Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series)

by Robert Beatty

  ‘Get down, Serafina!’ Waysa whispered a warning.

  Serafina froze where she was, clinging to the dirt like a frightened animal as she heard the tick-tick-ticking sound and the raspy scream of the owl. It flew right over their heads as it came into the camp. The man hurled the staff up into the sky. It blurred into a twig. The owl caught it in midair with its claws, then disappeared into the trees.

  Serafina didn’t understand what was happening, but she was more determined than ever to get out. She pressed her face into the dirt and shoved her head into the hole. Buttressing her feet against the other side of the mort safe, she used the strength of her legs and torso to push her head through the hole, scraping her ears so close that they tore and bled. She shifted her neck, bent in her shoulder blade at her detached collar bone, and wriggled herself into the hole. Once she got some of her head, shoulder, and arm through, she reached out for something to grab on to, but there was nothing to grab, nothing to pull on. She clawed at the earth, but she found no purchase. Now she was stuck, wedged in the hole. She could move neither back nor forward.

  When she looked around for a branch or a rock or something to hold on to, she saw Braeden in the cage next to her working furiously to bend the strands of the wire mesh like she had.

  ‘Hold on, Serafina!’ Braeden whispered, but she knew it was no use. His body was larger than hers. Even if he got through the mesh, he couldn’t fit between the bars.

  Nothing was working. Feeling the panic of entrapment, Serafina started gasping for air. Her heart pounded. She tried to keep her wits about her, but she breathed faster and faster. She looked towards the fire in the distance. How much time did they have before the bearded man came for them?

  Finally, Braeden managed to break a small hole through the wire mesh of his cage. Just as she’d suspected, he couldn’t fit his body through the narrow gap between the iron bars. But he put his hand through the hole and stretched his arm out towards her. At first, Serafina didn’t understand what he was doing, but then she got it. She pressed herself up against the bars of her cage and stretched her arm out towards him. She pushed and pushed, her fingers outstretched. Reaching across the space between the cages, their hands finally clamped together in the middle. ‘Gotcha!’ he said as he grabbed her hand. Then he pulled her towards him.

  Now, with Braeden pulling on her arm and her pushing with her legs, she found the leverage she needed. She managed to wriggle herself all the way through the hole and crawled out on the other side. She’d made it through! She had escaped!

  She quickly crawled over to Braeden’s cage and tried to open the latch from the outside.

  ‘He’s coming!’ Waysa whispered frantically.

  Serafina heard the thrashing sound of the bearded man’s footsteps heading in their direction.

  She finally got Braeden’s cage open and pulled him out. ‘Go free the dogs!’ she whispered to him. Then she hurried over to Waysa’s cage and unlatched it.

  The bearded man would be here in a matter of seconds.

  As Waysa crawled free, Serafina glanced over. Gidean and Cedric were down on their haunches, excitedly looking at Braeden as he opened their cages. Serafina used the last moment to quickly unlatch the wolf’s cage. Her young wolf friend looked at her with gratefulness in his eyes. Then she raced away, knowing that the bearded man was just steps behind her.

  She and Braeden and the others fled the cages, ducking low beneath the limbs of the pines as they ran.

  Behind her, she heard the snarling attack of the freed wolf as it leapt from its cage at the bearded man. She had no idea what would happen next, but at least the wolf had a fighting chance.

  Serafina, Braeden, Waysa and the two dogs fled into the cover of the pines. Waysa led the way, often scouting ahead for danger. Serafina didn’t know how it was possible, but Gidean seemed to have regained some of his old strength and speed. Cedric was a heavy dog, unused to running long distances, but he was determined to keep up. Serafina ran at Braeden’s side, making sure he didn’t fall behind. They finally escaped the blackened pines and entered the oaks, but they did not slow down. Their fear pushed them onward. They ran for miles.

  But partway back to Biltmore Braeden collapsed, too tired to continue. She let him rest for ten seconds, then pulled him back up onto his feet. ‘Get up, Braeden!’ she told him. ‘We’ve got to get home!’

