Serafina frowned. She looked at the woman in confusion and disbelief. The woman looked so familiar to her, and yet Serafina was sure she had never seen her before.
It was at that moment that she realized that it felt like she was looking into a mirror.
Serafina opened her mouth to speak, but her voice was trembling so badly she could barely get the words out.
“Who are you?”
The woman did not answer the question. She rubbed her eyes and face with the backs of her hands, then she looked around, glassy-eyed, taking in the forest and the angel’s glade as if she did not understand what she was seeing or how she came to be there. The woman stumbled toward the opening of the lion’s den beneath the roots of the willow tree.
“Where are my babies?” she asked frantically.
Seemingly ignorant of the severe danger of entering a lion’s den, the woman went to the mouth of the den and looked in. She appeared to think her babies were in there. Serafina felt so sorry for her. The poor creature must have lost her mind in the imprisonment of the cloak. Worried that the lioness would attack the woman, Serafina reached to pull her out of harm’s way. But then the woman made a series of sharp, guttural hissing noises, and the lion cubs came trundling out of the den in response to her call. Laughing, the woman dropped down onto her knees and encircled the cubs in her arms as they rubbed their shoulders against her, purring.
Serafina cringed, expecting the mountain lion to come charging out of the den at any second. But when she checked the den, there was no sign of the mother lion. Serafina scanned the trees nervously.
The woman, still on her knees with the cubs, lifted her hands and looked at her palms, as if they were things of amazement, opening and closing her fingers repeatedly, and she smiled. She rubbed her arms and her head and brushed back her hair like a person who had woken up from a terrible nightmare and had to reassure herself that she was still in one piece. She stood and looked up at the night sky and took a long, deep breath. Then she turned rapidly around, holding Nolan’s jacket to her body. She laughed. She tilted her head back and shouted up at the stars. “I’m free!”
Still smiling, the woman looked around at her surroundings with a new brightness in her eyes. She looked at the graveyard, the stone angel, and the other victims. Then she looked at Serafina. The woman froze. She stopped smiling. She stopped moving. She just stared at Serafina.
Serafina’s heart began pounding in her chest, a slow, steady rhythm. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Suddenly, the woman lunged at her with a startling burst of speed. Serafina leapt back to defend herself, but the woman caught her with ease and held her by the shoulders, looking into her face.
“You’re her!” the woman said in astonishment. “You’re really her! I can’t believe it! Look at you!”
“I—I…I don’t understand…” Serafina stammered, trying to pull away.
“What’s your name, child?” the woman asked. “Tell me your name!”
“Serafina,” she mumbled, staring wide-eyed at the woman.
“Let me look at you!” the woman said, turning her first one way and then another, as if to take her measure in every way. “Just look at you! You’re so big! How wonderful you are. You’re amazing!”
Serafina reeled with dizziness as a new wave of confusion swept through her. What in heaven’s name was this woman doing?
“Who are you?” Serafina asked again.
The woman paused and looked at her with compassion. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I forgot that you don’t know me. My name is Leandra.”
The name meant nothing to Serafina, but the woman’s eyes, her voice, her face—everything about her mesmerized her. Serafina felt like sparks of a crackling fire were popping in her mind.
“But who are you?” Serafina asked again, clenching her fists in frustration.
“You know who I am,” Leandra said, studying her.
“No, I don’t!” Serafina shouted, stomping her foot.
“I’m your mother, Serafina,” the woman said softly, reaching out and touching Serafina’s face for the first time.
Serafina went quiet and still. She frowned in confusion. How could this be possible? She studied the woman’s face, trying to make sense of its configuration, trying to understand if she should believe what she was seeing in front of her. Her mouth felt terribly dry. She licked her lips and then clenched them together, breathing through her nose. She tried to steady her breathing as she looked at the woman’s hair, her hands, her sinewy body. But it was her eyes more than anything, her yellow eyes, that told her that it was true. This was her mother.
Serafina felt her face flash with heat. Suddenly, the image of her mother blurred as the tears welled in her eyes and brimmed over. She released a sigh that turned into a sob, then heaving sobs that she couldn’t control, and her mother reached for her and pulled her into her arms.
“Oh, kitten, it’s all right,” her mother said, as her own sobs rolled against Serafina.
When Serafina finally spoke, her voice was so weak with emotion that she could only manage one frail and breathless word.
“How?” she asked.
The children and adults who had been freed from the cloak began to wander through the graveyard. Some of them spoke to each other, trying to understand where they were and what had happened to them, but their minds were beset by confusion. Many were too bewildered to speak at all. Nolan and Clara, along with the other children, stayed nearby; for they recognized Serafina, and they huddled together; but many of the adults wandered off, trying to remember their lives and their families. One man stood staring at a gravestone.
“That’s me,” he said, in shock. “That’s my name. My wife and children must have thought I died.…”
Serafina understood now why some of the graves in the graveyard had no bodies, but she still didn’t understand how the woman standing before her could be her mother.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
The stars glistened in her mother’s mesmerizing eyes. “I am a catamount, Serafina,” she said, her breath filling the icy air as she spoke. “My soul has two halves.”
