Serafina and the Black Cloak

by Robert Beatty

  She looked over at Braeden to see if he, too, sensed something was amiss, but he wasn’t even looking at Mr. Thorne. As everyone was leaving the room, he was walking along the buffet table, discreetly stuffing pieces of breaded chicken into his pocket. Then he snatched a little jar of clotted cream from the scone tray. She couldn’t help but feel her mouth watering at the sight of the glorious food. She’d forgotten how hungry she was, and Braeden seemed to know exactly what she liked.

  As he followed his aunt and uncle out of the room, Braeden looked up at her.

  She signaled for him to meet her outside. There was much to talk about.

  She knew Mr. Thorne was well liked, but to her, he was too talented, too kind, too something. And she still couldn’t figure out why he had called Mr. Rostonov “Papa.”

  She couldn’t put it all together, but she smelled a rat.

  Serafina met Braeden outside in the darkness at the base of the great house’s rear foundation, where they hoped no one would see them. The forested valley of the French Broad River lay below them, and the black silhouette of the mountains layered into the distance. A mist was rising up from the canopy of the valley trees as if the entire forest was breathing.

  “Did you see how well Mr. Thorne played the piano?” Serafina asked in disbelief. “Did you know he could do that?”

  “No, but he can do a lot of things,” Braeden said, pulling the bits of chicken out of his pocket and handing them over to her.

  “You’re right. He can,” she said as she gobbled the chicken down. “We keep saying that, but how is it possible?”

  “That’s just the way he is,” Braeden said as Serafina slurped up the clotted cream.

  “But what do you know about Mr. Thorne?” she asked as she wiped her mouth. “I mean, what do you really know about him?”

  “My uncle says that he should be an inspiration to us all.”

  “Yes, but how do you know you can trust him?”

  “I told you. He saved Gidean. And he’s been very helpful to my aunt and uncle. I don’t understand why you dislike him so much.”

  “We’ve got to follow the clues,” she said.

  “He’s a good man!” Braeden said, becoming increasingly upset. “You can’t just go around accusing everyone. He’s been nothing but nice to me!”

  She nodded in understanding. Braeden was a loyal person. “But stop for a second. Who is he, Braeden?”

  “He’s a friend of Mr. Bendel and my uncle.”

  “Yes, but where does he come from?”

  “Mr. Bendel told me that way back before the War Between the States, Mr. Thorne owned a large estate in South Carolina. It was burned and destroyed by the union troops. He’d been born and raised a rich man, a landowner, but he lost every penny and had to flee for his life.”

  “He doesn’t seem poor now,” she said, confused by the story.

  “Mr. Bendel said that after the war, Mr. Thorne was so poor, he could barely survive. He had no house, no property, no money, and no food. He became a homeless drunk, wandering through the streets, swearing obscenities at any Northerner who happened to walk by.”

  Serafina frowned. “This is Montgomery Thorne you’re talking about, the man who can do everything? Your description doesn’t match with the Mr. Thorne I’ve seen.”

  “I know, I know,” Braeden said in exasperation. “That’s what I’m saying. He’s had a hard life, a bad life, but he turned himself around. He’s been nothing but kind to me. You have no cause to think ill of him.”

  “Just finish the story you were telling me. What else? What happened to him? How’d he get here?”

  “Mr. Bendel told me that one night, after drinking too much in a pub in one of the local villages, Mr. Thorne was walking home, stumbled off the road, and got lost in the woods. He fell into an old well that no one used anymore and was badly hurt. I guess he was stuck down there for two days. He can’t even remember who found him and helped him out of the well. But when he finally recovered from his injuries, he realized that he’d hit rock bottom in his life and would soon die if he didn’t change his ways. So he decided to make a better man of himself.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked, thinking the whole story sounded like two buckets of hogwash, and that Mr. Bendel had been pulling Braeden’s leg.

  “Mr. Thorne got a job working in a factory in the city. He learned about the machines and got promoted to manager.”

  “The machines?” Serafina asked in surprise. “What kind of machines?”

  “I don’t know, factory machines. But after that, he became an attorney.”

  “What’s that?” she asked. She couldn’t believe all the stuff she didn’t know.

  “A lawyer, sort of an expert on laws and crime.”

  “How did he become an attorney when he was working in a factory?” The whole story was getting crookeder and crookeder.

  “That’s the thing,” Braeden continued. “He worked and he applied himself and he made himself a better man. He traveled for a while, then he moved back here, bought a grand house in Asheville, and started buying land in the area.”

  “Come on…” Serafina said incredulously. “You’re saying he went from a drunken, poverty-stricken wretch to a gentleman landowner?”

  “I know the whole thing sounds impossible, but you’ve seen him. Mr. Thorne is a very smart man, he’s very rich, and everyone loves him.”

  She shook her head in frustration. There was no denying any of that. But still, something wasn’t right.

  She looked out across the valley and the mist, just thinking. Nothing about Thorne’s story made sense to her. It was like one of those tales that’s filled with half-truths and deceptions, little twists in the telling. And she’d learned from hunting rats that where things were ajumble, that’s where the rat had been.

