Serafina and the Splintered Heart Page 11

  She tried to figure out what Braeden meant when he said he was going to get her out of here. Out of the grave? Out of her dead body? She didn’t understand, but at least she knew now, without any doubt, that even after all this time, after all that had happened, he was still her friend, he was still fighting for her, and he still had hope. He had tremendous hope, brighter than the darkest night.

  He was lying on his back now beside the grave and his eyes were open. Gidean crept forward and curled up close beside him, and Braeden put his arm around him. For months, Braeden had been pushing his dog away, ashamed of the boy he had become, but now the rift between them seemed as if it was beginning to heal. Serafina was glad to see them together, but why was it happening here and now? What had changed?

  As Braeden stared up through the opening in the trees, she wondered what he was looking at, what he was thinking about in that moment.

  She went over to him. She did not go near her dead body lying in the grave. She was scared of what might happen if she did that. But she went to his other side.

  As she moved, she noticed a pair of yellow eyes staring from the shadows. The cat’s black fur was nearly invisible in the darkness, but Serafina could see the panther’s face and the outline of her ears. The panther had crept up close and was lying down now, still and quiet, gazing into the glade toward them.

  Serafina slowly made her way over to Braeden and lay down in the dirt next to him.

  Lying on her back beside him, she gazed up through the opening of the angel’s glade into the nighttime sky. She and Braeden were looking up into the stars just like they had when they used to lie on Biltmore’s rooftop together. Those nights seemed so long ago now, like they had been a dream. But it had all been real, and somehow, this was, too.

  Lying side by side, they gazed up at the crystalline black ceiling of the midnight sky. It was a beautifully clear night. They could see thousands of points of light splayed above them, clusters of many stars, Saturn and Mars and Jupiter glowing in all their glory, and the bright swath of the Milky Way galaxy splashed across the glistening heavens.

  They watched the stars and the planets sliding slowly over their heads, marking time so precisely that it was barely perceptible, like a great, steady celestial clock, keeping the time of their inner lives, showing them that out there in the world everything was always changing, but here in the center of the world, where they were lying side by side, everything would always remain the same.

  For the first time, Braeden did not seem upset by her spirit’s presence. With her spirit on one side, her human body on the other, and the panther nearby, all was well again. It had been the terrible separation of the three that had caused him such tearing grief. But now, he lay quietly.

  As Braeden fell asleep beside her, and she fell asleep beside him, she began to slip away, not into a nightmare like before, but into a lovely dream. She dreamed she was a tendril of moving air, flowing from place to place, without weight or body, only movement, constant movement, from forest to home, from mountain to field, she swept and rolled and turned, like the music of a gentle symphony gliding on the breeze.

  For once in a long time, she and Braeden were together, and they were finally at peace.

  When Serafina woke, she found herself lying in the angel’s glade with Braeden and Gidean standing nearby. She quickly got herself up onto her feet to see what was happening.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a male voice asked in a forceful tone.

  Serafina looked around the forest.

  “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone,” Braeden replied. “I swear. Nothing happened.”

  “Something always happens with that thing,” Waysa said as he stepped out of the forest. His long dark hair hung down around his shoulders and his brown skin glistened in the morning light. His chest was bare and he wore simple trousers. The pattern of his tribe’s ancestral tattoos marked his face and arms. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you put on the cloak?”

  “I’m sorry,” Braeden said to him, shaking his head. “I…”

  “What was it?” Waysa demanded. “What happened?”

  “My aunt and uncle were having a party in the rose garden with all the guests—”

  “Oh, yes, that’s a good reason. Lots of excellent victims to choose from,” Waysa said sarcastically.

  “No!” Braeden said. “I was sitting on the bench up on the Library Terrace away from everybody else. And then a strange feeling came over me.”

  “What do you mean, a strange feeling?” Waysa said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I don’t know what it was,” Braeden said. “Terrible sadness and pain…like I was going through it all over again, like she was actually there and she needed my help, but I couldn’t help her. It felt like I could almost reach out and touch her, but I couldn’t. I just felt so hopeless, like all this was never going to end. I thought maybe if I put on the cloak I could find her, reach her somehow, and help her…I had to do something.”

  “But not that!” Waysa said. “Never put it on. It’s too dangerous. Especially now.”

  “I won’t be doing it again, believe me,” Braeden said. “It was awful. I need to find my own way through all this.”

  Waysa nodded, seeming to understand. “You frightened me, my friend,” he said as he walked toward him. The two boys shook hands warmly, with the ease of familiarity, then embraced briefly and separated.

  Serafina was happy to see Waysa here, but it surprised her to see them greet each other so warmly. They had first met during the battle against Uriah and Rowena, but they had not been close. It was a peculiar feeling to have her two friends become friends without her.

  She thought it was interesting how different they looked from each other. Waysa was taller than Braeden, and much physically stronger, with muscled arms and legs. He was a boy of action, taut and fierce. Braeden had lighter hair and a younger, softer face. He was a quiet, polite, smartly dressed boy of the house, with his dog at his side.

