“Wake up, Sera,” her pa said as he shook her shoulder. “You’ve got to get up.”
As she rubbed her sleep-crusted eyes and looked up, her pa was standing over her, his face filled with a frightful scowl.
“What’s wrong, Pa? What time is it?” she asked as she sat up and hurriedly looked around the workshop. “What’s happened?”
“The master is comin’ down.”
“Mr. Vanderbilt down here? Now?”
“What sort of trouble did you get into last night?” her pa asked.
Her stomach dropped at the question, but there was no place to hide. His voice wasn’t angry or accusing, but it was clear he was trying to figure out what was about to happen.
“Serafina,” Mr. Vanderbilt said as he strode through the door and into the workshop.
Startled, Serafina jumped out of bed and quickly straightened her wrinkled dress.
“Don’t worry about that,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “I’m sorry to come down here, but I need to talk to you.”
They caught Braeden, she thought. They caught him bad, and he’s in big trouble for sneaking back to Biltmore. And they know I helped him.
“What’s wrong, sir?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady.
Mr. Vanderbilt shook his head, his hand held to his tightly pressed lips, as if he himself was still trying to comprehend what was happening and how to describe it. She had never seen him this upset.
Seeing the master’s distress, her pa grabbed him a workbench stool to sit on and steady himself, and her pa did the same. It was a right peculiar situation to have Mr. Vanderbilt—the great gentleman of Biltmore Estate—sitting with her and her pa in the basement workshop, but that was the situation she suddenly found herself in.
Mr. Vanderbilt was normally well rested and relaxed, reading his books and enjoying the company of his guests, but today he had a worn, haggard look to him and was filled with the tight breaths and nervous glances of an anxious man.
“I know that you have—” he began.
“Sir, let me explain,” she tried to interrupt, thinking there must be a way to help Braeden through this.
But Mr. Vanderbilt plowed ahead. “I know that you have helped this house in the past,” he said. “When the children went missing a year ago, and the other times as well…”
“Yes…” she said slowly, trying to understand where he was going with all this.
“I think of you as one of Biltmore’s friends, Serafina, one of its protectors,” he said. “You have been especially adept when it comes to…” He paused there, as if he didn’t quite know how to say it, and then he finally said, “Certain kinds of forces.”
Serafina stared at him in shock.
“I need your help,” he said.
“Did something happen, sir?” she asked. “Did you see something?”
“I don’t know what I saw,” he said, wiping his mouth as he glanced over at her pa, then looked back at her.
Serafina’s temples started pulsing. This wasn’t about Braeden. And Mr. Vanderbilt wasn’t angry. He was scared.
“If it’s all right with your father,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, “I would like you to move up onto the second floor. Today. Before nightfall.”
“The second floor?” her pa said in surprise. The second floor was reserved for the Vanderbilt family members.
“The Louis XVI Room,” Mr. Vanderbilt said.
“The room next to the Grand Staircase…” Serafina said slowly, understanding his thinking.
“Yes,” Mr. Vanderbilt said.
“Where I can observe the comings and goings of the house…”
“That’s right.”
“And where I can watch over Mrs. Vanderbilt and Baby Nell…”
“Exactly,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, lifting his dark eyes and gazing at her. “I think it would be best if you were closer to Cornelia’s room than you are now.”
Serafina nodded. If there was danger afoot, then it made perfect sense for her to be up there.
Mr. Vanderbilt turned and looked at her pa. “But we will only do this if we have your father’s permission.”
Her pa looked startled. She suspected that he knew she was different from other people, but he didn’t know exactly what powers she had developed in the last year, or exactly how she had used them. And here was the master of the house asking for her help in matters too dark to say out loud. But if there was one thing her pa understood—if there was one thing he’d taught her—it was loyalty to the ones she loved. If Mr. Vanderbilt needed her, then she had to help.
Her pa looked at her, his dark brown eyes serious and unblinking. “It sounds like there’s a job that needs doing,” he said.
Serafina nodded, understanding, then turned back to Mr. Vanderbilt. “I’ll move upstairs today, sir.”
“And if you’re willing,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, “there’s one more thing I need you to do.”
“Just name it, sir.”
“Starting tonight, I want you to come to dinner in the Banquet Hall each evening.”
“You mean, with all the guests?” she asked in surprise.
“I want you to get a clear view of the people here and their interaction with one another.”
She had no idea how a country cat like her was going to fare in a room chock-full of fancy folk like that, but she said, “I will do it.”
“I know that formal dinners aren’t something you’re used to,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “But I will provide you with the funds to acquire the dresses and shoes and whatever else you need. And I’ll ask Mrs. King to assign a lady’s maid to help you.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but if it’s possible, I would love for Essie Walker to help me. She’s a good friend of mine and she’s helped me before.”
“I’ll talk to Mrs. King about it right away,” he said as he rose to his feet. “Mr. Doddman, the new security manager, and I have business in town to attend to, but I will see you at dinner tonight.”
