Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series)

by Robert Beatty

  He was a thin, well-muscled boy with light brown skin and dark shaggy hair just the way she remembered him. His chest was bare, as were his feet; he wore nothing but a simple pair of worn trousers.

  ‘Come on, let’s eat,’ he said matter-of-factly, standing up and walking along a barely discernible path towards the waterfall. She noticed the taut muscles of his back as he moved.

  ‘Wait,’ she said.

  The boy stopped and looked at her. His eyes were chestnut brown with traces of gold. ‘I’m Waysa,’ he said. ‘And you’re Serafina.’

  ‘How do you –’ she began to ask in confusion.

  ‘We’ll be safe here, at least for now,’ he said. ‘We’re pretty sure he doesn’t know about this spot.’

  She looked at him in amazement. How did he know so much about her and her situation? And who was the ‘we’?

  Her brow furrowed. ‘So you were the one who left the message for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said with the slightest hint of a shrug.

  ‘And you were the one who saved my life against the wolfhounds . . .’

  ‘You weren’t doing too bad yourself,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re very bold. You might have made it.’

  ‘Thank you kindly for what you did,’ she said seriously, remembering his bravery and how close she had come to death.

  ‘You’re more than welcome,’ he said. ‘Come on, we have to get out of sight.’

  Although she knew she should be cautious, she felt comfortable and at home with this boy in a way that she had never felt at home with anyone in her life.

  She climbed down onto the ground, looked around her and then followed him into the cave behind the waterfall.

  She’d seen such caves where the river came down in a deafening roar of churning whitewater, but here the water poured down in a smooth, even flow, with sunlight passing through it, creating a shimmering silver wall.

  Sometimes it seemed to her as if the whole world was made of light: the shine of moonlight through the clouds, the green glow of luna moths, the silver light of midnight on a river, the blue light of dawn – and now the blaze of a sunlit wall made of rain. And, of course, there could be no light without darkness, no waterfall without stone.

  As she stepped further into the cave, she saw that the back wall was encrusted with dark purple amethysts. When she turned in the direction she had come, and looked out through the opening beneath the waterfall, she saw a most magnificent phenomenon. The sunlight shining through the mist rising from the falls cast a collage of rainbows across the opening. She couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘You don’t see that every day,’ she said in awe.

  Her mind was bursting with a hundred questions for this boy, but there was a part of her that felt a gentle calmness to be here, to be someplace that felt safe and protected, and finally rest for a moment.

  As she turned back round and cast her gaze across the sandy rock floor, she saw that there wasn’t much inside the cave, but it looked dry and comfortable, and the boy did have several blankets, some food and a small campfire.

  ‘You want your meat cooked?’ he asked, glancing towards her as he squatted near the fire.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said. She hadn’t answered him earlier, but the truth was that she was as hungry as a spring bear, and very tired.

  As Waysa cupped his hands round his mouth and blew into the fire, the embers came to life with his breath, then he added a few more sticks.

  Once he had the fire going strong, he lifted up two choices from the night’s hunting. ‘I’ve got a rabbit and a drummer.’

  The brownish chicken-like bird he was calling a drummer looked like what the folks at Biltmore called a grouse, a game bird known for thumping its chest with its wings. ‘The drummer looks good,’ she said.

  ‘Good choice,’ he agreed. ‘Tastes even better than chicken.’

  She looked around the cave and wondered exactly where and how this boy lived. Was he one of the mountain folk or was he wild?

  ‘So you’ve eaten chicken, then . . .’ she said.

  ‘I tend to stay clear of cabins, but I’m not above the occasional snatch, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘And this is your home?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Your mother wouldn’t let me live here even if I wanted to. This isn’t my territory. It’s hers, or at least it was. I’m in between.’

  ‘My mother?’ she asked, turning towards him.

  ‘She’s all right. Don’t worry. We all survived.’

  A wave of relief passed through her, and she could feel herself relaxing.

  ‘Your mother is scouting ahead, looking for new territory,’ Waysa said.

  He pulled his lips back from his teeth and uttered three guttural sounds.

  Something rustled behind her. When she turned, she noticed for the first time a small, jagged hole in the rock at the back of the cave. And something was crawling out of it.

  The small, spotted, furry head of Serafina’s half-brother popped from the hole and meowed. He pushed his way out, and his whole body emerged. He came trundling towards her, all proud of himself and happy to see her, purring and meowing. She knelt down and pulled him into her chest and purred with him as he rubbed his body against her.

  When Waysa gave another call, Serafina’s half-sister came running out at full blast and crashed into Serafina with joy. Serafina laughed, swept her half-sister up into her arms, rolled onto the rock floor of the cave and let the cubs leap upon her.

  ‘You’re here! You’re all right!’ she said, her chest filling with happiness.

  The cubs swatted her with their soft paws, tackled her, pretended to bite her arms and wrestled with her. Then they turned on each other, and a whole new mock battle began.

  Waysa soon had the grouse cooked, and the two of them ate it round the campfire. The food was delicious, and she enjoyed sharing pieces with the cubs.

