Serafina and the Black Cloak

by Robert Beatty

  The forest was alive at night, filled with motion, sound, creatures, and light.

  She felt comfortable here. Connected.

  She walked a little farther, studying the lichen-covered rocks, the trees with their outstretched limbs, and the little rills of glistening water that ran beneath the ferns. Was this the forest her mother had come from?

  Was this where she belonged?

  She thought about why she could see that Mr. Thorne was the Man in the Black Cloak but no one else could. Not even Braeden. Why could she believe it but they could not? Because they were normal, mortal human beings, and she was not. She was closer to the Man in the Black Cloak than she wished to admit. Closer to being a demon.

  She knew she couldn’t fight the Man in the Black Cloak directly. He was far too strong. In their first encounters, she had barely escaped him with her life. A shiver ran down her spine just thinking about it. But she couldn’t just keep running away and hiding from him, either. Somehow, she had to stop him. But he possessed an otherworldly power—if her theory about him was correct, then he had within him all the strength and capability of every person he’d ever absorbed into his cloak. And if she gave him another chance, he would surely absorb her as well.

  No, she couldn’t fight the Man in the Black Cloak head-on.

  Not alone.

  She looked around her, and a dark idea formed in her mind. She asked herself the question again: If he were a rat, how would she catch him?

  Suddenly, she knew the answer.

  She’d bait him.

  Fear rose up in her like bile from a half-digested meal. She wanted to turn away from the idea, to avoid it, but her mind kept going back to it as the only solution.

  She thought of her pa’s words once more: Never go into the deep parts of the forest for there are many dangers there, both dark and bright.…

  You’re right, Pa, she thought. There are. And I’m one of them.

  Standing in the woods, she came to a conclusion about herself, something that she’d known deep down for a long time but that she had never wanted to come to grips with: She was not like her pa. She was not like Braeden. She was not human.

  At least not entirely.

  The thought of it brought a lump to her throat. She felt a terrible loneliness. She didn’t know what it meant, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to know what it meant, but she knew it was true. She was not like the people she loved. She’d been born in the forest, a forest as black as the Black Cloak and as haunted as the graveyard. She was one of them, a creature of the night.

  She’d overheard Mr. Pratt say that the creatures of the night came straight from hell, that they were evil. She wondered about it again, her mind pushing through thorny brambles of conflict and confusion. Did evil creatures think of themselves as evil? Or did they think they were doing what was right? Was evil something that was in your heart or was it how people viewed you? She felt like she was good, but was she actually bad and just didn’t know it? She lived underground. She slinked through the darkness without being seen or heard. She secretly listened to people’s conversations. She pawed through their belongings when they weren’t in their rooms. She killed animals. She battled. She lied. She stole. She hid. She watched children lose their souls. And yet she was still living—thriving, even—drawing energy and knowledge and awareness from each and every night that she prowled through the darkness and another child was taken.

  She stood for a long time, thinking about why she was alive and the others weren’t, and she asked herself again: Was she good or was she evil? She had been born in and lived in the world of darkness, but which side was she on? Darkness or light?

  She looked up at the stars. She didn’t know what she was or how she got that way, but she knew what she wanted to be. She wanted to be good. She wanted to save Braeden and the other children who were still alive. She wanted to protect Biltmore. She thought about the inscription on the base of the stone angel’s pedestal: Our character isn’t defined by the battles we win or lose, but by the battles we dare to fight. Standing in the forest at that moment, that’s what she chose to believe. It was true that she was a creature of the night. But she would decide for herself what that meant.

  She had two choices before her: to slink away and hide, or to dare to fight.

  At that moment, she saw a plan in her mind and knew what she must do.