Serafina breathed slowly in and out, trying to comprehend what her mother was saying, but it made no sense.
“Come,” Leandra said gently, touching her arm. “Sit here with me for a moment.” They sat on the ground beside the pedestal of the stone angel, facing each other. “I once lived in a village near here. I was a normal human woman, but I could also change shape into a mountain lion whenever I wished to.”
As Serafina listened to her mother’s story, everything else fell away. The cold air, the gravestones, the other victims of the cloak…Everything disappeared except the quiet, soothing tone of her mother’s voice.
“I was married to a man who I loved dearly, and we were going to start a family. I was pregnant. He, too, was a catamount, and we spent much of our time together out here in the forest, running and hunting.”
As her mother spoke, she gently wiped away the snow that was falling onto Serafina’s hair. “But those were difficult times for all of us. The forest in this area was dying, twisted and withered by an evil force.…”
Serafina looked over at the remnants of the Black Cloak and the scorch marks on the ground.
“One day,” Leandra continued, “I was walking down a path in human form, and I was attacked by an unimaginable darkness.…”
“The Man in the Black Cloak,” Serafina whispered.
“During the battle, he wrapped his cloak around me. I fought for my life, but he was far too strong. My husband heard me screaming and came running. He, too, began to fight, but we were losing. I saw the Man in the Black Cloak strike your father down. In a matter of seconds, I was going to be overcome in the cloak’s black folds. I was terrified. I feared for the lives of the babies inside me. I tried to change into a mountain lion to fight him with tooth and claw, but in that instant, the cloak sucked in the human part of my soul.
I kept fighting, as fierce as any mother lion has ever fought, and I finally escaped and fled, but the cloak had torn me asunder.”
“I don’t understand,” Serafina cried. “What do you mean? What is asunder?”
“The Black Cloak tore me apart, Serafina. It absorbed the human part of my soul, for that was its purpose, but it had never encountered a catamount before.”
“So you were stuck in your lion form…” Serafina said in amazement.
“Yes,” Leandra said, her voice ragged. “I became sick with grief. I couldn’t find your father and feared that he was dead. My soul, my body, my love—they had all been torn apart, shredded to pieces. I did not want to live.”
Her mother’s voice faltered from a whisper to nothing at all, but Serafina moved closer to her. “But you were pregnant…” she said, urging her to continue.
“That’s right,” her mother said, lifting her head. “I was pregnant. It was the only thing that kept me going. I gave birth a few months later, but it was not as it should have been. You were the only one of my four children to survive, and I did not know if you would make it through the night. And what was I to do from there? You were human, and I was not! How could I care for a human baby?”
“What happened next?” Serafina pleaded.
“That same night, I heard the steps of a man walking through the forest,” her mother said. “Thinking him an enemy, I almost killed him. I circled the stranger in the darkness and watched him for a long time, trying to look into his heart. Was he a good man? Was there strength in him or weakness? Would he defend his den with tooth and claw? This was not your true father, but he was a human being, and he was the only choice I had. I made the decision to let him take my baby. I prayed that he would carry you into the human world and make sure that someone took care of you, for though it broke my heart, I knew that I could not.”
“That was my pa!” Serafina cried out.
Leandra smiled and nodded. “That was your pa. You were curled into a ball and so covered in blood that I barely got a good look at you that night. I honestly didn’t know whether you would even survive, Serafina, and if you did, I worried that you would be terribly deformed. I had no idea whether you would come out normal.”
Serafina went very quiet, and then she lifted her eyes and looked at her mother. In the frailest of voices, she asked, “Did I?”
Her mother’s face burst with joy, and she threw her arms around her and laughed. “Of course you did, Serafina! You’re beautiful. You’re perfect. Look at you! My God, I’ve never seen a girl so lovely and perfect in all my life! That night when you were born, I thought that man might take one look at you and drown you in a bucket like an unwanted goat. I had so many crazy, dreadful worries. But here you are. You’re alive! And you’re perfect in every way.”
When Serafina looked up at the sky, the stars were all glimmering and splotchy as she wiped her tears from her eyes. It felt like her heart was overflowing. She reached out her arms and hugged her mother. She wrapped her arms tightly around her, feeling her warmth and her strength and her joy and her happiness. And her mother held her close, almost purring, and tears fell from their cheeks, and the little cubs, Serafina’s half brother and half sister, tumbled around their feet, joining in the family reunion.
“I can see that your pa raised you well, Serafina,” her mother said, separating them a little bit and looking into her face. “When I saw you the first time here in the cemetery, I thought you were an intruder, and I attacked out of pure instinct. After twelve years, I was far more animal than I was anything else. It wasn’t until tonight when I saw your eyes up close that I slowly began to realize who you were. And now here you are! And you freed me, Serafina. After twelve years, you have healed my soul. Do you realize that? I am whole again because of you. I have arms, I have hands, I can laugh, and I can kiss you! You saved me. And just look at you! You are the most perfect kitten I could have ever hoped for: you’re fierce of heart, and sharp of claw, and fast and beautiful.”