  ‘You’re a fine cook,’ she said, looking at Waysa. He was at home in the forest, hunting his food, living in a cave. She remembered how fiercely he had fought, how brave he had been, how silently he had moved through the forest when he’d snuck up behind her. She had sensed it all along, but she hadn’t been allowing herself to hope – Waysa wasn’t just the feral boy who had saved her from the wolfhounds. He didn’t just disappear. He had gone to get her mother. He had come back for her, found her lying at the edge of the river, nudged her onto her mother’s back and run with her through the forest. He was the dark lion! He was the one her mother had warned to leave her alone. This meant that her mother wasn’t the only catamount in the world. There were others!

  ‘You said that you’re in between, that you’re just passing through,’ she said. ‘So where do you come from?’

  ‘Cherokee, south-west of here.’

  ‘Are your kinfolk from there?’

  ‘Originally, but not any more,’ he said bitterly. He rose and turned his back to her, and for a moment she was frightened that he was going to leave the cave completely.

  ‘I’m right sorry,’ she said, realising that something terrible must have happened. Waysa had been so casual, so bold, so full of life, but now a darkness clouded his spirit.

  He paused and shook his head, unable to continue for a moment. Then he began to speak in a slow and serious tone. ‘It was three weeks ago. We had just completed a hunt together. We were happy and safe, and soon my brothers and sister and I would be going out to find territories of our own. But then the conjurer came upon us. He killed my older brother first, before any of us even knew he was attacking. My father fought him with every muscle in his body, but finally fell. My mother was killed as well, and then my two younger brothers. I was almost able to save my young sister.’ Waysa stopped, his hand covering his face as he shook his head and turned away. ‘We all fought him,’ he said, his voice ragged with emotion. ‘But his spells were far too strong.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Waysa,’ Serafina said softly, tears brimming in her eyes. She tried to stay
fierce and strong, for his benefit if not her own, but seeing Waysa’s pain cleaved a fissure in her heart as deep as wounds of old.

  ‘I fled,’ he said, his voice quivering with shame. ‘When I saw my sister die, I didn’t know what else to do. There was no one left. There was no one else to fight for. I felt like I just wanted to die. I ran and kept running and didn’t stop for days. Then I entered your mother’s territory, and she nearly killed me.’

  Serafina nodded, remembering how her mother had attacked her the first time she met her. ‘She’s like that,’ she said. ‘She defends her territory somethin’ fierce.’

  He nodded. ‘As it should be. My mother had her own territory, and my father his. And soon my brothers and sister would have had theirs too. My sister was . . .’

  Waysa’s words drifted off. He didn’t want to continue whatever he was going to say.

  ‘So my mother ran you off the first time you came into her territory,’ Serafina said, standing and trying to change the subject. ‘But now you’re looking after her cubs.’

  ‘She saw that I helped you against the conjurer’s dogs. And when he attacked the cubs last night, I fought at her side to defend them. We’ve decided to work together now, come what may. This is the safest place we know, so I agreed to hide here and protect the cubs while she scouts ahead. She hated to leave them, but she can travel so much faster without them, and she wasn’t sure what she’d find where she’s going.’

  As more questions flooded Serafina’s mind, she looked over at her half-brother and half-sister. They were her family, so close to her in so many ways, and yet so different from her as well. They were forever mountain lions. And she was forever human. They shared the same affliction: to always be what they were born.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ Waysa said, ‘and like you’ve been dragged through a mud pit. You need to rest. But before you do we should get you cleaned up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, turning towards him.

  But in one quick moment, he rushed her and tackled her headlong through the waterfall. The shock of the icy-cold water hit her first, then she felt herself tumbling downward.

  Serafina felt a swoop in her stomach as she fell through the rush of the waterfall, her body plummeting towards the rocks and water below. Her mind exploded with fear of what was going to happen when she hit the bottom.

  She had tried to cross that one river at its most shallow point to escape the wolfhounds, and it had nearly killed her. She’d never swum in deep water. She wasn’t even sure she could. And she certainly didn’t want to find out like this.

  But at that instant her whole body plunged with a great, enveloping crash into an ice-cold pool of deep blue. The biting cold was the most immediate shock she felt. But the force of her fall sank her down, down, down into the churning water, surrounded by clouds of swirling bubbles. She tried to flail her arms and legs, but she just kept sinking. Her lungs were going to burst, desperate to take a breath.

  A hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her up.

  As soon as her face broke the surface, she heaved in a great, gasping breath of air and started flailing and splashing.

  Waysa held her to keep her afloat. ‘Don’t panic! I’ve got you!’

  ‘I can’t swim!’ she sputtered.

  ‘Paddle your legs,’ Waysa told her, and she started pushing her legs rapidly against the water. ‘All right, good. Now paddle your arms in front of you, close to your chest, like this. Good. You see, you paddle your arms and your legs together, like you’re crawling as fast as you possibly can.’

  Serafina had no choice but to listen to everything he was telling her to do. ‘Keep paddling!’ he ordered. ‘Good. Now I’m going to let you go.’

  ‘Don’t let me go!’ she screamed.

  ‘I’m letting go . . .’