  A part of her didn’t want to do it. It would mean she could well die this very night. And her death would come at the moment in her life when she had finally crawled out of the basement and found a friend and begun to understand and connect to the world around her. She wanted to go home and sleep in front of Braeden’s fireplace, and eat chicken and grits with her pa, and pretend like none of this was happening. She wanted to curl up in the basement behind the boiler and hide like she’d done all her life. But she couldn’t. Thorne was going to keep coming. He was going to take Braeden’s life. She had to stop him. She might die, but it meant that Braeden might live. He’d go on with Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt, and his horses, and with Gidean at his side. And that, she decided, more than anything, was what she wanted. She wanted Braeden to live.

  She’d seen with her own eyes that the Man in the Black Cloak absorbed any child he encountered, but she knew that he wanted Braeden Vanderbilt next. She’d seen this when the Man in the Black Cloak attacked them in the forest. He hadn’t come for Nolan, he had gone straight for Braeden. There was a talent in Braeden that Thorne craved: Braeden’s expertise in horsemanship, but more than that, his almost telepathic connection to animals. She imagined what it would be like to be able to befriend all the animals around her, even to control them.

  But she sensed there was something more as well, something that obsessed Mr. Thorne, that drove him even beyond Braeden. More and more, he had to take a child every night. Any child. And she’d use that need against him. She would meet him face-to-face on the most deadly battlefield she could think of. She would defeat him once and for all. Or she’d die trying.

  She turned around and headed back toward the estate. As midnight approached, she went down the stairs toward the workshop.

  It did not surprise her that her pa was asleep in his cot, snoring gently, exhausted from a long and difficult day. But then she saw something lying on her makeshift bed behind the boiler. As she stepped toward it, she realized it was the dress that Braeden had given her. Braeden must have come down and laid it there while she was gone. There was a note attached:

  S,

  A and U are determined. I’m leaving early in the morning with T. I’ll see you in a few days. Please stay safe until I return.

  —B.

  Serafina stared at the note. She didn’t want to believe it. He was really going to do what his aunt and uncle wanted.

  But then she looked at the dress.

  She was sure it wasn’t Braeden’s intention, but it was a perfect addition to her plan. Now she would look the part.

  The time for sneaking and hiding was over.

  She was going to make sure one man in particular saw her.

  And tonight was the night.

  The Chief Rat Catcher had a job to do.

  Serafina put on the beautiful, dark maroon winter gown that Braeden had given her the night before.

  The intricate black brocade corset felt tight around her chest and back, and she worried that when it came time to fight, it would restrict her. She twisted and turned to test her freedom of movement. The long skirt hung heavily around her legs, but even as unfamiliar as the girls’ clothing felt, she couldn’t help but be taken by it. It felt almost magical to be putting on a dress for the first time in her life. The material was fine and feminine and soft, like nothing she’d ever worn before. She felt like one of the girls in the books she read—like a real girl, with a real family, with brothers and sisters, and a mother and father, and friends.

  She quickly scrubbed her face and brushed her hair and made herself as pretty as she could. It felt silly, but she needed to
look the part. She tried to imagine that she was going to an extravagant dance, in a ballroom crowded with glittering ladies and gentlemen, and boys who would ask her to dance.

  But she wasn’t, and she knew it.

  When she thought about the place she was going and the dark forces she’d meet there, it felt like she was jumping a chasm and she wasn’t going to make it to the other side.

  She tried to block it out of her mind and just kept lacing her dress up her back with shaky fingers, but she was having a terrible go of it. Normal girls must have extremely long and bendy arms to do this every night, she thought.

  When she was finally done, she looked around at the workshop one last time. She couldn’t tamp down the feeling that she wouldn’t be coming back. She looked over to where her pa lay sleeping. She had seen how tired and overwhelmed he was. His struggles with the dynamo and searching for her these last few days had taken a toll on him. She wanted to curl up in the crook of his arm like she used to, but she knew she couldn’t. Sleep well, Pa, she thought.

  Finally, she gathered her courage and turned. She made her way through the basement, and then climbed the stairs to the first floor.

