Serafina and the Black Cloak (28 page)

Serafina felt her face flash with heat. Suddenly, the image of her mother blurred as the tears welled in her eyes and brimmed over. She released a sigh that turned into a sob, then heaving sobs
that she couldn’t control, and her mother reached for her and pulled her into her arms.

“Oh, kitten, it’s all right,” her mother said, as her own sobs rolled against Serafina.

When Serafina finally spoke, her voice was so weak with emotion that she could only manage one frail and breathless word.

“How?” she asked.

T
he children and adults who had been freed from the cloak began to wander through the graveyard. Some of them spoke to each other, trying to
understand where they were and what had happened to them, but their minds were beset by confusion. Many were too bewildered to speak at all. Nolan and Clara, along with the other children, stayed
nearby; for they recognized Serafina, and they huddled together; but many of the adults wandered off, trying to remember their lives and their families. One man stood staring at a gravestone.

“That’s me,” he said, in shock. “That’s my name. My wife and children must have thought I died.…”

Serafina understood now why some of the graves in the graveyard had no bodies, but she still didn’t understand how the woman standing before her could be her mother.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

The stars glistened in her mother’s mesmerizing eyes. “I am a catamount, Serafina,” she said, her breath filling the icy air as she spoke. “My soul has two
halves.”

Serafina breathed slowly in and out, trying to comprehend what her mother was saying, but it made no sense.

“Come,” Leandra said gently, touching her arm. “Sit here with me for a moment.” They sat on the ground beside the pedestal of the stone angel, facing each other. “I
once lived in a village near here. I was a normal human woman, but I could also change shape into a mountain lion whenever I wished to.”

As Serafina listened to her mother’s story, everything else fell away. The cold air, the gravestones, the other victims of the cloak…Everything disappeared except the quiet,
soothing tone of her mother’s voice.

“I was married to a man who I loved dearly, and we were going to start a family. I was pregnant. He, too, was a catamount, and we spent much of our time together out here in the forest,
running and hunting.”

As her mother spoke, she gently wiped away the snow that was falling onto Serafina’s hair. “But those were difficult times for all of us. The forest in this area was dying, twisted
and withered by an evil force.…”

Serafina looked over at the remnants of the Black Cloak and the scorch marks on the ground.

“One day,” Leandra continued, “I was walking down a path in human form, and I was attacked by an unimaginable darkness.…”

“The Man in the Black Cloak,” Serafina whispered.

“During the battle, he wrapped his cloak around me. I fought for my life, but he was far too strong. My husband heard me screaming and came running. He, too, began to fight, but we were
losing. I saw the Man in the Black Cloak strike your father down. In a matter of seconds, I was going to be overcome in the cloak’s black folds. I was terrified. I feared for the lives of the
babies inside me. I tried to change into a mountain lion to fight him with tooth and claw, but in that instant, the cloak sucked in the human part of my soul. I kept fighting, as fierce as any
mother lion has ever fought, and I finally escaped and fled, but the cloak had torn me asunder.”

“I don’t understand,” Serafina cried. “What do you mean? What is
asunder
?”

“The Black Cloak tore me apart, Serafina. It absorbed the human part of my soul, for that was its purpose, but it had never encountered a catamount before.”

“So you were stuck in your lion form…” Serafina said in amazement.

“Yes,” Leandra said, her voice ragged. “I became sick with grief. I couldn’t find your father and feared that he was dead. My soul, my body, my love—they had all
been torn apart, shredded to pieces. I did not want to live.”

Her mother’s voice faltered from a whisper to nothing at all, but Serafina moved closer to her. “But you were pregnant…” she said, urging her to continue.

“That’s right,” her mother said, lifting her head. “I was pregnant. It was the only thing that kept me going. I gave birth a few months later, but it was not as it should
have been. You were the only one of my four children to survive, and I did not know if you would make it through the night. And what was I to do from there? You were human, and I was not! How could
I care for a human baby?”

“What happened next?” Serafina pleaded.

“That same night, I heard the steps of a man walking through the forest,” her mother said. “Thinking him an enemy, I almost killed him. I circled the stranger in the darkness
and watched him for a long time, trying to look into his heart. Was he a good man? Was there strength in him or weakness? Would he defend his den with tooth and claw? This was not your true father,
but he was a human being, and he was the only choice I had. I made the decision to let him take my baby. I prayed that he would carry you into the human world and make sure that someone took care
of you, for though it broke my heart, I knew that I could not.”

“That was my pa!” Serafina cried out.

Leandra smiled and nodded. “That was your pa. You were curled into a ball and so covered in blood that I barely got a good look at you that night. I honestly didn’t know whether you
would even survive, Serafina, and if you did, I worried that you would be terribly deformed. I had no idea whether you would come out normal.”

Serafina went very quiet, and then she lifted her eyes and looked at her mother. In the frailest of voices, she asked, “Did I?”

Her mother’s face burst with joy, and she threw her arms around her and laughed. “Of course you did, Serafina! You’re beautiful. You’re perfect. Look at you! My God,
I’ve never seen a girl so lovely and perfect in all my life! That night when you were born, I thought that man might take one look at you and drown you in a bucket like an unwanted goat. I
had so many crazy, dreadful worries. But here you are. You’re alive! And you’re perfect in every way.”

