Serafina and the Black Cloak (10 page)

Serafina thought that sounded about right. Braeden seemed as loyal to Gidean as Gidean was to him. They were friends, and she liked that. Then she thought about that poor girl and what might
have happened to her.

“Anastasia Rostonova…” She repeated the funny-sounding name.

“She’s the daughter of Mr. Rostonov, the Russian ambassador,” Braeden explained. “She told me that Russian girls always put an
a
on the end of their last
name.”

“What did she look like?” she asked, wanting to make sure she hadn’t gotten her kidnapped rich girls mixed up.

“She’s tall and pretty, and she has long, curly black hair, and she wears elaborate red dresses that look really hard to walk in.”

“Do you think she vanished like Clara Brahms?” Serafina asked.

Before he could answer, something caught her eye through the carriage windows. There were trees on either side of the carriage. They were traveling down a narrow dirt road that wound through a
thick and darkened forest, the very forest that her pa had warned her to never enter. And the very forest where she had been born. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of trepidation.
“Where are we going, exactly?”

“My aunt and uncle are worried about me, so they’re sending me to the Vances’ in Asheville for the night to keep me out of harm’s way. They ordered Crankshod to guard
me.”

“That wasn’t very smart,” she said before she could help herself. It wasn’t a very polite thing to say, but for some reason, she was having a dickens of a time not
telling Braeden the truth.

“I’ve always detested that man,” Braeden agreed, “but my uncle depends on him.”

As she looked out the window at the forest, she could no longer see the horizon or the sun. All she could see was the thick density of the forest’s huge old trees, black and decrepit,
which grew so closely together that she could barely tell one from the other. It seemed a dark and foreboding place for anyone to even visit, let alone live, but there was something that excited
her about it, too.

But then she felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. Somewhere, miles behind them, was Biltmore. Her pa would be wondering why she wasn’t showing up for dinner.
No chicken or grits
tonight, Pa. I’m sorry,
she thought.
Try not to worry about me.
A day ago, she had been leading a perfectly normal life catching rats in the basement, and now everything had turned
so bizarre.

Pulling her gaze away from the forest, she finally turned to Braeden, swallowed hard, and began to say what she’d come for. “There is something I need to tell—”

“How come I’ve never seen you before?” he interrupted.

“What?” she asked, taken aback.

“Where do you come from?”

“Yeah, good question,” she said before she could stop herself, imagining the bloody pile of dead creatures her pa had plucked her from.

“I’m serious,” he said, staring at her. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places,” she shot back at him, feeling cornered.

But when she saw his eyes, she realized that he wasn’t going to give up. Her temples began to pound, and she couldn’t think straight. Why was he asking all these infernal
questions?

“Well, where do
you
come from?” she asked, trying to throw him off the trail.

“You know I live at Biltmore,” he said gently. “I’m asking about you.”

“I-I…” she stammered, staring at her lap. “Maybe you met me before and just forgot,” she said.

“I would have remembered you,” he said quietly.

“Well, maybe I’m just visiting for the weekend,” she said weakly, looking at the floor.

He wasn’t buying any of it. “Please tell me where you live, Serafina,” he said firmly.

It surprised her when he said her name like that. It had tremendous power over her, like she had no choice but to look up at him and meet his gaze, which turned out to be a serious mistake. He
was looking at her so intently that it felt as if he were casting a spell of truth on her.

“I live in your basement,” she said, and was immediately shocked that she’d actually uttered it out loud. He had powers over her that she did not understand.

He stared at her as her words hung in the air. She could see the confusion in his face and sense the questions forming in his mind.

She had no idea why she said it. It had just come flying out of her mouth.

But she’d done it. She’d said it out loud, straight to his face.
Please forgive me, Pa
. She’d wrecked everything. She’d ruined their lives. Now her pa would be
fired. They’d be kicked out of Biltmore. They’d be forced to wander the streets of Asheville, begging for scraps of food. No one would hire a man who’d lied to his employer, holed
up in his basement, and stolen food from him for his eight-toed daughter. No one.

She looked at Braeden. “Please don’t tell anyone…” she said quietly, but she knew there were no claws in that paw, nothing at all to protect her. If he wanted to, he
could tell anyone—Mr. Crankshod, Mr. Boseman, even Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt—and then the life she and her pa had made together at Biltmore would be over. They might even go to prison for
stealing food all those years.

Just as Braeden was about to speak, the horses screamed and the carriage slammed to a halt. She was hurled across the open space and crashed into him. Gidean leapt to his feet and began to bark
wildly.

“Something has happened,” Braeden said fiercely as he quickly untangled himself from her and opened the carriage door.

It was pitch-dark outside.

She tried to listen for what was out there, but her heart pounded so loudly that she couldn’t hear a thing. She tried to calm herself down and really listen, but the forest was too quiet.
There were no owls, no frogs, no insects, no birds—none of the normal night sounds she was used to hearing. Just silence. It was like every living creature in the forest was hiding for its
dear life. Or already dead.

“Mr. Crankshod?” Braeden asked uncertainly into the darkness.

No answer came.

The hairs on the back of Serafina’s neck stood on end.

Braeden stepped partway out of the carriage and looked up at the driver’s bench at the front. “There’s no one there!” he said in astonishment. “They’re both
gone!”

The four horses were still in the harnesses, but the carriage had stopped dead in the road. Right in the middle of the forest.

S
erafina climbed slowly out of the carriage and stood at Braeden’s side. The forest surrounded them, black and impenetrable, the
craggy-barked trees packed densely together. Her legs jittered beneath her, filled with nervous impulse. She tried to steady her breathing. Her whole body wanted to move, but she forced herself to
stay with Braeden and Gidean.

