Serafina and the Black Cloak Page 5

  “But why?” Serafina cried in outrage. “That’s terrible! That’s so mean!” Just because something looked different didn’t mean you just threw it away. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of world it was out there. The attitude of the midwives almost bothered her more than the idea of a yellow-eyed beast lurking in the night. But she felt a renewed glimmer of admiration for her pa as she imagined his huge, warm hands wrapped around that tiny little baby’s body, giving it heat, keeping it alive.

  Her father took a long, deep, troubled breath as he remembered that night, and then he continued his story. “You have to understand the poor little thing had been born with her eyes closed, Sera, and the nuns said that she would never see. She’d been born deaf, and they said she would never hear. And it was plain enough to see that she had four toes on each foot instead of five, but that was the least of it. Her collarbones were malformed, and she had an unnaturally long, curving spine—all twisted-like—and she did not look like she could survive.”

  The shock hit her like a blow. She looked up at her father in astonishment. “I’m the baby!” she shouted, leaping to her feet. This wasn’t just a story, this was her story. She’d been born in the forest. That meant her pa had found her and taken her in. She was like a baby fox who’d been raised by a coyote. She stood in front of her pa. “I’m the baby!” she said again.

  Her father looked at her, and she saw the truth of it flickering in his eyes, but he didn’t acknowledge it. He didn’t say yes and didn’t say no. It was like he couldn’t reconcile his memory of that dark night with the daughter he had now, and he had to tell the story the only way he could: as if it wasn’t her at all.

  “The bones of the baby’s back weren’t connected to each other the way they should have been,” he continued. “The nuns were half scared out of their wits at the idea of caring for this child, like it was some sort of demon spawn, but to me she was a little baby, a little chitlan, and you didn’t abandon such a thing. Who cares how many toes she had!”

  Serafina kneeled on the floor in front of him, trying to understand it all. She was beginning to see the kind of man her father was and maybe where she got some of her own stick-to-it-iveness. But it was all so confusing. How could she get anything from him if she wasn’t even his?

  “I took that baby away, fearin’ them nuns would drown her,” he said.

  “I hate them nuns,” she spat. “They’re terrible!”

  He shook his head, not in disagreement, but more like the nuns didn’t mean anything at all because they were the least of his problems.

  “I didn’t have any proper food,” he said, “so I crept into a farmer’s barn and milked his goat—stole a bottle, too. Felt ashamed doin’ these things, but I needed to get some food into her, and I couldn’t see a better road. That night, I fed the little chitlan her first meal, and as bad off as she was, and with her eyes still closed, she drank it down real good, and I remember praying that somehow it’d help. The more I held her and watched her suck down that milk, the more I wanted her to live.”

  “Then what happened?” She slid closer to him. She knew that outside the locked door of the electrical room, somewhere above them, the lawful inhabitants of Biltmore Estate were searching from room to room, but she didn’t care. “Keep goin’, Pa,” she nudged.

  “I looked for a woman who could mother the baby proper, but none of them would do it. They was sure she was gonna die. But two weeks later, while I was fixin’ an engine with one hand and bottle-feedin’ the chitlan with the other, somethin’ happened. She opened her eyes for the first time and stared straight at me. All I could do was stare right back at her. She had these big, beautiful yellow eyes that just didn’t stop. I knew then and there that I was hers, and she was mine, that we were kin now, and there was no denyin’ it.”

  Serafina was so mesmerized by his story that she barely blinked. The yellow eyes that her father spoke of were still looking at him, and they had been for twelve years.

  He rubbed his mouth slowly with his hand, looked over at the dynamo, and then continued the story. “In the time that followed, I fed the little chitlan every morning and every night. I slept with her tucked under my arm. I nestled her in an open toolbox beside me when I worked. When she started growing up a little, I taught her how to crawl and run about. I was tryin’ my best to take good care of her—she was mine now, you see—but people started askin’ questions and government types started comin’ around. Men with badges and guns. One night when I was out workin’ in the train yard, three of ’em waited until she wandered off a bit, and then they cornered her, trapped her in real tight. They was gonna take her away and put her someplace, God knows where, or maybe worse. I hit the first officer so hard that he went down bleeding and he didn’t get up, then I struck the second one and grabbed for the third, but he skedaddled on outta there. The little chitlan was all right, thank God, but I knew we were in trouble. They’d be comin’ back with more men next time, chains for me, and a cage for the chitlan. I knew then that we had to go. We had to escape the pryin’ eyes and yammerin’ mouths in the city, so I quit the train yard and found a new job way up in the mountains, workin’ the construction of a great house.”

  She gasped as she realized that he hadn’t just been hiding her; he’d been hiding them. That’s why we’re in the basement, she thought as a wave of relief passed through her. He was protecting her.

  “I took care of her through good times and bad,” her pa continued, “just doin’ everything I could, and over the years, the strange little creature that I found in the forest grew up into a fine little girl, and I did my best to forget how she came into the world or how I got her.”

