Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series)

by Robert Beatty

  Whatever it was, it was coming.

  And it was coming now.

  A moment later, a sound in the distance tickled Serafina’s ear. It wasn’t sparrow wings, like she’d heard before, but something earthbound. She tilted her head and listened for it again. It seemed to be coming from down in the valley.

  She stood, faced the sound, and cupped her hands round the back of her ears, a trick she’d learned from mimicking a bat.

  She heard the faint jangle of harnesses and the clip-clop of hooves. Her stomach tightened. It was a strange sound to encounter in the middle of the night. A team of horses pulling a carriage was making its way up the three-mile-long winding road towards the house. In the daytime, there would be nothing unusual about that. But no one ever came to Biltmore at night. Something was wrong. Was it a messenger bearing bad news? Had someone died? Was the North going to war with the South again? What calamity had befallen the world?

  Pulling back from the rocky ledge, she hurried down into the valley and made her way through the forest to one of the arched brick bridges where the road crossed over the stream. She watched from the concealing leaves of the mountain laurel as an old, road-beaten carriage passed by. Most carriages had one or two horses, but this was pulled by four dark brown stallions with powerful, bulging muscles, their hides glistening with sweat in the moonlight and their nostrils flaring.

  She swallowed hard. That isn’t a messenger.

  Braeden had told her that stallions were wild and notoriously difficult – they kicked their handlers and bit people, and especially hated other stallions – but here were four of them pulling a carriage in unison.

  When she looked at who was driving the carriage, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The carriage bench was empty. The horses were all cantering together in a forceful rhythm, as if by the rein of a master, but there was no driver to be seen.

  Serafina clenched her teeth. This was all wrong. She could feel it in her core. The carriage was heading straight for Biltmore, where everyone was fast asleep and had no idea it was coming.

  As the carriage rounded a bend and went out of sight, Serafina broke into a run and followed.

  She ran through the forest, tracking the carriage as it travelled down the winding road. The cotton dress Mrs Vanderbilt had given her wasn’t too long, so it was easy to run in, but keeping pace with the horses was surprisingly difficult. She tore through the forest, leaping over fallen logs and bounding over ferns. She jumped gullies and climbed hills. She took shortcuts, taking advantage of the road’s meandering path. Her chest began to heave as she pulled in great gulps of air. Despite the trepidation she had felt moments before, the challenge of keeping up with the horses made her smile and then made her laugh, which made it all the more difficult to breathe when she was trying to run. Leaping and darting, she loved the thrill of the chase.

  Then, all of a sudden, the horses slowed.

  Serafina pulled herself short and hunkered down.

  The horses came to a stop.

  She ducked behind a clump of rhododendrons a stone’s throw from the carriage and concealed herself as she tried to catch her breath.

  Why is the carriage stopping?

  The horses anxiously shifted their hooves, and steam poured from their nostrils.

  Her heart pounded as she watched the carriage.

  The handle of the carriage door turned.

  She crouched low to the ground.

  The carriage door swung slowly open.

  She thought she could see two figures inside, but then there was a roil of darkness like she’d never seen before – a shadow so black and fleeting that it was impossible for even her eyes to make it out.

  A tall and sinewy man in a wide-brimmed leather hat and a dark, weather-beaten coat emerged from the carriage. He had long, knotty grey hair and a grey moustache and beard that reminded her of moss hanging from a craggy tree. As he climbed down from the carriage and stood on the road, he held a gnarled walking stick and gazed out into the forest.

  Behind him, a vicious-looking wolfhound slunk down from the carriage onto the ground. Then another followed. The hounds had large, lanky bodies, massive heads with black eyes, and ratty, thick blackish-grey fur. Five dogs in all came forth from the carriage and stood together, scanning the forest for something to kill.

  Afraid to make even the slightest sound, Serafina took in a slow, ragged breath as carefully and quietly as she possibly could. The beat of her heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to run. Just stay still, she ordered herself. Stay very still. She was sure that as long as she didn’t break cover, they wouldn’t see her.

