Serafina and the Black Cloak (20 page)

“You made it,” she said cheerfully, touching his shoulder in congratulations.

He smiled. “Let’s just use the normal door next time, all right?”

She smiled and nodded. She liked how he was already thinking there was going to be a next time.

She gazed around at all the books lining the shelves. She’d never been here in the light of day. She thought back to all the books her pa had brought her, and how she would spend hours
poring over the pages under his guidance, sounding out the letters until they became words and sentences and thoughts in her mind. Always wanting more, she would keep reading long after he’d
gone to sleep. Over the years, she’d read hundreds of books, each one opening a whole new world to her. She marveled at how this one room contained the thoughts and voices of thousands of
writers, people who had lived in different countries and different times, people who had told stories of the heart and of the mind, people who had studied ancient civilizations, the species of
plants, and the flow of rivers. Her pa had told her that Mr. Vanderbilt had many keen interests and studied the books in his library; he was considered one of the most well-read men in America. As
she looked around the room at all the leather-bound tomes, the intricate knickknacks on the tables, and the inviting soft furniture, it felt like she could spend hours here just exploring and
reading and taking afternoon naps.

“That’s Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal chess set,” Braeden said when he noticed her looking at the ornately carved pieces arranged in perfect rows on a delicate
rectangular table. She didn’t know who Napoleon Bonaparte was, but she thought it would be great fun pushing the beautiful pieces off the edge of the table and watching them fall to the
floor.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a small, dark oil painting in a wooden frame sitting on one of the tables among a collection of other items. The painting was so faded and
worn that it was difficult to make out, but it appeared to depict a mountain lion stalking through the undergrowth of a forest.

“I think it’s supposed to be a catamount,” Braeden said, looking over her shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“My uncle said that years ago the local people used to use the phrase
cat of the mountains
, but over time it was shortened to
cat-a-the-mountains
, and eventually it became
catamount
.”

As Braeden spoke, she leaned close to the painting and tried to make out the details. It was difficult to tell, but the shadow of the cat looked weird and all ajumble in the bushes behind it. It
almost seemed like the lion was casting the shadow of a human being. She vaguely remembered the remnants of an old folktale that she’d heard years before.

“Are catamounts changers of some sort?” she asked.

“I don’t know. My uncle bought the painting in a local shop. My aunt thinks it’s ugly and wants to get rid of it,” Braeden said, then pulled her away. “Come on. You
wanted to know the meaning of a Russian word. Let’s look it up.” He led her to the corner behind the huge brass globe. “The foreign languages are over here.” He scanned the
titles of the books, saying each one as if he enjoyed the sound of the words. “
Arabic
,
Bulgarian
,
Cherokee
,
Deutsch
,
Español
.” It was clear
that Braeden’s uncle, who was fluent in eight languages, had taught him a few things. Now that they were in the world of words and books rather than scaling the precipitous heights, Braeden
was back in his element. “
French
,
Greek
,
Hindi
,
Italiano
,
Japanese
,
Kurdish
,
Latin
,
Manx
—”

“I like the sound of that one,” Serafina interjected.

“Some sort of old Celtic language, I think,” Braeden said before continuing. “
Norman
,
Ojibwa
,
Polish
,
Quechua
,
Romanian
. Got it. Here it is.
Russian!
”

“Great. Look up the word
otets
.”

“How do you spell it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We’ll have to go by the sound of it…” he said as he flipped through the pages until he came to the spot he wanted. “Nope, that’s not it.” He tried
another guess. “Nope, that’s not it, either. Oh, here it is.
Otets
.”

“That’s it!” she said, grasping his arm. “That’s what Mr. Thorne called Mr. Rostonov that upset him so badly. Is it some kind of terrible insult or accusation? Is
it a sharp-fanged demon or something?”

“Umm…” Braeden said, frowning as he read the entry. “Not exactly.”

“Well, what’s it mean?”