  And here, finally, her father paused and looked at her in earnest. “And that’s you now, Sera,” he said. “That’s you. It’s plain to see that you’re not like other girls, but you’re not misshapen or hideous like them nuns said you’d be. You’re remarkably graceful in your movements—fast and agile like I’ve never seen. You’re not deaf and blind like they said, but real sharp in your senses. I’ve been protecting you every day for the last twelve years, and the God’s truth: they’ve been the best twelve years of my life. You mean the world to me, girl. There’s no shame here, none at all, just a strong desire to keep us both alive.”

  When he stopped and looked at her with his steady dark eyes, she realized that she’d been sobbing, and quickly wiped the tears off of her face before he got mad at her for crying. In some ways, she had never felt closer to her pa than at that moment, for his story had snagged her heart, but there was something else roiling up inside her, too: her father wasn’t her father. He’d found her in the woods and taken her. He’d been lying to her and everyone else for her entire life. All these years he’d refused to talk about her mother, just let her wonder on and on, and now here it was. The truth. Tears kept streaming down her face. She felt so stupid imagining fancy ladies and her mother forgetting her in a washing machine and all that stuff she used to think about when she was little. She’d spent countless hours wondering where she came from and he had known all this the whole time.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him.

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Pa?” she asked again.

  Staring at the ground, he shook his head slowly back and forth.

  “Pa…”

  Finally, he said, “Because I didn’t want it to be true.”

  She stopped and looked at him in shock. “But it is true, Pa. You can’t just wish things aren’t true when they are true!”

  “I’m sorry, Sera,” he said. “I just wanted you to be my little girl.”

  She was angry, very angry, but she felt a lump in her throat. He had finally reached deep down into his heart and told her what he was thinking, what he was feeling, what he was frightened of, and what he dreamed of.

  And what he dreamed of was her.

  She clenched her teeth and breathed through her nose and looked at him.
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  She was angry and confused and amazed and excited and frightened all at the same time. She finally knew the truth. At least some of it.

  Now she knew that she didn’t just feel different, she was different.

  The thought of it terrified her: she was a creature of the night.

  She came from the very forest that her pa had taught her to fear all her life and had forbidden her to enter. The thought of coming from that place repulsed her, scared her, but at the same time there was a strange confirmation in it, almost a relief. It made a twisted kind of sense to her.

  She looked at her father, sitting with his back against the wall. Now that he had finally told her the story, he seemed exhausted, like a man who had shared a great burden.

  He picked himself up off the floor, brushed off his hands, and walked slowly to the other side of the room, deep in thought.

  “I’m sorry, Sera,” he said. “I reckon it ain’t gonna do ya no good on the inside knowin’ all that, but you’re right, you’re growin’ up now, and ya deserved to know.” He came over to her and squatted down and held her so that he could look into her face. “But whatever you do with it, I want you to remember this one thing: there’s nothin’ wrong with you, Sera, nothin’ at all, you hear?”

  “Yeah, I hear, Pa,” she said, nodding and wiping the tears from her eyes. There was turmoil in her heart, but one thing she knew for sure: her father believed in her. But even as she stood there looking at him, thoughts and questions started weaving through her mind.

  Would she have to stay hidden forever? Could she ever fit in with the people of Biltmore? Could she ever make any friends? She was a creature of the night, but what did that mean she could do? She looked down at her hand. If she grew out her fingernails, would they become claws?

  In the distance she could hear the sound of the search party moving through the basement, and she tried to block it out. She looked over at her father again. After a long pause, she quietly asked the question that had been forming in her mind.

  “What about my mother?”

  Her pa shut his eyes for a second as he took a good, long breath, and then he opened his eyes, looked at her, and spoke to her with unusual softness. “I’m sorry, Sera. The truth is I don’t rightly know. But when I see her in my mind, I think she must have been beautiful, both lovely and strong. She fought hard to bring you into the world, Sera, and she wanted to stay with you, but she knew she couldn’t. I don’t know why she couldn’t. But she gave you to me to love and take care of, and for that I’m much obliged.”

  “So maybe she’s still out there someplace.…” Her voice trembled, uncertain. Her pa’s story had made it feel like there was a tornado twisting inside of her, but the thought of her momma felt like the bursting of the sun.

  “Maybe she is,” he relented, gently.

  She looked at him. “Pa, do you…do you think that…do you know if she was human or—”

  “I don’t want to hear any talk ’bout that,” he interrupted her, shaking his head. She could see in the tightness of his mouth how upset her question made him. “You’re my little girl,” he said. “That’s what I believe.”

  “But in the forest—” she began.

  “No,” he cut off her, “I don’t want you to think about that. You live here. With me. This is your home. I’ve told ya before, and I’ll tell ya again, Sera: our world is filled with many mysteries, things we don’t understand. Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, both dark and bright, and they will ensnare your soul.”

  She stared at her pa for a long time, trying to comprehend his words. She could see the seriousness in his eyes, and she felt it, too, deep down in her heart. Her pa was the only person she’d ever had in the world.

  She heard men coming down the corridor outside the door. They were searching the rooms of the subbasement. The hair on her arms tingled, telling her to run.