  She wasn’t certain what it was – maybe his long, frayed coat and the worn state of his carriage – but the man seemed as if he’d travelled a long distance. It surprised her when he shut the carriage door, stepped away and looked at the horses. The stallions immediately broke into a run like they had been whipped. The carriage soon disappeared down the road, taking whoever remained inside onward towards Biltmore but leaving the bearded man and his dogs behind in the forest. The man did not appear to be dismayed or upset by this, but acted as though this forest was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Saying words Serafina could not understand, he gathered his pack of dogs around him. They were foul beasts with massive paws and thick claws. They didn’t seem like normal dogs that sniffed the ground and explored the forest. They all looked up at their master, as if waiting for his instructions.

  The man’s face was shrouded by the bent brim of his hat. But when he tilted his head upward towards the moon Serafina sucked in a breath. The man’s silvery eyes, peering out from his weathered, craggy face, glinted with power. His mouth opened slowly as if he were trying to suck in the moonlight. Just when she thought he was going to utter words, he let out the most terrifying hissing scream she had ever heard. It was a long, raspy screech. And right at that moment a ghostly white barn owl appeared, flying overhead out of the trees, the beat of its wings utterly silent. It answered the man’s call with a bloodcurdling shriek. The sound sent a terrible burst of shivers down Serafina’s spine. And as the owl flew by, its eerie, flat-faced head pivoted towards her, as if searching, hunting. She ducked to the ground like a frightened mouse.

  When the owl had disappeared into the midnight gloom, Serafina peeked back towards the road. Her heart stopped cold. The bearded man and his five hounds were now looking out into the forest in her direction, the man’s eyes still gleaming with an unnatural light despite the fact that he had turned away from the moon. She tried to convince herself that it was impossible for the man and his dogs to see her concealed in the leaves, but she couldn’t shake the horrible fear that they knew exactly where she was. The ground beneath her seemed to become slippery with some unknown dampness. The ivy on the forest floor seemed to be moving. She heard a tick-tick-ticking sound, followed by a long, raspy hiss. Suddenly, she felt the touch of the man’s breath on the back of her neck, and she spun round, cringing violently, but there was nothing there but blackness.

  The man reached into his pocket with one of his knobbly, leathery-skinned hands and took out what appeared to be a scrap of torn, dark-coloured cloth.

  ‘Breathe it in,’ he ordered his dogs, his voice low and sinister. There was something about the stranger’s rugged face and beard, his rustic clothing and the way he said his words that made her think he was an Appalachian man, born and raised in the rocky ravines and thorny coves of these very mountains.

  The first wolfhound pushed its muzzle into the folds of the dark cloth. When it drew its nose out again, its mouth gaped open. Its teeth were bared and chattering, dripping with saliva. The dog began to growl. Then the second dog and the third nosed the dark cloth, until all five had taken the scent. The wicked, snarling malevolence of the hounds stabbed her stomach with fear. Her only hope was that the trail of the cloth’s scent would take them in the opposite direction.

  The man looked down at his pack of hounds. ‘Our quarry is near
,’ he told them, his voice filled with menacing command. ‘Follow the scent! Find the Black One!’

  Suddenly, the dogs howled, savage like wolves. All five of them burst from their haunches and lunged into the forest. Serafina jumped despite herself. Her legs wanted to run so bad that she could barely keep herself still. But she had to stay hidden. It was her only chance of survival. But to her horror, the hounds were running straight towards her.

  She couldn’t understand it. Should she keep hiding? Should she fight? Should she run? The dogs were going to tear her to pieces.

  Just when she knew she had to run, she realised it was too late. She didn’t have a chance. Her chest seized. Her legs locked. She froze in terror.

  No! No! No! Don’t do it! You’re not a rat! You’re not a chipmunk! You’ve got to move!

  Faced with certain death, she did what any sensible creature of the forest would do: she leapt ten feet straight up into a tree. She landed on a branch, then scurried along its length and hurled herself like a flying squirrel in a desperate leap to the next tree. From there, she bounded to the ground and ran like the dickens.