“Father.”

“What?”

“
Otets
means ‘father’ in Russian,” Braeden said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand. Maybe you misunderstood what Mr. Thorne said. Why would he call
Mr. Rostonov ‘Father’?”

She had no idea, but she pushed closer to get a better view of the entry in the book.

“I can’t imagine Mr. Thorne making a mistake like that,” Braeden said. “He’s very smart. You should see him play chess. He even beats my uncle, and
nobody
beats my uncle.”

“He seems to be amazing at nearly everything,” she scoffed.

“Well, you don’t have to be mean about it. He’s a good man.”

She took the book from Braeden and kept reading. It explained that
otets
was the formal way a child would address a parent in public. But the more intimate way, used only within the
family, was the word
batya
, which translated roughly to “daddy” or “papa.”

She frowned in confusion.

They were the same age and completely unrelated. Why in the world would Mr. Thorne repeatedly address Mr. Rostonov as his papa?

A
s Serafina and Braeden crawled back into the ventilation system, she asked, “Do you know all the gentlemen who are currently guests at
Biltmore?”

“I’ve met most of them,” Braeden said as he closed up the vent cover behind them, “but not all of them.”

“Do you know which rooms they’re staying in?” she asked as they made their way on their hands and knees along the shaft back toward his bedroom.

“The guests are on the third floor. Servants live on the fourth.”

“But do you know the specific rooms?”

“I know some of them. My aunt put Mr. Bendel in the Raphael Room. The Brahmses are in the Earlom Room and Mr. Rostonov is in the Morland Room. It goes on and on. Why?”

“I have an idea. If the Man in the Black Cloak is one of the gentlemen at Biltmore, then he needs to store his cloak someplace when he’s not using it. I’ve checked the closets
and coatrooms on the first floor, but I want to check the bedrooms, too.”

“You want to sneak into people’s private bedrooms?” Braeden asked hesitantly.

“They won’t know,” Serafina pointed out. “As long as we’re careful, they won’t catch us.”

“But we’ll be looking through their private belongings.…”

“Yes, but we need to help Clara and the others. And we need to stop the Man in the Black Cloak from doing this again.”

Braeden pursed his lips. He didn’t like this idea. “Isn’t there some other way?”

“We just need to look,” she said.

Finally, he nodded his head.

Serafina followed Braeden along the shaft. Mr. Vanderbilt had called in private detectives, who now stood guard at various points in the corridors of the house. As long as they stayed in the
ventilation system they were safe, but moving through the other parts of the house unseen was going to be far more difficult than before.

Serafina could tell that all the searches and the presence of the detectives weren’t bringing solace to Biltmore’s anxious inhabitants. She sensed that both the guests and the
servants were losing hope. From what she overheard people saying to one another, there was an increasing sense that the children weren’t just missing but dead. She had to defend her own heart
from the same terrible conclusion. She’d seen them vanish, but her pa had told her that everyone had to be someplace. Even dead bodies had to be someplace.
We’ve got to keep
looking,
she kept telling herself.
We can’t give up. We’ve got to help them.
But when the members of the various search parties began to return without any sign of the
children, people were more disheartened than ever.

Serafina and Braeden snuck into the Raphael Room and looked through Mr. Bendel’s belongings.

“Mr. Bendel is always so cheerful,” Braeden said. “I don’t see how he could have hurt anyone.”

“Just keep looking,” she whispered, determined to stay focused.

She found all sorts of expensive clothing in Mr. Bendel’s finely decorated traveling chests, including many stylish gloves and a long, dark gray cloak, but it wasn’t the Black
Cloak.

Next, they checked the Van Dyck Room, with its finely detailed terra-cotta-colored wallpaper, its dark mahogany furniture, and many paintings hanging by wires on the walls. “Mr. Thorne has
always been very kind to me,” Braeden said. “I don’t see how it could possibly be him.”

