make out, but it appeared to depict a mountain lion stalking through the undergrowth of a forest.

  “I think it’s supposed to be a catamount,” Braeden said, looking over her shoulder.

  “What’s that?”

  “My uncle said that years ago the local people used to use the phrase cat of the mountains, but over time it was shortened to cat-a-the-mountains, and eventually it became catamount.”

  As Braeden spoke, she leaned close to the painting and tried to make out the details. It was difficult to tell, but the shadow of the cat looked weird and all ajumble in the bushes behind it. It almost seemed like the lion was casting the shadow of a human being. She vaguely remembered the remnants of an old folktale that she’d heard years before.

  “Are catamounts changers of some sort?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. My uncle bought the painting in a local shop. My aunt thinks it’s ugly and wants to get rid of it,” Braeden said, then pulled her away. “Come on. You wanted to know the meaning of a Russian word. Let’s look it up.” He led her to the corner behind
the huge brass globe. “The foreign languages are over here.” He scanned the titles of the books, saying each one as if he enjoyed the sound of the words. “Arabic, Bulgarian, Cherokee, Deutsch, Español.” It was clear that Braeden’s uncle, who was fluent in eight languages, had taught him a few things. Now that they were in the world of words and books rather than scaling the precipitous heights, Braeden was back in his element. “French, Greek, Hindi, Italiano, Japanese, Kurdish, Latin, Manx—”

  “I like the sound of that one,” Serafina interjected.

  “Some sort of old Celtic language, I think,” Braeden said before continuing. “Norman, Ojibwa, Polish, Quechua, Romanian. Got it. Here it is. Russian!”

  “Great. Look up the word otets.”

  “How do you spell it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “We’ll have to go by the sound of it…” he said as he flipped through the pages until he came to the spot he wanted. “Nope, that’s not it.” He tried another guess. “Nope, that’s not it, either. Oh, here it is. Otets.”

  “That’s it!” she said, grasping his arm. “That’s what Mr. Thorne called Mr. Rostonov that upset him so badly. Is it some kind of terrible insult or accusation? Is it a sharp-fanged demon or something?”

  “Umm…” Braeden said, frowning as he read the entry. “Not exactly.”

  “Well, what’s it mean?”

  “Father.”

  “What?”

  “Otets means ‘father’ in Russian,” Braeden said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand. Maybe you misunderstood what Mr. Thorne said. Why would he call Mr. Rostonov ‘Father’?”

  She had no idea, but she pushed closer to get a better view of the entry in the book.

  “I can’t imagine Mr. Thorne making a mistake like that,” Braeden said. “He’s very smart. You should see him play chess. He even beats my uncle, and nobody beats my uncle.”

  “He seems to be amazing at nearly everything,” she scoffed.

  “Well, you don’t have to be mean about it. He’s a good man.”