  She looked at her pa. After all he’d done for her by telling her this story, she didn’t want to bring it up again, didn’t want to make him angry, but she had to ask one last question.

  “What about the man who took the girl in the yellow dress? What kind of demon is he, Pa? Does he come out of the forest, or do you think he’s one of the fancy-dressed swells from upstairs?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been prayin’ to God in heaven that it was a figment of your imagination.”

  “It wasn’t, Pa,” she said softly.

  He didn’t want to argue with her anymore, but he looked straight at her. “Don’t get it in your head you’re gonna go out there, Sera,” he said. “It’s just too dangerous for us. You see why now. I know you’re hankering to help her, and that does ya credit, but don’t worry about the girl. She’s their kin, not ours. They don’t need our help. They’ll find her. You stay out of it.”

  At that moment, someone pounded on the heavy wooden door to the electrical room.

  “We’re searching the house!” a man shouted.

  Serafina glanced around even though she already knew there was no way out of the room.

  “Open this door!” shouted another man. “Open up!”

  The moment her pa opened the door, Mr. Boseman and two other men stormed into the electrical room. Serafina clung to the metal racks on the ceiling, hidden among the hundreds of thick copper wires that ran to the floors above.

  While her pa launched into an elaborate explanation of exactly how a dynamo generated electricity to the bewildered men, Serafina crawled along the ceiling, dropped silently to the floor behind them, and darted out the open door.

  She dashed down the corridor and crawled into a small coal chute, then curled up in the darkness and hunkered down.

  She’d always had a hankering for sitting quietly in dark, confined spaces. As she peered out of the blackness through a small hole in the chute’s iron door and watched the searchers go by one way and then the other, her mind kept going back to the story that her pa had told her about her birth. It infuriated her that he’d waited this long to tell her. Could it really be true? Had she actually been born on the ground one night out in the darkness of the forest? Her momma, whoever she was, must have been very brave.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she reckoned that maybe her momma didn’t just go sauntering into the forest that night to give birth. Maybe she already lived there. And if that was true, then what kind of creature had her mother been? And what kind of creature did that make her? What if her pa had been wrong to take her?

  It was all so confusing. She felt more unsettled and disjointed than ever. Suddenly, her pa wasn’t her pa and Biltmore wasn’t her home. And she still didn’t have a momma.

  She knew now that her pa had been hiding her because he was scared of what people would do to her. But it still confused her because her pa loved her, so couldn’t other people love her, too? What difference did it make when you slept and when you hunted? It seemed like everyone must love the feeling of lying in the warm sunlight of a window, or seeing a bird fly across the sky, or taking a walk on a cool, moonlit night when all the stars were overhead. She wasn’t sure if most boys and girls her age could catch one rat or two with their bare hands, but she didn’t think that it was too strange a thing either way.

  As another search party moved past her, Serafina watched them and shook her head. If Clara Brahms was alive and wanted to hide, there were plenty of places for her to do so. Adults, even a hundred of them running around in a panic, didn’t seem to grasp all that was possible in a place like Biltmore. There were thousands of places to hide. She hoped they would somehow find Clara, despite what she had seen happen the night before, but she didn’t think they would. Clara Brahms was gone.

  You’re too loud and moving too fast, she thought as the searchers went by. You’re never going to find her that way. You’ve got to catch the rat.

  Her pa had told her to leave them to it, that it wasn’t any of her business, that they weren’t her kin, but who was he to
say who was kin and who wasn’t? He stole babies out of the woods! What if Clara was still alive and needed her help? How could she just sit there and watch? What if the Man in the Black Cloak came again and took someone else? She resolved that she needed to find Braeden Vanderbilt again and tell him what she’d seen. It wouldn’t be right not to. She’d always dreamed of having a friend, but what kind of friend was she going to be to Clara Brahms if she didn’t try to help her?

  When the corridor was clear, she crawled out of the chute and snuck away. Her plan was to creep upstairs, but when she passed the mossy stairway that led down to the lower levels of the basement, she wondered if there’d be any sign of what had happened the night before. The young master would be far more likely to believe her story if she could bring him some sort of evidence of what she’d seen.

  She slinked down the stairs, down and down again, into the damp darkness of the subbasement until she came to the slanted, brown-dripping corridor.

  She couldn’t stop her breathing from getting heavier, but she kept going, telling herself that she’d be safe.

  She crept through the darkness until she came to the spot where she’d seen the Man in the Black Cloak. There was no sign of Clara Brahms, but there were red drips on the wall. On the floor she found a tiny shard of glass. From the broken lantern, she thought.

  She searched the area but found nothing else.

  On her way back, she followed the same series of corridors she had used to escape the demon or whatever it was. She studied the areas where she had battled for her life. She spotted something lying at the base of the wall that, at first glance, looked like a dead, rotting rat. It had the size and color of one of the nasty vermin, but as she took a step closer, her nose wrinkled. It gave off a putrid, foul smell, but it wasn’t a rat. She clenched her teeth and got down onto her hands and knees and examined it. It was a glove lying crumpled on the floor. Images of the Black Cloak swirling around her rose up in her mind, the cloak cutting her off from all she knew and loved.