She wanted to ask Mr. Vanderbilt more questions, to get a better understanding of what had occurred that would cause him to take these actions, but he rose to his feet, quickly thanked her and her pa, and left the room as swiftly as he’d come.
In the wake of his departure, there was an awkward, unsettled air in the room.
“Well,” her pa said finally. “That’s a slug of a thing to wake up to on a Monday morn.”
“It sure is,” Serafina agreed. “The master seemed so scared.”
“Something must have spooked him pretty bad.”
She turned slowly toward her father. “Are you truly all right with me doin’ all this, Pa? I’ll just be upstairs, but I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
“I think you better lend a hand where a hand’s needed,” he said. “For Mr. Vanderbilt’s sake, and for yours, too.”
“Pa?”
“Look, Sera,” he said gently. “I know you’ve been frettin’ away, feelin’ a bit worse for wear, worrying about this and that, jumpin’ at the slightest sound. I can’t say I won’t be down here worrying about ya, but I know ya wanna help up there, and I want ya to.”
“I’ll come down every morning and we’ll eat breakfast together just like we always do.”
Her pa nodded, agreeing, but she could see by the misty squint in his eye that he didn’t want her talking like that anymore.
“You’re a good, girl, Sera,” he said softly. “And I suspect that most of the people up there are decent folk, but stay on your guard. Some of them might not take to you right away—for the wrinkle in your dress, or the keen look in your eye, or for whatever reason—for you being a girl of these mountains instead of wherever they come from. And it’s clear the master’s seen somethin’ unsettling, so keep your wits about ya, ya hear?”
“I hear ya, Pa,” she said. “I hear ya well and good. I’ll be real careful.”
After they ate their breakfast, and her pa slung his tool bag over his shoulder and went off to work, Serafina knew that she had
to tell Braeden right away what was happening.
She ran down the basement corridor and up the narrow stairs to the first floor. In the Main Hall, a party of men and women dressed in hunting jackets and leather boots was just going out through the front doors. She continued on up the wide, curving expanse of the Grand Staircase, the sunlight pouring in through the spiral of slanted windows. As she reached the second floor, she tried to glance into the Louis XVI Room that Mr. Vanderbilt had asked her to move into, but the door was closed and she didn’t have time to linger.
On the way down the second-floor corridor, she passed two uniformed maids coming in the other direction. She had been walking openly in the house for months, but it still felt peculiar to allow herself to be seen. With her long jet-black hair and her unusual amber eyes, they knew who she was, and that she worked for the Vanderbilts, but they did not truly know her, not deep down, and they did not know her purpose. But they knew enough not to bother her.
When she came to the T at the end of the corridor, she paused. To the left, the door to the nursery was ajar, and she could hear Mrs. Vanderbilt singing to Baby Nell. But Serafina slipped down the corridor on the right, past several doors, and finally reached Braeden’s room.
She rapped on the oak door, then turned the knob, saying, “Braeden, you won’t believe what’s happened,” as she entered the room.
But there she stopped cold.
The room was empty.
It was a large corner suite with fine walnut furniture, a carved marble fireplace, maroon damask wallpaper, and windows facing the mountains to the west on one side and the South Terrace on the other. The sunlight pouring into the room made it seem so different than it had been the night before.
Serafina frowned.
The bed was made. None of Braeden’s clothes or shoes or other belongings were lying about. There was no sign at all that he’d been there.
She checked through the small door that led to the bathroom and the water closet, and the other door that led to the clothes closet. Nothing.
She walked over to the bed, checked the nightstand and the dresser, and looked out the window to the terrace below.
The blanket that he had wrapped the deer in the night before was folded neatly, resting on a small table near the window, as if it had never moved.
Perplexed, she got down on the floor and felt the Persian rug with her fingers. Braeden had gone into the lake, so he must have tracked water into the room. But the rug wasn’t wet. Could it have dried so quickly?
She tried to stay calm, but her lips pursed and she began to breathe through her nose as she gazed around in bewilderment at the empty room.
She looked under the bed and into the brass grate that covered the heating shaft that they had once used to escape the room.
She checked all the places she and Braeden had hidden before.
But there was no sign of him.
There was no Braeden at all.
He wasn’t just gone.
It was like he’d never been there.
She rushed headlong out the side door of the house, her mind swirling with confusion as she ran. Was Braeden hiding from his aunt and uncle or did he already go back to New York?
She raced through the garden, hurrying past the finely dressed ladies and gentlemen strolling casually along the flowered paths, and dashed toward the lake.
In the muted light of the cloudy day, the rippled surface of the water looked moody and dull of color, much different from the shining black mirror that had reflected the stars the night before.
When she arrived at the edge of the lake, panting from the run, she went straight to the spot where the campfire had been.
But the campfire wasn’t there.
She stopped and looked around her.
This can’t be….
She studied the ground, but there was no sign that she and Braeden had been there, no ashes or kindling where their campfire had burned, no impressions of their bodies where they had lain on the grass.
Nothing.
She searched up and down the shoreline, but there were no footprints where he had entered the water or come back out after saving the white deer. She looked out across the water and then up toward the hill where the hunters had been.