  They ran some more, but Braeden finally crumpled in exhaustion. Too tired to run any further, he did not give up or ask the others to slow down. He called Cedric over to him. ‘I need your help, my friend,’ he said as he climbed onto the St Bernard’s back and held on.

  ‘Come on, Cedric! Come on, boy! Let’s go!’ Serafina called the dog, and together they ran. Coming from a long line of rescue dogs, Cedric seemed to understand exactly what they wanted. He charged forward with new speed and purpose, carrying the young master along with him.

  They ran through the hickory and the hemlock, through the alder and the elm. They crossed thickets and meadows, streams and ravines, pushed by a fear darker than they had ever known.

  As the faint light of Biltmore House finally came into view near dawn, Serafina sensed that they had escaped the horror behind them. She slowed and looked over at Waysa. They breathed heavily as they walked beside each other.

  ‘I have to go back to Biltmore,’ she said.

  Waysa nodded. ‘I’ll go find your mother and the cubs and make sure they’re safe.’ Then he stopped her with his hand and looked at her with new ferocity in his eyes. ‘You were right. We can’t run from this fight. I will rejoin you later. Stay bold, Serafina.’

  ‘Stay bold, Waysa,’ she said in return as they quickly embraced, and then Waysa dived into the underbrush and disappeared.

  Braeden watched her say goodbye to Waysa and then said, ‘I see you found the boy from the forest.’

  ‘He joined with my mother and the cubs. His name is Waysa.’

  ‘He reminds me of you,’ Braeden said, his voice weak and tired, but filled with a kindness that she did not expect.

  ‘Me too,’ she agreed.

  ‘Do you want to go with him?’ Braeden asked uncertainly. He looked towards the house in the distance. ‘The dogs and I can make it to Biltmore on our own from here.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to go home with you.’

  Braeden nodded, and they continued on together towards Biltmore with Gidean and Cedric at their sides.

  ‘Look,’ Serafina said when she saw a rider galloping at high speed across the large lawn in front of the house. The rider was up on her stirrups, leaning forward in the saddle, her long red hair flowing behind her. It was Lady Rowena!

  Rowena rode into the stable courtyard.

  When Serafina and Braeden and the two dogs walked into the courtyard a few moments later, a force of thirty men were gathering, some on foot, some with horses.

  ‘Mount up, men,’ Mr Vanderbilt shouted from atop his horse. ‘We’re going back out.’

  Serafina and Braeden looked around at the ragged group. Many of the men from the original hunting party were wounded and exhausted. They had been fighting the coyotes in the forest all night. The horses had suffered the worst, and the trackers had lost all but one of the Plott hounds. The badly shaken hunt master, who had dismounted from his sweating, terrified horse and now sat collapsed on the ground, appeared too shocked by what they’d been through to even rouse himself. But most of the men were mounting fresh horses, and new men were joining the effort.

  Rowena was right there with Mr Vanderbilt, on a new horse and ready to ride. Her hair was hanging down, her face was scratched, and she looked exhausted, but she seemed determined to help in the search.

  ‘Come on, hurry,’ Rowena was calling to the others as she wheeled her horse around. ‘We have to go and look for them!’

  Serafina’s pa, several of the stablemen and a dozen other servants were also joining the group.

  But when Mr Vanderbilt pulled his horse round he saw Braeden and Seraf
ina and the dogs coming towards him.

  ‘Thank God,’ Mr Vanderbilt said. He dismounted, dropped his reins and took the exhausted Braeden into his arms.

  ‘Serafina,’ her pa said, relieved, as he came towards her and pulled her into his chest.

  ‘I’m all right, Pa,’ she said. ‘I’m not hurt.’

  As she hugged her pa, Serafina saw Rowena dismount and embrace Braeden, obviously relieved that he was still alive. The other men were patting the young master’s back and welcoming him home.

  Mr Vanderbilt knelt down and scruffed Cedric’s neck. ‘It’s good to see you, boy,’ he said as he petted his dog. Then Mr Vanderbilt’s dark eyes rose up and looked at Serafina.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, her voice shaking, fearful that he’d be angry at her for leading them into such a catastrophe. As she and her pa turned towards Mr Vanderbilt, she said, ‘I had no idea that was going to happen.’

