Serafina and the Black Cloak (19 page)

S
erafina watched the doorknob rotate a quarter turn and then come to a stop with a click of metal on metal. She had locked the door when she came
in, and she remembered the weight of it, with its solid, inch-thick oak panels. It seemed nearly impossible for anyone to break the door. She just hoped that the Man in the Black Cloak
couldn’t pass through it using some sort of dark magic.

She could feel him breathing on the other side of the door, seething.

She waited, holding on to Gidean.

After several seconds, the doorknob returned to its normal position and the footsteps resumed, continuing slowly down the hallway. She let go of Gidean, and they all finally started breathing
normally again. She looked at Braeden.

“That was a close one,” she whispered.

“I’m glad you got here before he did,” Braeden said.

She went over and climbed back onto the bed. They lay in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the house—expecting running footsteps or a cry of terror in the night—but all they
heard was the crackle of the fire and their own steady breathing as they drifted in and out of sleep.

Serafina woke the next morning to the sound of Braeden’s aunt knocking urgently on his locked bedroom door.

“Braeden, it’s time to get up,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “Braeden?”

Serafina slipped off the bed and looked for a place to hide.

“Here…” Braeden whispered as he pulled back a decorative brass vent cover on the wall beneath his desk.

“Braeden, are you all right in there?” his aunt asked through the door. “Please open up, darling. You’re worrying me.”

Serafina crawled into the air passage, and Braeden replaced the cover behind her. She watched him through the grille as he shoved the dress under his bed then glanced around the room to make
sure there wasn’t any other evidence that she’d been there. Gidean studied his master with interest, the dog’s pointed ears raised upward and his head tilted to the side in
inquiry.

“You don’t say a word,” Braeden warned him, and Gidean lowered his ears.

Finally, Braeden walked over to the door and opened it. “I’m here. I’m all right.”

His aunt swept into the room, wrapped her arms around him, and held him. That’s when Serafina realized that Mrs. Vanderbilt really did love Braeden. She could see it just in the way she
clutched him.

“What’s happened?” Braeden asked his aunt uncertainly.

“The pastor’s son disappeared during the night.”

When she heard the news of another victim, Serafina felt a terrible knot in her stomach. That made three children in three nights now. It was like something was driving the
attacker anew, pushing him harder and harder. She’d been so relieved that she and Braeden had been able to escape the Man in the Black Cloak by hiding in Braeden’s locked room, but now
she realized all that meant was that he got someone else. Another child was gone. She had eluded the demon, but she had not
stopped
him.

Knowing that she had to find some way out other than through Braeden’s room, she crawled down the passage to see where it would lead. She came to an intersection of two other passages. She
took the one on the right, where she came to another split. There appeared to be a whole network of secret passages running through the house.
So this is where the rats have been hiding all
these years.

She crawled past vents that led into the various private rooms of the house—sitting rooms, hallways, bedrooms, even bathrooms. She saw maids making beds, and guests getting dressed for the
day. Everyone was whispering in worry and confusion. No one understood what was happening. They were talking about shades and murderers. Biltmore had become a haunted place where children
disappeared.

She saw the footman, Mr. Pratt, walking hurriedly down a corridor with Miss Whitney. “No, no, Miss Whitney, this is no normal killer,” Mr. Pratt was saying as they went by.

“That’s an awful thing to say!” Miss Whitney protested. “How do you know they’re dead?”

“Oh, they’re dead, believe me. This is a creature of the night, something straight from hell.”

The phrase shocked Serafina.
Creature of the night,
he’d said. But
she
was a creature of the night. She’d used the phrase herself. Were creatures of the night evil? Did
that mean
she
was evil? It horrified her to think that she was in some way associated with or like the Man in the Black Cloak.

“Well, what are we going to do about it? That’s what I want to know,” a man shouted.

She crawled a few feet through the passage in the direction of the man’s voice and looked down through a metal grate into the Gun Room. From her vantage point, she could see a dozen
gentlemen standing and talking about what was going on.

“There is nothing we can do,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We have to let the detectives do their job.”