  At the top, she paused. She took a deep breath, and then walked down the darkened corridor of the house.

  She walked slowly, deliberately, not darting and hiding like she normally did, but walking down the center of the wide hallway like a proper young lady. She walked like the girls she had watched from the shadows so many times over the years. She did everything she could to take on the appearance of the helpless young daughter of one of the guests. She was no longer a predator; she was a vulnerable child.

  The air was very still. Moonlight shone in through the windows, falling onto the marble floor. The grandfather clock in the Entrance Hall chimed off the twelve bells of midnight. The corridors of the house were mostly empty because it was so late, just a candle here and there to light the way for guests. But she sensed that there were a few people still awake.

  As she made a slow promenade in her long, wide dress through the broad corridors of the house, it felt deeply strange not to be hunting, not to be the eyes of the predator but the prey that is seen. Her stomach churned. Her muscles flinched and twitched, begging her to dash away. She hated walking straight. And she hated walking slow. You’re a normal girl, she told herself. Just keep breathing, keep pulling air into your lungs. You’re a normal girl. It took every ounce of courage she had to just keep walking a straight line in the open.

  She’d come up against the Man in the Black Cloak before, but she was determined to make this time different. Tonight, she was going to fight—fight on her own terms and in her own way, with tooth and claw.

  She lingered near the Winter Garden, with its high glass ceiling, just outside the door into the Billiard Room, where she knew from what she’d learned at Mrs. Vanderbilt’s gathering earlier that evening she had the best chance of setting her trap.

  Suddenly, the door to the Billiard Room opened. Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Bendel, Mr. Thorne, and several other gentlemen were sitting together in the leather chairs and drinking out of odd-shaped glasses. The smell of cigar smoke wafted into the corridor. Mr. Pratt came out of the room with a large silver tray balanced on his hand and hurried down the hall.

  Serafina stepped into a shadow behind a column to avoid being seen, and there she waited, lingering on the edge of darkness. She was a china doll, and she was a wraith, in and out of the shadows, a girl in between.

  Finally, the fireside chat began to break up. Mr. Vanderbilt stood and said good night to each of his guests. Mr. Bendel shook everyone’s hand, and then retired as well. In the end, only Mr. Thorne remained.

  Serafina watched him through the open door, her heart pounding slow and heavy. He sat in the candlelit Billiard Room alone, sipping from his glass and smoking his cigar. Come on out, she thought. We have business to attend to. But he seemed to be enjoying a moment of personal triumph. She couldn’t read his mind, but she tried to piece together what she knew about him and imagine what he was thinking at that moment.

  After losing his plantation in the war and falling to the depths of ruin, here he was now, finally back to his rightful place again, a distinguished gentleman of the highest order, a personal friend of one of the richest men in America. All he had to do to get here was steal the souls and talents of a hundred lousy children, with their small, frail bodies and their pliable spirits.

  But she wondered. Why didn’t he absorb adults as well? Were they more difficult? And now that he had achieved his position in society, why did he continue with the attacks and risk discovery? If he’d been doing this for a long time, then why the sudden greed for young souls? What was driving him to absorb a child night after night? It had to be more than just the pursuit of talents. It had to be a need greater than anything that had come before.

  She watched Mr. Thorne as he sat on the sofa, puffing on his cigar and sipping his cognac. There was something different about him tonight. His face looked gray. The skin under his eyes was wrinkled and flaking. His hair seemed less shiny and perfect than it did the morning in the Tapestry Gallery when she saw him for the first time, or when he arrived with the rescue party to take Braeden back to Biltmore.

  Mr. Thorne set his empty glass on the end table and stood.

  Serafina’s muscles tensed. The time had come.