Ignoring him, Serafina searched the room as thoroughly as she could, digging through all of the old chests that he’d left unlocked. She found no trace of the cloak.

“You like him too much,” she said as she searched under the mahogany bed.

“I do not,” Braeden protested.

“We’ll see.”

“He saved Gidean’s life when Mr. Crankshod was going to kill him with an ax,” Braeden said.

Serafina frowned. In Braeden’s mind, the man who saved his dog could do no wrong. When they heard someone coming, they darted back into the ventilation shaft as quickly as they could.

“I don’t think it’s any of the gentlemen at Biltmore,” Braeden said as they made their way to the next room. “It must be some kind of demon from the forest like we
were talking about before, or maybe it’s a stranger from the city who isn’t known to us.”

Serafina agreed that the lack of clues was discouraging, but there were still at least a dozen more rooms to check. They moved on to the Sheraton Room and the Old English Room.

When they searched the Morland Room, she looked into each of Mr. Rostonov’s beautiful, hand-painted traveling cases. Her heart filled with sadness when she found a chest filled with lovely
Russian dresses. They were such amazing gowns, with deep frills and exotic patterns.

“It doesn’t feel right to be here,” Braeden said uncomfortably.

As they were crawling through a shaft to the next room, they heard several women talking in a hallway on the level below. They shinnied down a shaft to get a closer look.

“That’s my aunt’s room,” Braeden said nervously.

“Let’s stay quiet…” Serafina whispered, then peered through a grate to look into the room.

When Serafina looked down into Mrs. Vanderbilt’s room, she beheld the glittering purple-and-gold French-style bedroom, with its elegant, curvy furniture and fancifully trimmed mirrors. She
thought it was the most beautiful room she had ever seen. It wasn’t rectangular in shape like a normal room, but oval. The gold silk walls, the bright windows, and even the delicately painted
doors were curved along the lines of the oval. The bed coverings, draperies, and furniture upholstery were all finely cut purple velvet. The room positively glowed with sunlight, and she would have
loved to curl up on Mrs. Vanderbilt’s bed. She was just about to suggest to Braeden that they risk climbing into the room when Braeden grabbed her arm.

“Wait. There’s my aunt,” he said as Mrs. Vanderbilt came slowly into the room, followed by her lady’s maid and her household assistant.

“These are such lonely and frightening times,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said with sadness. “I would like to do something for the families, something to bring everyone together and
strengthen our spirits. This evening, we’ll gather in the Banquet Hall at seven o’clock. The electric lighting still isn’t working, so stoke up the fires and bring in as many
candles and oil lamps as you can. Arrange it with the kitchen so that we can provide everyone with something to eat. It won’t be a formal sit-down dinner or any sort of party, mind you;
it’s just not the appropriate time for that, but we must do something.”

“I’ll go down to the kitchens and talk to the cook,” her assistant said.

“I think it’s important that we gain the comfort of spending some time together, whether we’re frightened, grieving, or still holding on to hope,” Mrs. Vanderbilt
said.

“Yes, ma’am,” her lady’s maid said.

Serafina thought it was kind of Mrs. Vanderbilt to arrange the gathering.

It was well known at Biltmore that Mrs. Vanderbilt liked to learn the names and faces of all the children of both the guests and servants, and when Christmas came, she and her lady’s maid
would go shopping in Asheville and the surrounding villages and buy each one of the children a special gift. Sometimes, if she heard that a child wanted a particular present that wasn’t
available in the area, Mrs. Vanderbilt would send away to New York for it, and it would miraculously arrive a few days later on the train. On Christmas morning, she would invite all the families to
gather around the Christmas tree, where she would hand each child his or her gift: a porcelain-faced doll, a soft toy bear, a pocketknife—it all depended on the child. Serafina remembered her
own Christmas mornings, sitting in the basement, curled up on the stone floor at the bottom of the stairs, listening to the children laughing and playing with their toys above her.