Mr. Vanderbilt knew all the ins and outs of Biltmore better than anybody. He designed the place. Why all the hidden staircases and secret doors? And he was rich, so he had the money and power to
do whatever he wanted. And he was a Vanderbilt, so no one would ever suspect him. Was this why he’d built a mansion in the middle of a dark forest?

So now here Mr. Vanderbilt was, telling everyone that there was nothing they could do but wait for the detectives to do their work. He was undoubtedly the person
paying
the private
detectives, so they’d come up with whatever answer he wanted them to.

The other gentlemen shook their heads in frustration.

“Perhaps we should bring in one of the well-known detective agencies from New York,” Mr. Bendel suggested. “These local chaps are asking everybody a lot of prying questions,
but they don’t seem to be getting the job done.”

“Or perhaps we should organize another search party,” Mr. Thorne suggested.

“I agree,” Mr. Brahms said. “The detectives seem to think that one of the servants is taking the children, but I don’t think we should rule out that it could be anyone in
the house. Even one of us.”

“Maybe it’s you, Brahms,” Mr. Bendel snarled, clearly not appreciating his implication.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, getting between them. “It’s not one of us. Just calm down.”

“The womenfolk are terrified,” said a gentleman she didn’t recognize. “Every night, another child disappears. We’ve got to do something!”

“Do we even know if the attacker is an outsider or someone inside Biltmore?” someone else asked. “Maybe it’s a total stranger. Or one of our own men—Mr. Boseman or
Mr. Crankshod.”

“We don’t even know if there
is
an attacker,” Mr. Bendel said. “We haven’t found any proof that these are kidnappings. For all we know, these children just
ran away!”

“Of course there’s an attacker,” Mr. Brahms argued, becoming more and more upset. “Someone’s taking our children! My Clara would never run away! Mr. Thorne is
right. We need to organize another search.”

Mr. Rostonov said something in a mix of Russian and English, but no one seemed to pay him any mind.

“Perhaps the children are falling into some kind of hole in the basement or something,” Mr. Bendel suggested.

“There aren’t any holes in the basement,” Mr. Vanderbilt said firmly, offended by the suggestion that Biltmore itself might be a dangerous place.

“Or maybe there’s an uncovered well somewhere on the grounds…” Mr. Bendel pressed on.

“The main thing is that we need to protect the remaining children,” Mr. Thorne said. “I’m especially concerned for the young master. What can we do to make sure he stays
safe?”

“Don’t worry,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We’ll keep Braeden safe.”

“That’s all well and good, but we have to organize another search party,” Mr. Brahms said again. “I have to find my Clara!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brahms, but I just don’t think that’s going to do any good,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We’ve searched the house and grounds several times
already. There’s got to be something else we can do, something more effective. There has to be answer to this terrible puzzle.…”

Mr. Rostonov turned to Mr. Thorne and touched his arm for assistance.
“Nekotorye ubivayut detyey,”
he said to him.

“Otets, vse v poryadke. My organizuem novyi poisk, Batya,”
Mr. Thorne said in reply.

Serafina remembered that Mr. Bendel had mentioned that Mr. Thorne spoke Russian, but it still surprised her to hear it. Mr. Thorne went on to translate what was going on for Mr. Rostonov and
tried to reassure him.

She thought it was kind of Mr. Thorne to help Mr. Rostonov, but suddenly Mr. Rostonov became very upset and looked at Mr. Thorne in extreme confusion.
“Otets?”
he asked him.
“Batya?”

Mr. Thorne blanched, as if he realized that he’d made a dreadful mistake in his Russian. He tried to apologize, but as he did so, Mr. Rostonov became even more upset. Everything Mr. Thorne
said to him made him more and more agitated.

Serafina watched all of this in fascination. What had Mr. Thorne said to Mr. Rostonov that caused him such anguish?

“Gentlemen, please,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, frustrated with the arguing. “All right, all right, we’ll do it. If that’s what you think should be done, then we’ll
organize another search effort, but this time we’ll search slowly and systematically from one room to the next, and we’ll post guard positions in each room that we’ve
completed.”