  “So where did your uncle meet him?” she asked.

  “I think they were both being fitted for shoes at the custom shop downtown.”

  “Which explains why Mr. Vanderbilt’s shoes sounded like his…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Why does Mr. Thorne always wear gloves?” she asked, seeing if she could pick up the scent on a different trail.

  “I never noticed that he did.”

  “Is there something wrong with his hands? He plays the piano with his gloves on. Doesn’t that seem very strange? And he was wearing leather gloves the morning the men found you in the carriage on the forest road, even though it wasn’t that cold. And you said he was an expert at machines.…Do you think he could break a dynamo so that not even the smartest mechanic in the world could fix it?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Braeden asked in confusion. “Why do you—”

  “And how did a Southern plantation owner learn Russian?”

  “I don’t know,” Braeden muttered, becoming increasingly defensive.

  “And what did he say to Mr. Rostonov?”

  Braeden shook his head, refusing to believe any of it. “I don’t know! Nobody’s perfect.”

  “You said he was extremely smart, could even beat your uncle at chess.”

  “Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe he just made an honest mistake with Mr. Rostonov.”

  “Then why did poor old Mr. Rostonov get so upset? He was as nettled as a badger in a porcupine fight. But he wasn’t just upset. He seemed scared.”

  “Scared? Of what?”

  “Of Thorne!”

  “Why?”

  Serafina shook her head. She didn’t know. Her thoughts were all discombobulated, but it felt like the clues to the mystery were swirling all around her. All she had to do was put them together. Where exactly was the rat hiding? That was the question.

  “You told me that when your aunt met Clara Brahms she wanted you to be friends with her,” Serafina said, trying yet another path.

  “Yes.”

  “How did your aunt and uncle first meet the Brahms family?”

  Braeden shrugged. “I don’t know. My uncle knew th
em somehow.”

  “Your uncle…” Serafina said, sensing another connection there.

  “Why do you say it like that?” Braeden asked defensively. “My uncle doesn’t have anything to do with any of this, Serafina. So just take it back!”

  “Who told him about Clara being good at piano? How did he hear about her?”

  “I don’t know, but my uncle isn’t responsible for any of this, I can tell you that much.”

  “Try to remember, Braeden,” she said. “Who first told him about Clara Brahms?”

  “Mr. Bendel and Mr. Thorne. They’re always going to symphony concerts and things like that.”

  “And Clara was an exceptionally talented piano player…” she said, remembering the maid’s words to the footman. She kept trying to think it through. She was getting the same tingling feeling she felt when she was closing in on one of her four-legged enemies.

  “Yes, I heard her play the first night she came to the house,” Braeden said, nodding. “She was extremely good.”

  “And you’ve heard Thorne play…”

  “Yes, you heard him. He’s an excellent player.”

  And then Braeden paused. He frowned and looked at her in surprise. “You don’t think…”

  She just stared at him, seeing if he would come to the same conclusion she had.

  “Many people know how to play the piano, Serafina,” he said firmly.

  “Not me,” she countered.

  “Well, no, me neither, not like that, but I mean a lot of people do know how to play the piano really well.”

  “And speak Russian and play the violin, too?”

  “Well, sure. There’s Tchaikovsky and—”

  “I don’t know who that is, Mr. Know-it-all, but is he also a chess expert?”

  “Well, probably not, but—”

  “And can he turn a team of horses and a full-size carriage around on a narrow mountain road?”

  “You’ve gone crazy!” Braeden exclaimed, looking at her in bewilderment. “What are you talking about now?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” she admitted, “but think about it…”

  “I am thinking about it.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “It’s just a big mishmash as far as I can tell. Nothing means anything!”

  “No. Everything means something. Think about the Black Cloak…You’ve seen it…It seems to allow the wearer to wrap people up and murder them, or at least capture them in some way…”

  “It’s horrible!” He shuddered.

  “Maybe it doesn’t just murder them…”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe it absorbs them.”

  “That’s disgusting. What do you mean?”

  “Maybe that’s why Thorne accidentally addressed Mr. Rostonov as ‘Father’ and ‘Papa.’ Because Thorne had absorbed his knowledge of the Russian language from Anastasia.”

  “Are you saying that he consumed Anastasia’s soul?”

  She grabbed Braeden’s arm so fast that it startled him and he jumped. “Think about it,” she said. “The owner of the cloak absorbs his victims—their knowledge, their talents, their skills. Think about what that would mean, what that would be like.…If he absorbed enough people, he’d gain many skills and talents. He’d become the most accomplished man in society. He’d be smart. He’d be rich. And everyone would love him. Just like you said.”

  “I refuse to believe Mr. Thorne would do that,” Braeden said. “It’s just not possible.” His whole body seemed to be tightening against her.

  “It makes sense, Braeden. The whole thing. He’s stealing souls. And he’s coming for you next.”

  “No, Serafina,” Braeden said, shaking his head. “It can’t be. That’s crazy. He’s a good man.”

  At that moment, she heard a door from the main house creak open and the sound of someone approaching.