Could I have imagined it all? Could I have dreamt it?
She growled in frustration. It had felt so real! Had she just wanted Braeden to come home to see her? Had she just wanted to fight an enemy? Was all this just another trick of her mind?
But if Braeden hadn’t actually come home—and if there was truly nothing wrong at Biltmore—then what had Mr. Vanderbilt seen that had frightened him so badly?
Her stomach sank.
What if that hadn’t happened, either?
She thought about Braeden’s ghostlike arrival on the terrace the night before, and the master of Biltmore coming down to the workshop and asking her to move upstairs….
She stared glumly down at the ground.
It all seemed so unlikely now.
At what point did she wake up? Where did the dream end and the reality begin?
As she pulled in a long, ragged breath, a deep and aching loneliness settled into her chest.
She looked out toward the mountains to the north. Was Braeden back on a train to New York? Or had he been up there all along and she had just imagined his return? Or was he here on the property someplace, too frightened to face his aunt and uncle?
And then a darker thought crept into her mind.
What if he had come home last night but then something had happened to him after she left him? Had some sinister new adversary found its way into his bedroom? Should she tell Mr. Vanderbilt everything that had happened during the night and that they should start looking for Braeden?
But was she even certain that he was missing? She’d seen no signs from Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt or any of the servants that there was any kind of worrisome telegram from New York. And there was no way for her to reach Braeden directly without raising too many alarms.
It felt as if her thoughts were fraying in a hundred different directions at once.
Still trying to think it through, she started making her way back toward the house.
It had been an easy, downhill run through the gardens to the lake, but the walk back up was steep, dragging at her legs.
She decided that she would find her pa and ask for his help. If Mr. Vanderbilt’s visit to the workshop had been a figment of her imagination, then he would dispel that notion soon enough. You’ve been makin’ up stories in your head again, girl, he’d say. Better keep your feet on the ground.
She ascended the stone steps and entered the long promenade of the Pergola, with its profusion of wisteria hanging down from the lattice above and its line of vine-entangled columns that overlooked the flowers and trees of the garden. The other side of the Pergola ran along a stone wall adorned with fanciful statues and exotic plants. Gentle spouts of water poured from the mouths of scaly stone fish and mythical creatures, splashing into small bubbling fountains. A clutch of children was leaning into the basin of the nearest fountain, giggling and squealing in excitement as they grasped frantically at what looked like a large frog in the water. But it was perplexing because she had never seen any frogs there before, and it seemed far too late in the year.
She walked past several couples and small groups quietly enjoying the coolness of the Pergola’s leafy shade, but then she noticed someone coming down the path at a hurried tilt. It appeared to be the girl who had arrived with the carriages the day before, walking fast, her long dark brown hair shifting wildly as she glanced behind her. The girl seemed so agitated by whatever was driving her forward, Serafina wasn’t sure she would even notice her, but as they passed each other on the path, the girl looked up and gazed at her with the most striking sapphire-blue eyes Serafina had ever seen.
Serafina reflexively tried to nod politely as they passed, as she had seen the gentle ladies do, but the girl immediately lunged toward her.
“You live here, don’t you?” the girl said, reaching out her hand.
Serafina was surprised by the speed at which the girl had surmised that she was a resident of Biltmore rather than another guest. “I work for the Vanderbilts,” she said. “My name is Serafina.”
“I’m Jess,” the girl said quickly, her attention flitting from Serafina’s eyes to her hair to her clothing, as if rapidly cataloging everything about her. It reminded Serafina of how the girl had studied the details of the house the day before.
Jess wore a well-made slate-blue dress, and it was clear she was educated. As far as Serafina knew, all the new guests were American, mostly Northerners, and Jess certainly seemed American in her appearance and clothing, but it almost sounded as if she spoke with the trace of a foreign accent.
Where are you from? Serafina was about to ask her, but as quickly as the girl had arrived at the Pergola, she was gone again, moving swiftly down the path.
“Be careful, Serafina,” she whispered as she turned the corner around the hedge and disappeared. “And warn the others!”
“Warn the others?” Serafina said to herself as she continued up the stone steps toward the house. What did the girl mean? Warn who about what?
Jess had only arrived the day before. What could she possibly have involved herself in so quickly that she was giving warnings?
Crossing the terrace in front of the house, Serafina passed behind the row of stone columns, each one carved with a different elaborate pattern and topped with griffins, gargoyles, and other fantastical creatures. She entered the house through the small side door that led beneath the sweeping arc of the Grand Staircase, and then went down the narrow servants’ stairs that led to the basement. For every awe-inspiring room in the mansion, there was a smaller, hidden path behind it—like the darkened passageways behind a magnificent theater stage—and she knew them all.
When she arrived in the workshop and saw that her pa wasn’t there, she hurried down the corridor, past the clattering din of the busy kitchens and workrooms, all bustling with servants, and went down the brick stairs into the subbasement.
Serafina and the Seven Stars Page 4