  Waysa turned and looked at her body lying the grave. She could see from the moody look in his eyes that he wasn’t in agreement with what Braeden and Gidean had done. “First you put on the cloak, and then you do this…”

  “I don’t understand what comes next, Waysa,” Braeden said. “What are we waiting for? What’s going to happen?”

  But Waysa didn’t reply.

  “That’s all that’s left of her,” Braeden said despondently, pointing at the body in the grave.

  “You know that isn’t true,” Waysa said, setting his jaw.

  “But she’s been buried here since the Loggia. How can this go on?”

  “This is just her human body,” Waysa said. “As long as the angel protects this part of her, then there is hope.”

  “But hope for what? Where’s the rest of her? Where’d she go?”

  “I’m right here!” Serafina said.

  “I’ve seen her,” Waysa said.

  “What?” Serafina said, looking at him in surprise. “You’ve seen me? What are you talking about? You haven’t seen me!”

  “Sometimes she lingers here, near the grave…” Waysa said.

  “Yes, I’m here! I’m here now!”

  “Does she recognize you?” Braeden asked, keenly interested in what Waysa was saying.

  “I don’t honestly know,” Waysa said sadly. “She seems as wild as the forest itself. The last time I saw her, I tried to follow her, but she attacked me.”

  Serafina frowned. They weren’t talking about her spirit. They were talking about the panther.

  Braeden shook his head in sadness. “I’ve seen her from a distance, but she doesn’t come to me…”

  “Her tso-i is split,” Waysa said.

  “I don’t understand what that means,” Braeden said.

  “Her three, her trinity, has been torn apart,” Waysa said, trying to explain it the best he could. “Her a-da-nv-do is gone.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s her heart, her spi
rit,” Waysa said.

  Braeden shook his head as he looked down at her body. “I wish I could have done more for her.”

  “You did all you could do,” Waysa told him.

  “But I didn’t save her…” Braeden said.

  “We don’t know that yet,” Waysa said. “There are still many feet traveling many paths.”

  Braeden looked up at him. “What do you mean? Is something happening? Have you spoken with Serafina’s mother?”

  “No, it’s not that,” Waysa said, shaking his head sadly. “Her mother was devastated by what happened. After Serafina’s death, she lost all hope.”

  “But where is she?” Braeden asked.

  “Everything in these forests reminded her more and more of Serafina: the trees, the rivers, the rocks and sky, even you and me. It was breaking her heart to stay here. She went west with the cubs to the Smoky Mountains to find more of our kind.”

  “I understand,” Braeden said, nodding.

  Serafina listened to Waysa’s story of her mother with fascination. It made her so sad to think that her mother had gone, but she was relieved to hear that she and the cubs were all right.

  Then she thought, Serafina’s death. That was what Waysa had said. That was what they were calling it. Her death.

  Braeden looked at Waysa. “But you didn’t go to the Smoky Mountains with them.”

  “No.”

  “But why?”

  Waysa lifted his eyes and looked at him, almost angry that he would ask him that question. “The same reason you didn’t go to the hospital in New York when your aunt and uncle told you to. The doctors might have been able to fix your leg.”

  “You’re right,” Braeden said. “But what did you mean that there are still many feet traveling many paths?”

  “Something is coming this way,” Waysa said. “I’ve seen a clawed creature with terrible powers. Dark storms have been ripping through the forest each night. The rivers are swelling, destroying everything in their path. And the black folds are increasing. The people of Biltmore are in grave danger.”

  “Is it her?” Braeden asked, a sudden fierceness in his voice.

  “I do not know.”

  “But you’ve seen her again, haven’t you?”

  “No, not since the night she left.”

  Serafina didn’t know who or what they were talking about, but when Waysa said these words his voice was edged with emotion, almost as if he felt guilty about what had happened.

  “Not since you helped her, you mean,” Braeden said, his voice filled with bitterness. “I still don’t understand why you did it.”

  “When I found her in the forest she was bleeding so badly. She couldn’t move or speak. She was going to die, Braeden.”

  “Yes, I know. You should have finished her off!”

  “You don’t understand,” Waysa said. “She wasn’t just suffering from the wounds from the battle on the Loggia. I know what wounds from dog bites and panther claws look like. Something else had gotten her. I found her curled up under a fallen tree, shaking in misery. Something had beaten her savagely, broken her bones, tore into her flesh, even burned her. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Braeden said, fear gathering in his eyes. “You mean, like some sort of animal? Or a wicked curse? What do you mean something else had gotten her?”

  “I don’t know what attacked her, but it was the most disturbing thing I have ever seen,” Waysa said.

  “But she was our enemy, Waysa. Why didn’t you destroy her right then when you had the chance?”