  Like the other gentlemen, he wore a formal black jacket and tie, and she could hear the movement of his patent-leather shoes on the Billiard Room’s hardwood floor. But when she saw what he was carrying draped over his arm, her breath caught in her throat. It was the Black Cloak. Satin and shimmering and clean—the cloak was as much in disguise as she was. To any one else, it was but a fashionable covering. To anyone else, it might have appeared that the handsomely attired gentleman intended to take a quiet stroll on the grounds before he retired for the evening, but she knew the truth: it wasn’t just a cloak, it was the Black Cloak, which meant he was bent on malevolent purpose. Here was her enemy. Here was the fight she’d come for. But she could feel her whole body quaking in her gown. She was scared to death. At least I’m going to die in a pretty dress, she thought.

  He walked out of the room and into the corridor where Serafina was hidden in the shadows. She stayed perfectly still, but then he stopped just outside the Billiard Room door. He could not see her, but he could sense her there. He stood just a few feet away from her. Her heartbeat pounded. She had trouble controlling her breathing. He was right in front of her. All her well-laid plans seemed foolish now. She wanted to cower away, to flee, to slink, to hide, to scream.

  But she steadied herself. She forced herself quiet. And she did what for her was the most terrifying thing to do in the world: she stepped out into the open.

  Serafina stood in her dress in the candlelight of the corridor, where Mr. Thorne could see her.

  His hair wasn’t as dark as she recalled, but far more silvery now, and his eyes were a striking ice-blue. He looked much older than she remembered, but he was a startlingly handsome man, a gentleman of distinguished character, and for a moment, she was taken aback by it.

  Her plan had been to pass herself off as a helpless little rich girl, a child guest of the Vanderbilts for him to prey on. Appearing to be easy prey was going to be part of her trick, the rat bait.

  It was a perfect plan. But she realized now that it wasn’t going to work.

  As they looked at each other face-to-face, she could tell by his expression that, despite the beautiful gown she wore and her unusually well-combed hair, he knew exactly who she was. And it filled her with a wave of terrible dread.

  She was the girl who had escaped his clutches the night he absorbed Clara Brahms. She was the girl who attacked him in the forest the night he took the stable boy. She was the girl who skulked through the darkness without need of a lantern, the one who could run and hide and jump and seemed to have impossibly fast reflexes. She was a girl with many talents.…

  And now here sh
e was, standing right in front of him. A prize for the taking.

  It was too late to run.

  When Mr. Thorne smiled, she flinched. But she stood her ground.

  She was so scared that it hurt to breathe. Her corset felt like Satan’s bony hand gripping her around her chest and squeezing her tight. Her limbs were hot with the burning drive to flee.

  But she didn’t. She mustn’t. She had to stay.

  She took in a long, slow, deep breath. Then she turned her back to him and slowly walked away.

  She walked at what felt like a snail’s pace down the corridor, pretending as though she had no idea who he was or that her life was in danger.

  Her back was to him now, so she could not see him anymore, but she could hear Mr. Thorne’s footsteps following her, getting closer and closer behind her, so close that the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Unable to control her fear, her arms and hands began to tremble. His footsteps behind her pounded in her temples.

  There was no doubt in her mind that they were not the footsteps of a mortal man, but of the Man in the Black Cloak. This was the Soul Stealer. This was the fiend who had taken Anastasia Rostonova, Clara Brahms, Nolan, the pastor’s son, and countless others.

  And he was right behind her.

  She looked down the corridor at the small side door ahead of her.

  Just a few more steps, she thought, and she kept walking.

  Three more steps…

  Slowly walking.

  Two more steps…

  Finally, she slipped out the door in one quick movement and went out into the cold darkness of the night.

  Mr. Thorne followed her outside, pulling his billowing black cloak and hood up around his head and shoulders as he entered the night.

  As the snow fell gently down from the moonlit sky, she ran across the grass and ducked into the Rambles. The maze of twisting paths was a bewildering convolution of bushes and hedges with dark shadows, blind corners, and dead ends—a place where the Man in the Black Cloak had killed before. But she knew this place, too. She knew it better than anyone.