  When Waysa released her, she paddled furiously and kicked her legs and held her head above the water in front of her, terrified at every breath that it would be her last. But she soon found herself holding her own. She wasn’t immediately sinking! She could swim. She could actually swim!

  ‘That’s it! You’ve got it!’ Waysa shouted.

  It turned out that swimming was like falling and landing on her feet without getting hurt. For her and her kind, it was a reflex. It wasn’t something she would have ever chosen to do, but now that she had to do it she could do it almost instinctively. She paddled around in the pool, filled with joy. She could actually swim!

  ‘It’s so cold!’ she complained, half angry and half laughing.

  ‘Just keep paddling. You’ll get used to it,’ Waysa said, swimming beside her.

  Serafina swam one way and then another. She tried turning her body this way and that, feeling the water rush over her skin. It felt like she was flying through soft, thickened, ice-cold air.

  When they were done, Waysa climbed out of the pool onto the rocks and boulders at the edge of the river. Then he turned and put out his hand.

  She grabbed hold and he hoisted her up onto a boulder. From there, they climbed together, hand over hand, back up to the cave. They threw more sticks onto the fire, gathered the warm, fuzzy cubs into their arms, and huddled around the flames.

  ‘You could have given me a warning!’ she said.

  ‘Would you have done it if I had?’ he said, laughing.

  ‘No!’

  ‘You see,’ he said, gloating. ‘You’re going to find swimming useful for crossing rivers on long journeys.’

  It felt good to be warm and clean again, her hair lying around her shoulders and her body strong. The icy water seemed to have a powerful and rejuvenating effect.

  For a little while, as they sat by the fire, she and Waysa talked about their lives. She knew she should ask him about the bearded man he had called the conjurer, and where her mother had gone, and all the other questions on her mind. But she’d been running and fighting for so long that, for a little while, she just wanted to feel like things were going to be all right. In the cave, it was like it was just the two of them in the world, and the world was good. She asked him questions about his sister and the other members of his family, and he seemed grateful to have a chance to talk about them. He asked her about her life at Biltmore, about her pa and her younger days. She told him about Braeden, and what had happened to Gidean, and how she’d fled in shame. Talking to Waysa was easy. It felt like a salve on the wounds of her heart.

  When she and Waysa curled up in their blankets on opposite sides of the campfire, she was relieved to finally sleep for a few moments. She dreamed of forests – of tall, beautiful trees and flowing water, rocky slopes and deep ravines. And she dreamed of swimming.

  A short time later, she awoke curled up in a little ball with the two sleeping cubs. They were warm and soft, breathing quietly with little purring sounds, their heads tucked into her chest and legs.

  Waysa was awake as well, gazing at her from across the fire.

  For a long time, she did not speak, and neither did he.

  When she finally did say something, her words were soft. ‘You fled your home from far away. You’ve been running. When you came here, you could have kept running. What kept you here, Waysa?’

  Waysa turned away from her and gazed at the waterfall.

  ‘Why did you stay?’ she asked, her voice low and gentle.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said softly.

  She felt her brows furrow as she looked at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I would have passed through and kept going days ago, but after I saw you in the forest that night . . .’

  ‘What?’ she urged him. ‘After you saw me in the forest, what happened?’

  ‘I wanted to wait for you,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, wait for me?’ she asked gently, narrowing her eyes at him.

  ‘I thought we could leave here together.’

  Serafina could hear the seriousness in his voice.

  ‘You don’t truly know me,’ she said.

  ‘Yo
u’re right,’ he said. ‘I don’t. I don’t know anyone any more, not a single living soul other than you, and your mother, and the cubs.’

  Serafina stared at Waysa but didn’t know what to say. It was the way of a young mountain lion to leave his mother and find a territory of his own, but it was the way of a human to want a friend and a family.

  As Serafina stared at Waysa, she realised that there was far more to this boy than she’d thought. He was asking her to leave this place with him, to go live in the forest and run through the ferns and hunt drummers and swim in pools together. He’d been hoping to find her again. He’d been waiting for her.

  She watched him for a long moment, just holding his gaze, and then she said, ‘You realise I can’t change.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve tried. I can’t do it.’

  ‘You’re just not seeing what you want to be.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Once you envision what you want to be, then you’ll find a way to get there.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll teach you,’ he said, and his voice had such confidence, such kindness, that it was almost impossible not to believe him.

  As she turned away from him and cuddled with the cubs, she thought about what Waysa had said. There was a new path opening up in front of her now. It awed her to think about it. One path would take her home to Biltmore like she’d planned, to people she knew and loved, but to conflict and pain and uncertainty as well. But this other path, with Waysa, would take her away, maybe forever. She knew she would miss her pa and Braeden, but she wondered what it would be like. Would she come to know Waysa in the way she knew them? Would she go on to see new mountains and new waterfalls? Were there different kinds of trees and animals in those distant places? Would she finally find a place to belong? What would become of her? With Waysa’s help, could she truly learn to change?

  As she tried to envision her future, she realised there were many paths, many different ways to go, and part of growing up, part of living, was choosing which ones to follow. Two main paths lay before her, leading to two very different lives.