  ‘None of us have ever seen anything like that,’ he said. He wasn’t angry with her. His voice was filled with a sense of common purpose. They were a pack. They were in this together.

  ‘Could the coyotes have been infected with rabies?’ her pa asked.

  ‘I hope to God not,’ the veterinarian said, overhearing their conversation as he tended to the slashed leg of a nearby horse. ‘If it’s rabies, then all the men, horses and dogs who were bitten last night will be dead within days, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘It didn’t look like rabies to me,’ Mr Vanderbilt said, shaking his head. ‘There had to be fifty coyotes, and they had a deliberateness in their eyes.’

  The hunt master shook his head. ‘Those animals were possessed,’ he mumbled, his eyes glazed with disbelief.

  ‘We need to go back, Uncle,’ Braeden said.

  ‘Go back?’ Mr Vanderbilt said in surprise.

  ‘There are still animals up there that need our help.’

  Mr Vanderbilt shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Braeden. We’re not going back out right now. We can’t risk it. Everyone is exhausted. We need to rest and regroup.’

  ‘It was awful, Uncle,’ Braeden said, and then proceeded to describe the bearded man and the animals in the cages. ‘Serafina got me and the dogs out of there, and then we ran.’

  When Mr Vanderbilt looked at Serafina, she could see the gratitude in his expression, but she knew the fight wasn’t over. ‘We need to find Mr Grathan, sir,’ she said. ‘He’s involved in this.’

  ‘I was suspicious of him from the start,’ Mr Vanderbilt said. ‘He represented himself as an officer of the law, so I didn’t think I should interfere with his investigation, but I hired a private detective to check into his credentials.’

  ‘What did you find out?’ Braeden asked.

  ‘Mr Grathan has no association with any city or state agency. He’s a fraud.’

  ‘What are we going to do, Uncle?’ Braeden asked.

  ‘I’ve sent word for the Asheville police to come at once. They’ll arrest him.’

  ‘But where is Grathan now?’ Serafina asked.

  ‘We’ve searched for him. He’s not in the house,’ Mr Vanderbilt said, ‘but he may still be in the grounds.’

  ‘I think Grathan is far more dangerous than he seems, sir,’ Serafina said, ‘and I fear that the police will be coming on horseback or carriage and will run into the same type of problem we did.’

  Mr Vanderbilt nodded. ‘We’ll arm several groups of men and start looking for Grathan in the grounds. If and when the police arrive, we’ll go back up into that area, free those animals and destroy the cages. Until then, I want all of you to stay in the house and stay safe.’

  As the men continued talking, Serafina, Braeden and Rowena huddled beneath the arch of the porte cochère, the carriage entrance that led into the house.

  ‘What happened?’ Rowena asked, her voice quivering.

  ‘We’re all right,’ Braeden said. ‘We got the dogs. That’s the important thing.’

  ‘I was so worried about you,’ she said, looking at both Braeden and Serafina. Serafina realised that danger and death seemed to erase the lines of class. Suddenly, everyone was the same, fighting to hold on to their lives and the people around them. She saw it in Mr Vanderbilt, her pa, the hunt master, the trackers and the men on their horses willing to go out into fearsome dangers to rescue her and Braeden. And now she saw it in Lady Rowena.

  ‘Thank you for helping us, Rowena,’ Braeden said.

  ‘When my father sent me here to Biltmore, he told me to make friends,’ Lady Rowena said, looking at the two of them and smiling wanly. ‘I think maybe I have.’

  ‘You definitely have,’ Braeden said.

  ‘Will your father be coming to Biltmore soon?’ Braeden asked.

  ‘I believe he’ll be here rather sooner than we all expect,’ Rowena said. ‘He’s coming for Christmas.’

  Serafina thought she sensed something strange in Rowena when she said this. Was it sadness? Worry? She couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘Are you eager to see him?’ Serafina asked.

  ‘The truth is,’ Rowena said, ‘my father thinks I am a rather silly little girl.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Braeden said.