She watched and listened to the unnaturally quiet forest, extending her senses out into the void. She couldn’t hear a single toad or whip-poor-will. But it felt like there was something
out there, something big but extremely quiet. She didn’t even know how that was possible.

Gidean stood beside her on full alert, staring into the trees. Whatever it was, he sensed it, too.

Braeden looked warily into the darkness that surrounded them and walked forward a few feet in the direction the carriage was facing.

“I wish I had a lantern,” he said. “I can’t see anything at all.”

The horses fidgeted in their harnesses, their hooves shifting uneasily in the gravel.

“When they’re scared, they move their feet,” Braeden said sympathetically. “They have no claws, no sharp teeth, no weapons. Their speed is their main defense.”

She marveled at how Braeden didn’t just see the horses but understood how they thought.

When a breeze passed through the woods and rattled the branches of the trees, the horses spooked. All four of them pulled and tugged against their harnesses. It was like they were being attacked
by some invisible predator. Squealing, the front two horses reared up on their hind legs and struck the air with their hooves.

As Serafina shrank back from the danger in frightened dismay, Braeden rushed forward and put himself between her and the horses. Standing in front of them, he raised his open hands to calm them.
They towered above him, their eyes white with fear, their heads thrashing and their hooves flying. She was sure they were going to kick him in the head, or slam him with a shoulder, or trample him
to death, but he stood with his hands raised, speaking to them in soft, gentle tones. “It’s all right. We’re all here,” he said to them. “We’re all
together.”

To her astonishment, the horses were calmed by his presence and his words. He touched their shoulders with his outstretched hands and seemed to bring the rearing horses back to the ground. Then
he held the head of the lead horse in his hands and pressed his forehead to the horse’s forehead so that they were looking at each other eye to eye, and he spoke to the horse in quiet,
reassuring tones. “We’re in this together, my friend. We’re going to be all right…There’s no need to run, no need to fight…”

The lead horse breathed heavily through its nose as it listened to Braeden’s words, then settled and became still. The other horses quieted as well, reassured by the young master.

“H-how did you…?” she stammered.

“These horses and I have been friends for a long time,” he replied, but said nothing more.

Still astounded by what he’d done, she looked around at their surroundings. “What do you think frightened them?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen them so scared.”

Braeden turned and looked down the road ahead of them. He squinted into the darkness and then he pointed. “What is that up there?” he asked. “I can’t make it out. Does
the road turn?”

She looked in the direction he pointed. It wasn’t a turn in the road. A huge tree with thick, gnarly branches and a scattering of bloodred leaves lay across the road, completely blocking
their path.

Suddenly, Mr. Crankshod emerged out of the darkness, trudging his way back to the carriage. “We’re gonna need the ax,” he grumbled angrily.

Serafina and Braeden looked at each other in surprise, then looked back at Mr. Crankshod.

“Where have you been?” Braeden asked.

“We’re gonna need the ax,” Mr. Crankshod said again, ignoring the question.

“I’ll get it, sir,” the assistant coachman said as he came running up from behind Mr. Crankshod.

She hadn’t noticed him before, but the assistant coachman was just a skinny boy with a mop of curly hair. He stood no taller than the shoulder of the lead horse and had thin arms and legs,
bony knees and elbows, and a coltish skittishness about him. He wore a coachman’s jacket, but it was several sizes too big in the shoulders and the sleeves were too long. His black
coachman’s top hat seemed ridiculously tall on his little head. The boy couldn’t have been older than ten. He ran to the rear of the carriage, opened the wooden storage box, and grabbed
the ax, which looked huge in his hands.

“That’s Nolan,” Braeden said, leaning toward her. “He’s actually one of the best carriage drivers we have, and he takes very good care of the horses.”

“Give it to me,” Mr. Crankshod barked as he grabbed the ax out of Nolan’s hands and stomped over to the fallen tree.

“I can help, too, sir, I can,” Nolan said, tagging along behind him with a small hatchet.

“Naw, ya can’t. Just stay out of the way, boy,” Mr. Crankshod shouted. He seemed irritated that Nolan was even there.

Mr. Crankshod heaved the ax behind him in a great, sweeping swing and slammed the blade into the center of the trunk. The leaves of the tree shuddered with the force of the blow, but it hardly
made any dent at all in the thick bark.

He swung the ax again and again, and finally cut through the bark. The wood chips began to fly. Serafina couldn’t help but notice the brute strength of the man, but it was hard for her to
tell if this was the same type of strength the Man in the Black Cloak had possessed.

“At this rate, we’re gonna be ’ere all night,” Mr. Crankshod complained, and just kept chopping.

“I’m sure I can help, sir, I’m sure I can,” Nolan said enthusiastically, standing by with his hatchet ready.

“I’m sure you can’t! Now just get back and stay out of the way!” Mr. Crankshod shouted. “You’re no use to anybody here, boy!”

As the grumpy Mr. Crankshod made war on the tree, Serafina noticed Braeden looking around them, trying to figure out if there was a way to navigate the carriage around the obstacle. But the
trees of this wicked forest grew so closely together that a man could barely get through them, let alone a carriage with a team of horses.

“Where are we?” Serafina asked.

“I think we’re about eleven or twelve miles from the estate, a place called Dardin Forest,” Braeden said. “There used to be an old town nearby.”

“Haven’t been any people living in that village for years,” Mr. Crankshod grumbled as he chopped at the tree. “Nothin’ but ghosts and demons left in these woods
now.”

Serafina scanned the forest, filled with a sense of foreboding. It felt like they were being watched, but she couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t detect who or what was out there.
Her ears twitched with nervousness. The trees slowly swayed back and forth in the wind. They were covered in strange gray lichen and strung with grayish-white moss, which hung down like the thin
hair of an old dead woman. The branches buffeted and creaked, as if anxious in their plight. It appeared that many of the trees were dying.