  Serafina whirled around, ready to fight.

  “Braeden, darling, what are you doing out here? It’s time to come in now,” Mrs. Vanderbilt called as she walked toward him.

  Serafina breathed a sigh of relief, then darted into the bushes, leaving Braeden standing there alone.

  “Who were you talking to just now?” Mrs. Vanderbilt asked.

  “No one,” he said, moving toward his aunt to block her view. “Just talking to myself.”

  “It’s not safe for you out here,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “You need to come in now and go to bed.”

  Serafina had never heard Mrs. Vanderbilt sound so tired and upset. The lady of the house clutched a long black coat around her waist to ward against the night’s cold. It was clear that the disappearance of the children was taking a heavy toll on her.

  Hesitating, Braeden glanced back into the bushes in Serafina’s direction.

  “Please come inside,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said softly but firmly.

  “All right,” he said finally.

  Serafina could tell that he didn’t want to go, but he didn’t want to upset his aunt any more than she already was.

  Mrs. Vanderbilt put her arm around him, and they began walking back toward the house.

  “Lock your door!” Serafina half coughed, half whispered to Braeden, covering her mouth with her hand to garble her words.

  “Did you hear something?” Mrs. Vanderbilt said, stopping and looking out into the darkness.

  “I think it was just a fox-call out in the woods,” Braeden said casually, but Serafina could see him smile and was relieved he wasn’t still cross with her for suspecting Mr. Thorne.

  Stay safe tonight, Serafina thought as Braeden and his aunt continued toward the house.

  “Listen, your uncle and I have been talking,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “We’re worried about you.”

  “I’m all right,” Braeden said.

  “Your uncle and I need to stay here with the guests, but we’ve decided that it would be best if you went away from Biltmore for a little while. We tried it before, but we think it’s more important than ever now.”

  “I don’t want to go away,” Braeden said, and Serafina knew he was thinking of her.

  “Just until things settle down and the detectives figure out what’s going on,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said, her voice getting progressively harder to hear as they went back into the house. “It’ll be safer.”

  “All right,” he said. “I understand.”

  “We’ve asked Mr. Thorne to take you with him in his carriage first thing tomorrow morning,” she said. “Won’t that be nice? You like Mr. Thorne, don’t you? You’ll get to see his house in Asheville.”

  As the door closed behind them, Serafina’s heart filled with dread. Braeden trusted Mr. Thorne and would have no choice but to agree with his aunt and uncle’s wishes.

  The Man in the Black Cloak would finally get what he wanted.

  I need a plan, Serafina thought as she went down the stairs into the basement. And it has to be tonight.

  As she ate a late-night dinner with her pa in the workshop, she wanted to tell him everything and beg for his help to save Braeden, but there were no bodies, no weapons, no evidence of any kind to support what her pa would call her “imaginings” about the Vanderbilts’ most trusted guest. Even her best friend didn’t believe her! Her pa never would. But more than that, her pa looked so worn out. His hands were blackened and raw with the day’s work on the Edison machine. He was under fierce pressure to get the lights back on. And rightly so. The darkness made the whole house the demon’s domain.

  But then she stopped in mid-thought and realized something.

  The darkness made it her domain as well.

  “Are you all right?” her father asked as he scraped up the last of his potatoes with his spoon. “You haven’t eaten anything.”

  She pulled herself out of her thoughts, looked at her pa, and nodded. “I’m all right.”

  “Listen, Sera,” her pa said, “I want you to hunker down tonight. Keep to yourself, you hear?”

  “I hear, Pa,” she said obe
diently, but of course she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  When they went to bed and her pa began to snore, she slipped out of the workshop and climbed the stairs that led outside to the estate grounds. Her mind was awhirl with thoughts and images and fears. She knew her pa wanted her to stay close to him, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel safe in the basement. Staying in the basement tonight was death. It was doom. It would lead to a loneliness she could not bear. Over the last few days, she had felt increasingly constrained there. She didn’t want to be inside anymore. She wanted the freedom of open space and true darkness.

  As she walked outside, it was a beautiful moonlit night with a light snow gently falling on the grass and trees. She tried to think it all through. She knew what she had to do; she just didn’t know how to do it. What stratagem could she devise to defeat the Man in the Black Cloak? If he were a rat, how would she catch him?

  She walked to the edge of the forest and paused at the point her pa had told her she should never go beyond. Her first foray into the shadows of the forest two nights before had been difficult, terrifying.

  But she kept going.

  She pushed through the thick brush and walked into the trees. She delved into the forest using the moonlight and the starlight to illuminate her way. Despite all that had happened, she was still drawn here. This was where she wanted to be.

  A glint of light caught her eye. She looked up and saw a falling star. Then another. Then ten dashing through the blackness. Then a hundred at once. A shower of falling stars streaked across the sky, filling the crystalline black heavens with blazing light. And then the shower was gone, leaving nothing but the stillness of the glistening stars and the glowing planets in the infinite space above her.

  She heard tiny footsteps behind her, a small country mouse out foraging and now making his way back home to his family, warm beneath a hollowed log.