  With howls of outrage, the hounds gave chase, running and snapping at her. They coursed her like a pack of wolves on a deer. But they were wolfhounds, so they weren’t born and bred to chase down and kill anything as small as a deer. They were born and bred to chase down and kill wolves.

  As she ran, Serafina glanced back over her shoulder towards the road. The craggy-faced man looked up at the owl as the haunting creature came circling back round. Then, to Serafina’s astonishment, he threw his walking stick up into the sky. It tumbled end over end towards the owl. But it did not strike the bird. It seemed to blur and then disappear into the darkness, just as the owl flew into the cover of the trees. Serafina had no idea who the man was or what she had seen, but it didn’t matter now. She had to run for her life.

  Fighting off a single jumping, biting, snapping, snarling wolfhound was bad enough, but fighting five was impossible. She sprinted through the forest as fast as she could, her muscles punched with the power of fear. She wasn’t going to let these growling beasts defeat her. The cold forest air shot into her pumping lungs, every sense in her body exploding with a lightning bolt of panic. Coming up behind her, the first hound reached out its ragged neck, opened its toothy maw and bit the back of her leg. She spun and struck the dog, screaming in anger and searing pain as the dog’s fangs punctured her flesh. The smell of the blood excited the other hounds into even more of a frenzy. The second dog leapt upon her and bit her shoulder, tearing into her with growling determination as she slammed her fist into its face. The third clamped its teeth onto her wrist as she tried to pull it away. The three of them pulled her down and dragged her across the ground. Then the other two dogs came in for the kill, their fangs bared as they lunged straight for her throat.

  As the wolfhound charged in, Serafina threw her arm across her neck. Instead of tearing through her throat, the dog’s fangs chomped down on her forearm, shooting spikes of pain through her bone as she screamed. The second dog pressed in for the killing bite, but a fist-sized stone slammed into its head, knocking it back. Then another stone hit one of the other dogs, and it whirled to defend itself.

  ‘Haaaa!’ came a violent shout out of the darkness as a boy with long, wild hair leapt into the fray, striking and punching and clawing, flailing his arms in a spinning, growling attack.

  Fierce with pain, Serafina slammed the heel of her hand into the nose of the dog clamped onto her arm, pushing the dog away.

  ‘Get up! Stay bold! Run!’ the boy shouted at her as he attacked two of the dogs and cleared the way for her.

  Serafina scrambled up onto her feet, ready to flee. But just when she thought she and the boy were gaining the advantage and might actually be able to escape, one of the dogs came leaping out of darkness, slammed into the boy’s chest and knocked him off his feet. The boy and the dog rolled to the ground in a somersault of snarling, biting ferocity.

  The next dog lunged at Serafina. She dodged it, but another dog came at her from the other side.

  ‘You can’t outrun these things for long,’ the boy shouted. ‘You’ve got to get to cover!’

  She dodged a lunging bite, and then a second and a third, but the snapping mouths kept coming at her. She slammed a dog in the head and punched one in the shoulder, but the dogs just kept biting, biting, biting.

  She ran backwards, defending herself from the incoming bites, but then she crashed into a face of sheer rock wall, and could retreat no further. She crouched into an attack position, hissing like an animal caught in a trap.

  Just as a dog leapt at her, the boy tackled it to the ground.

  ‘Now!’ he shouted. ‘Climb!’

  Serafina turned and tried to scramble up the craggy rock face, but the rock was dripping with water and too slippery to climb. Emboldened by her attempt to escape, two of the dogs immediately charged. She kicked their heads away repeatedly with her feet. She swatted and punched with her fists.

  ‘Don’t fight, you fool! Climb!’ the boy shouted. ‘You’ve got to run!’

  Just as she turned to climb, another dog lunged at her, but the boy leapt onto its back, biting and scratching like a wild animal. The hound howled in vicious indignation and twisted around, snapping furiously at the boy. They went tumbling onto the ground in a fierce ball of battle. Two more dogs dived fang-first into the melee.