When Serafina looked up at the sky, the stars were all glimmering and splotchy as she wiped her tears from her eyes. It felt like her heart was overflowing. She reached out her arms and hugged
her mother. She wrapped her arms tightly around her, feeling her warmth and her strength and her joy and her happiness. And her mother held her close, almost purring, and tears fell from their
cheeks, and the little cubs, Serafina’s half brother and half sister, tumbled around their feet, joining in the family reunion.

“I can see that your pa raised you well, Serafina,” her mother said, separating them a little bit and looking into her face. “When I saw you the first time here in the
cemetery, I thought you were an intruder, and I attacked out of pure instinct. After twelve years, I was far more animal than I was anything else. It wasn’t until tonight when I saw your eyes
up close that I slowly began to realize who you were. And now here you are! And you freed me, Serafina. After twelve years, you have healed my soul. Do you realize that? I am whole again because of
you. I have arms, I have hands, I can laugh, and I can kiss you! You saved me. And just look at you! You are the most perfect kitten I could have ever hoped for: you’re fierce of heart, and
sharp of claw, and fast and beautiful.”

Serafina’s cheeks burned with heat, and her heart filled with pride, but then she looked at the children waiting for her.

“It was the Black Cloak that did all this,” she said.

“Yes.” Her mother looked around at their confused and frightened faces as they huddled together among the graves. “They don’t seem to know what happened to
them.”

“But you do…” Serafina said, looking at her mother.

She nodded. “Only half of my soul was in the Black Cloak.”

“That must have been awful,” Serafina said, trying to imagine it. “But why were all of his most recent victims children?”

“Mr. Thorne lived in this area for many years, avoiding detection by only capturing a soul every so often when he spotted a particular talent he wanted,” her mother said. “But
then something happened. The cloak began to take its toll on him. His body was aging severely every day. He was dying.”

“The skin in the glove…” Serafina gasped.

“He started stealing the souls of children, not just because they had the talents he wanted, but because they had the one thing he most desperately needed.”

“They were young…” Serafina said. “But how did you learn all this?”

Her mother stood, and brought Serafina to her feet with her. “There is much for us to talk about, Serafina,” she said. “But we need to get these children home to their
parents.”

“But…” Serafina said. She wanted to keep talking, wanted to know more, and she was terribly scared that something would take her mother away from her again.

“Don’t worry,” her mother said, touching Serafina’s face gently with her hand. “This isn’t a fleeting run. I’m here now, and I’m whole again. In
the days ahead, I will begin to teach you all that I can, just as a mother should. And you will tell me all about your life, too, to help me come back into the human world that I’ve been
absent from for so long. We are together now, Serafina. We are family and kin, and nothing shall ever break that bond between us again.” Tears streamed down her mother’s cheeks.
“More than anything right now, I just want you to know how much I love you. I love you, Serafina. I have always loved you.”

“I love you, too, Momma,” she said, her voice cracking as she wrapped her arms around her and wept in her mother’s arms.

S
erafina stood in the cover of the trees at the edge of the forest and looked toward Biltmore Estate. The sun was just rising in a clear blue sky,
casting a golden light on the front walls of the mansion.

A large group of men and women on foot and on horseback were gathering together. There were ladies and gentlemen, servants and workmen, and there was an urgency in their movements.

They’re organizing a search,
Serafina thought.

Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt stood among them, their faces troubled with the news of yet another missing child. Mrs. Brahms stood with her husband, who was dressed in rugged clothing and ready to
trek into the forest. Mr. Rostonov was there as well, holding his daughter’s dog in his arms. Even the young maid and the footman, Miss Whitney and Mr. Pratt, had come out to help, along with
the chief cook, the butler and his assistant boy, and many of the other household servants and men from the stables.

“If we’re going to find her, we have to move quickly,” Braeden shouted as he mounted his horse in one swift, confident movement.

Serafina’s heart swelled when she saw him. That’s when she realized what she was seeing.
Braeden
had organized the search. They were going out into the forest to search for
her
.

“Everyone, please gather around,” Braeden called from atop his horse. She had never seen him so bold, so filled with leadership and determination. Rich or poor, guest or servant, he
had brought them all together. It sent a wave of warmth through her cold, tired body.

Then she saw her pa. He must have woken up in the morning and discovered she was gone. Overcoming his fear of discovery, he went to the Vanderbilts for help, even though he knew it would expose
her existence and betray the fact that they were living in the basement.

Braeden turned and gestured to the dog handlers. “Give them this,” he said as he tossed a piece of clothing to the lead handler. It was her old shirt-dress. The four brindled Plott
hounds bayed like it was a coon hunt.

“I looked for Mr. Thorne so that he could join us in the search,” Mr. Bendel said from atop his thoroughbred. “But I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

And you’re not going to,
Serafina thought with satisfaction as she watched the search party gather.
Ever.

“Mr. Bendel, if you would, please take that group there and go east,” Braeden said. “Uncle, perhaps you could take your footmen and go west.” Braeden turned to the dog
handlers. “When I put Gidean on Serafina’s scent, he ran straight north, so that’s where we’ll try to pick up her trail.…” Braeden turned in his saddle and
pointed in that direction.