Serafina’s cheeks burned with heat, and her heart filled with pride, but then she looked at the children waiting for her.
“It was the Black Cloak that did all this,” she said.
“Yes.” Her mother looked around at their confused and frightened faces as they huddled together among the graves. “They don’t seem to know what happened to them.”
“But you do…” Serafina said, looking at her mother.
She nodded. “Only half of my soul was in the Black Cloak.”
“That must have been awful,” Serafina said, trying to imagine it. “But why were all of his most recent victims children?”
“Mr. Thorne lived in this area for many years, avoiding detection by only capturing a soul every so often when he spotted a particular talent he wanted,” her mother said. “But then something happened. The cloak began to take its toll on him. His body was aging severely every day. He was dying.”
“The skin in the glove…” Serafina gasped.
“He started stealing the souls of children, not just because they had the talents he wanted, but because they had the one thing he most desperately needed.”
“They were young…” Serafina said. “But how did you learn all this?”
Her mother stood, and brought Serafina to her feet with her. “There is much for us to talk about, Serafina,” she said. “But we need to get these children home to their parents.”
“But…” Serafina said. She wanted to keep talking, wanted to know more, and she was terribly scared that something would take her mother away from her again.
“Don’t worry,” her mother said, touching Serafina’s face gently with her hand. “This isn’t a fleeting run. I’m here now, and I’m whole again. In the days ahead, I will begin to teach you all that I can, just as a mother should. And you will tell me all about your life, too, to help me come back into the human world that I’ve been absent from for so long. We are together now, Serafina. We are family and kin, and nothing shall ever break that bond between us again.” Tears streamed down her mother’s cheeks. “More than anything right now, I just want you to know how much I love you. I love you, Serafina. I have always loved you.”
“I love you, too, Momma,” she said, her voice cracking as she wrapped her arms around her and wept in her mother’s arms.
Serafina stood in the cover of the trees at the edge of the forest and looked toward Biltmore Estate. The sun was just rising in a clear blue sky, casting a golden light on the front walls of the mansion.
A large group of men and women on foot and on horseback were gathering together. There were ladies and gentlemen, servants and workmen, and there was an urgency in their movements.
They’re organizing a search, Serafina thought.
Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt stood among them, their faces troubled with the news of yet another missing child. Mrs. Brahms stood with her husband, who was dressed in rugged clothing and ready to trek into the forest. Mr. Rostonov was there as well, holding his daughter’s dog in his arms. Even the young maid and the footman, Miss Whitney and Mr. Pratt, had come out to help, along with the chief cook, the butler and his assistant boy, and many of the other household servants and men from the stables.
“If we’re going to find her, we have to move quickly,” Braeden shouted as he mounted his horse in one swift, confident movement.
Serafina’s heart swelled when she saw him. That’s when she realized what she was seeing. Braeden had organized the search. They were going out into the forest to search for her.
“Everyone, please gather around,” Braeden called from atop his horse. She had never seen him so bold, so filled with leadership and determination. Rich or poor, guest or servant, he had brought them all together. It sent a wave of warmth through her cold, tired body.
Then she saw her pa. He must have woken up in the morning and discovered she was gone. Overcoming his fear of discovery, he went to the Vanderbilts for help, even though he knew it would expose her existence and betray th
e fact that they were living in the basement.
Braeden turned and gestured to the dog handlers. “Give them this,” he said as he tossed a piece of clothing to the lead handler. It was her old shirt-dress. The four brindled Plott hounds bayed like it was a coon hunt.
“I looked for Mr. Thorne so that he could join us in the search,” Mr. Bendel said from atop his thoroughbred. “But I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
And you’re not going to, Serafina thought with satisfaction as she watched the search party gather. Ever.
“Mr. Bendel, if you would, please take that group there and go east,” Braeden said. “Uncle, perhaps you could take your footmen and go west.” Braeden turned to the dog handlers. “When I put Gidean on Serafina’s scent, he ran straight north, so that’s where we’ll try to pick up her trail.…” Braeden turned in his saddle and pointed in that direction.
And there he stopped.
At that moment, when Serafina knew Braeden would see her, she stepped out of the woods.
Unsure of what he was seeing at first, Braeden lifted his reins, pivoted his horse, and looked out across the lawn toward the trees. His eyes found her, and a smile spread across his face. She could see his relief and happiness.
“Who is that?” Mr. Vanderbilt asked in confusion.
“Is that the girl we’re looking for?” Mrs. Vanderbilt asked.
Everyone turned toward Serafina and looked at her as she stood at the edge of the forest in her torn gown. Today, she wasn’t hiding. For the first time in her life, she was being truly seen, seen by everyone. She stood there and just waited for them to understand what they were seeing. There was amazement in their expressions, not just from the presence of a lone girl standing at the edge of the woods, but also because of what stood beside her—a large, full-grown mountain lion. Serafina’s bare hand lay on the lioness’s neck, touching the animal, holding her. The mountain lion wasn’t just there, but with her, strong and silent at her side.
Serafina and the Black Cloak Page 20