The other men heartily agreed with Mr. Vanderbilt’s plan. They were clearly relieved that some sort of agreement had been reached and there was something they could do. The feeling of
uselessness was unbearable. It was a feeling Serafina had in common with them.

The men streamed out of the room to organize the search—all but poor Mr. Rostonov, who remained behind, red-faced and upset.

She frowned. Something wasn’t right.

She had planned to use the air vents to find a way to get down to the first floor and then make her way to the basement to rejoin her pa, but now she had a different idea.

She turned around and crawled quickly back to Braeden’s room. She stopped at the vent cover and listened. When she didn’t hear Mrs. Vanderbilt’s voice, she slowly cracked open
the vent and peeked inside. Gidean stuck his nose into the crack and growled. Surprised, she recoiled, her back arching like a witch’s best friend as she hissed at him. “It’s me,
you stupid dog! I’m on the good side, remember?”
At least I think I am,
she thought, remembering Mr. Pratt’s comment about the evil nature of creatures of the night.

Gidean stopped growling and stepped back, his face happy with relief and his little tail nub wagging.

“Serafina!” Braeden said excitedly as he pulled her out of the vent. “Where did you go? You were supposed to wait for me in there, not crawl away! You’ll get lost in all
those passages! They’re endless!”

“I wasn’t going to get lost,” she said. “I liked it in there.”

“You have to be careful. Didn’t you hear my aunt say that another boy’s gone missing?”

“Your uncle is organizing a search party.”

“How do you know that?”

“Do you know what the Russian word
otets
means?” she asked abruptly, ignoring his question.

“What?”

“
Otets.
Or the word
batya.
What do those words mean?”

“I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

“Do you know anyone who speaks Russian?”

“Mr. Rostonov.”

“Besides him.”

“Mr. Thorne.”

“Definitely besides him. Anyone else?”

“No, but we do have a library.”

“The library…” she said. That was a good idea. “Can we go?”

“You want to go to the library
now
? What for?”

“We need to look something up. I think it’s important.”

She and Braeden crawled rapidly, one behind the other, through the secret passages of the house. For all his talent in befriending animals and his other good qualities, Braeden sounded like a
herd of wild boars trampling through the passage.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Quietly…”

“All right, Little Miss Softpaws,” Braeden retorted, and urged her forward with a push of his head. “Just keep moving.”

For the next few yards through the passage, Braeden made every effort to move more quietly, but he was still too loud.

“I’m going to get in big trouble if my uncle catches us doing this,” Braeden said as they passed another vent.

“He can’t even fit in here,” she said happily.

They crawled past the second-floor living hall and then down the length of the Tapestry Gallery until they reached the south wing of the house.

“There it is,” Braeden said finally.

She peered down through the metal grate into the Biltmore Library Room, with its ornate brass lamps, oak-paneled walls, and plush furniture. The shelves were lined with thousands of books.

“Come on,” she said, and pushed through the grate.

Thirty feet above the floor, Serafina balanced on the high ledge of the hand-carved crown molding that supported the vaulted ceiling, with its famous Italian painting of sunlit clouds and winged
angels. She climbed down the upper shelves like they were the rungs of an easy ladder. From there, she scampered like a tightrope artist along a decorative wrought-iron railing. Darting quickly
over to the high mantel of the massive black marble fireplace, she leapt lightly onto the soft Persian rugs on the floor and landed on her feet.

“That was fun,” she said with satisfaction.

“Speak for yourself,” said Braeden, who was still thirty feet up in the air, clinging desperately to the highest bookshelf, looking scared out of his wits.

“What are you doing up there, Braeden?” she whispered up to him in confusion. “Quit fooling around. Come on!”

“I’m not fooling around,” Braeden said.

She could see now that he was truly terrified. “Put your left foot on the shelf right below you and go from there,” she said.

She watched as he slowly, clumsily climbed down. He did pretty well at first, but then lost his grip on the last bit, fell a short distance, and landed on his bottom with a relieved sigh.