  Waysa looked down at the ground. He didn’t know how to answer Braeden’s question. “You’re right that I may have made a terrible mistake,” he admitted. “But when I saw her there lying on the ground, suffering so badly, I just kept remembering the night Uriah killed my sister. I could not save my sister from death. No matter how hard I fought, I did not have the strength and speed and fierceness I needed to protect her. But as I was looking at this helpless, wounded girl on the ground, I realized that I could save this girl. I have been fighting for a long time now, but that is not what I was before. It’s not all I wish to be. My mother and my grandmother taught me that sometimes you win the battle not by fighting, but by helping and healing. Sometimes there is more than one path to follow. It is not always clear which way to go, but I wanted to follow the du-yu-go-dv-i, the right path, at least the best I could. When I saw Rowena lying there like that, something stayed my claws. Do you understand?”

  For a long time, Braeden did not look at his friend, could not look at him, for he did not want to forgive him, but finally he looked up at him and he nodded. “All right. Tell me what happened next.”

  “I picked her up and carried her to a safe and hidden place. I bound her wounds and I helped her through the days and nights that followed. I gave her water and food and a place to sleep and heal.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “On the night of the quarter moon, I came back and she was gone. She just disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “She slipped away. I looked for her for several nights, but she had become nothing but mist in the swamp.”

  “The creature you spoke of, the storms and the swelling rivers…”

  “I don’t know if she’s causing all that,” Waysa said. “Or if that creature is the thing that attacked her and caused those terrible wounds.”

  Serafina couldn’t help scanning the forest around them. Waysa had seen the storm-creech. And he knew something was coming.

  Braeden looked down again at her body lying in the grave.

  “But is this how it’s all going to end, Waysa?” Braeden asked. “With Serafina in the ground?”

  “We stay bold, my friend, that’s what we do,” Waysa said. “We fight.”

  “Even if we’ve already lost the battle?” Braeden asked in dismay.

  “Especially then,” Waysa said. “This war isn’t over. We stay strong and we stay smart. You still have the cloak, right?”

  “I still have it.”

  “Keep it well hidden. Keep it safe. The cloak is our only hope. And whatever’s coming, we’ll fight it together.”

  Braeden nodded his agreement. “And you keep the panther safe.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Waysa said solemnly. “Stay bold!”

  With this, Waysa leapt into the forest, changed form in midair, and bounded away on four legs.

  Braeden watched Waysa go. He and Gidean remained at the side of the grave alone. He seemed to be thinking about Waysa’s words, trying to understand what he should do next.

  Then he slowly turned back to the coffin and looked at her body in the grave.

  “Come back to me,” he said to her.

  “Believe me, I’m trying,” she said as a pang of sadness moved through her.

  Braeden replaced the lid on the coffin and slowly, almost reluctantly, pushed the dirt back into the grave and reburied her.

  When the work was done and he was about to leave, he looked up at the angel.

  “Take care of her,” he told her, and then he turned and headed back toward Biltmore.

  Serafina wanted to follow him, but she let him go. There was nothing she could do to help him in that direction. She had to join them in their fight against the coming darkness, and she could see only one path to follow.

  That night, Serafina made her way through the bog and crept up on Rowena’s lair. The sorceress had just returned from one of her hunts with a satchel full of herbs she’d collected. She had also captured a flask full of cicadas and flies, which she dutifully fed to her growing clutch of hungry plants. Her hood was down, her long red hair hanging around her shoulders. Her face was solemn like before, filled with thoughts that Serafina could not fathom.

  “I can feel you,” Rowena said as she fed a fly to a carnivorous plant. “There’s no sense lurking out there.”

  “What did you mean when you said much has changed?” Serafina said, staying whe
re she was.

  “Much is always changing,” Rowena said.

  “But what specifically were talking about when you said it?”

  “I meant that you had no idea what had happened since you took your little catnap in the grave.”

  “Then tell me,” Serafina demanded.

  “From the tone of your voice, it sounds like you already know,” Rowena said, seeming to realize that Serafina had seen Braeden and Waysa.

  “No. Not all of it.”

  “You’ve seen all the pieces. You just have to put them together,” Rowena replied. “You just don’t want to accept it.”

  Serafina thought about what she was saying. “You mean that I’m dead.”

  “Of course you are. Or as good as. You’re on your way.”

  “And a dark force is attacking Biltmore…”

  “You already know that. It always has been. Nothing’s changed at all, and yet everything has. The world is circles, and the circles are broken.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Serafina said.

  “There can be no sense in the world to someone who doesn’t want to understand it. You look at me, but you don’t see me. That’s what I meant.”

  “What do you mean I don’t see you?”

  “You see your enemy.”

  “You tried to kill me!”

  “Yes, I did,” she said, almost nonchalantly. “And you me.”

  “Waysa found you and he saved you.”

  “Yes, he did,” Rowena said quietly, her tone guarded, like she didn’t want to talk about it, or her feelings about it, but maybe what Waysa did was the exact point. “There are many paths…”

  “Are you the cause of all these storms in the forest? Are you going to attack us? Are you trying to destroy Biltmore? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m trying to survive.”

  “But you’re speaking in riddles,” Serafina said.

  “Only to a person who thinks the world is a broken thing that she can put back together again,” Rowena said. “Sometimes you can’t fix it. Sometimes you have to hunker down and hold on the best you can.”