  Rowena shook her head. ‘No, it’s true. I’m afraid my father has never thought too much of me. But pretty soon, one way or another, he’s going to have to start.’

  ‘He’d be very proud of you if he knew how brave you were last night,’ Serafina said, trying to encourage her.

  But, as they were talking, Rowena looked like she was going to keel over right where she stood. Exhaustion had finally begun to catch up with the poor girl. Braeden reached out to steady her.

  ‘If you will excuse me,’ Lady Rowena said finally, touching Braeden’s arm and closing her eyes for a moment like she was going to faint, ‘I’m feeling rather tired. I’m going to my room to take a bath and change into some clean clothes.’

  Braeden nodded. ‘Get some rest and we’ll do the same. My uncle and the men will take care of things now.’

  As two of the maids helped the bedraggled, mud-splattered Lady Rowena limp slowly back to the house, Serafina heard her mutter in bewildered shock, ‘Oh dear, I think I may have got dirt on my dress.’ She was so exhausted she was nearly delirious.

  Serafina stayed with Braeden. As she looked over at Mr Vanderbilt talking to her pa and the other men, she knew they were making sensible decisions, but she couldn’t get over the feeling that it wasn’t enough, that everyone, including her, was missing something. It was as if they were putting together a puzzle, and they thought they were almost done, but there was a whole other box of pieces that they didn’t even know about.

  She watched as the stablemen washed the blood from the courtyard bricks and the maids cleaned the mud from the steps that led into the house.

  ‘Come on,’ Serafina said to Braeden, and they began to walk along the front of the house. ‘We need to figure this out.’

  ‘Whoever that man was last night, he seemed insane,’ Braeden said.

  ‘Like he was consumed by some sort of feud or blood vengeance.’

  ‘He said he was going to burn the place down,’ Braeden said.

  Serafina remembered the chilling words.

  ‘What do you think he was talking about?’ Braeden asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think he was talking about Biltmore?’ Braeden asked.

  As they reached the front entrance of the house, Serafina glanced up at the carved stone archway above the front door. It depicted a strange-looking bearded man brandishing a long spear or staff of some kind.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s definitely possible. Does the Vanderbilt family have enemies?’ she asked. ‘What about your uncle? Does anyone hate him or want to do him harm?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Braeden said. ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘I know he is,’ Serafina said. ‘But is there something from his past that we don’t know? What abo
ut his life back in New York before he came here? And all his trips to Europe and all over the world? Could it be that he came to the remote mountains of North Carolina for a reason?’

  ‘You think he was trying to escape something?’

  ‘Or maybe someone? I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Come on,’ Braeden said, leading her into the house. ‘I have an idea.’

  The two of them were tired, dirty and hungry, but they were too intent on solving the mystery to stop now. Serafina followed Braeden down the gallery and into the library.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Serafina asked as they entered, not sure how Mr Vanderbilt’s collection of books could help them.

  ‘My uncle keeps his travel records here,’ Braeden said as he went over to one of the cabinets. ‘Maybe we’ll find something.’

  Serafina went to Braeden’s side and tried to help him look. But she didn’t know what they were looking for.

  She found a set of black leather-bound journals entitled Books I Have Read – G. W. V. As she flipped through the pages, she saw that Mr Vanderbilt had been recording the title and author of every book he’d read since 1875, when he was twelve years old. There were thousands of entries over the years, in English, French and other languages.

  Braeden found evidence of his uncle’s many trips throughout the United States and abroad, to England, France, Italy, China, Japan and many other countries. And Serafina knew that the house was full of art, sculpture and artefacts from his travels. In fact, she’d just shattered one of them. Any one of those artefacts could have been haunted or cursed in some way, which might explain a blood vengeance against Mr Vanderbilt.

  But the more she thought about it the more one particular thought came to her mind. The man she’d seen on the road that first night hadn’t struck her as a New Yorker or any other kind of Northerner or foreigner. His skin was craggy with the weathered cracks of these mountain winds, his moustache and beard were long and grey like many of the local elders’, and his voice was tinged with the sound of the mountain folk. She could not be sure from their brief and terrifying encounters, but he seemed like an Appalachian man.