  Seeing her chance, she jumped up and grabbed the branch of a rhododendron, then hoisted herself up the face of the rock. She quickly found a foothold and another branch. Using the rhododendron bushes as a ladder, she climbed as fast as she could up the cliff. Try that, you handless mutts!

  When she had climbed out of reach of the dogs, she looked back. Two of them ran back and forth at the base of the cliff, growling as they tried to find a way up. The braver and stupider of the two tried repeatedly to run up the sheer wall, only to fall back down again.

  ‘Go on back to your master, you nasty dogs!’ she spat at them, remembering the dark and shadowy figure.

  But as she looked out across the woods it wasn’t their master she was looking for. She couldn’t see the other three dogs or the boy. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been consumed in a terrible battle. She hadn’t been able to tell who was winning and who was losing, but it seemed impossible that he could fight off all three of them at once.

  She waited and listened out into the forest, but there was nothing. The two dogs that had been on her had disappeared. They were running along the base of the cliff. Those mongrels are looking for another way up, she thought.

  She had to keep moving before it was too late. She climbed another fifteen feet until she reached the top edge of the cliff.

  Panting and exhausted, and bleeding from her head, arms and calves, she crumpled to the ground. She scanned the trees below her, searching for the boy.

  She looked and looked, but there was nothing moving out there, nothing making a sound. How had they moved away from her so quickly? Was the boy all right? Did he get away? Or was he hurt?

  She’d never laid eyes on the boy before, never seen anything like him, the way he moved and fought. He had brownish skin, a lithe, muscled body, and long, shaggy, dark brown hair, but it was his speed and his ferocity that had struck her most. She reckoned he must be one of the local mountain folk, like her pa, who were well known for being tough as nails and twice as sharp, but the boy had fought as hard as a rabid bobcat. There was something almost feral about him, like he’d lived in these woods all his life.

  She stood and scanned the terrain behind her – flat, rocky ground and a thicket of shrub-like vegetation leading down into a larger ravine. She was pretty sure she knew where she was and how to get home, but she turned and looked out over the cliff again. The feral boy had saved her life. How could she just leave him?

  The pain of the bites and scratches she’d suffered in the battle burned something fierce, like sharp, twisting barbed wire punctu
ring her flesh. Blood dripped down into her eyes from the wound to her head. She needed to get home.

  She stared out across the tops of the trees in the direction she had last seen the boy. She waited and listened, thinking she’d hear signs of battle or maybe see him looking up at her. Or, God forbid, she would see his bloody, torn body lying lifeless on the ground.

  Don’t fight, you fool! Climb! His words came ringing in her ears like he was still there. Run! he’d shouted.

  Should she flee like he’d told her to, or should she look for him like she wanted to?

  She hated making noise, making herself known to whatever lurked in the forest around her, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do: she cupped her hands round her mouth and whispered, ‘Hello! Can you hear me?’ over the tops of the trees.

  And then she waited.

  There was nothing but the crickets and frogs and the other sounds of the night forest.

  She could feel the battle-pound of her heart slowing down, her breaths getting weaker, and her arms and legs getting heavier. If she was going to make it home, she had to go soon.

  She didn’t want to just leave him out there fighting on his own. She wasn’t the leaving kind – or the forgetting kind, either.

  She wanted to talk to him, find out his name and where he lived, or at least know he was safe. Who was he? Why was he in the forest in the middle of the night? And why was he willing to leap into a pack of vicious dogs to defend her?

  She whispered once more into the trees, ‘Are you out there?’

  Serafina knew she’d waited for the feral boy too long when she heard the two wolfhounds coming towards her from the north. They had found a way up to the high ground.

  She looked around her. She glanced up at a tree, wondering if she could climb high enough. Then she thought about scaling back down the cliff again to confuse them, but she knew she couldn’t survive here all night on her own. Get out of here! the feral boy had told her.