Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series)

by Robert Beatty

  ‘Tell me what I need to do,’ Serafina begged. ‘I’ll keep practising.’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Catamount kittens change with their mothers when they are very young, before they walk or run or speak. It becomes so much a part of how they envision themselves that they cannot even remember it being any other way. They see themselves as a catamount, and a catamount they become. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there to teach you when you were young.’

  ‘Teach me now, Momma.’

  ‘We’ve been trying every night – you know we have,’ her mother said, ‘but I’m afraid it’s too late for you. You won’t ever be able to change.’

  Serafina shook her head fiercely, so frustrated and hurt by her words that she was almost growling at her mother. ‘I know I can do it. Don’t give up on me.’

  ‘The forest is too dangerous for you to be here,’ her mother said, her eyes filled sadness.

  ‘You can come back with me to Biltmore in your human form,’ Serafina said excitedly. ‘We can be together.’

  ‘Serafina,’ her mother said, her tone both soft and firm at the same time, like she knew the loneliness and confusion that Serafina must be feeling. ‘I was trapped in my lion form for twelve years. I can’t even imagine going back into the world of humans again, not yet. You have to understand. My soul was cleaved. I need time to heal, to understand what I am. I’m so sorry, but right now I belong in the forest, and I need to take care of the cubs.’

  ‘But –’ Serafina tried to say.

  ‘Wait,’ her mother said softly. ‘Let me finish what I was saying. I need to tell you this.’ She paused, filled with emotion. ‘During those same twelve years that I was a lion, you were as trapped as I was. You were trapped in your human form.’ Her mother wiped a tear from her own eye. ‘That is what you are now. That is what you’ve grown up to be. You’re a human . . . and I’m a catamount.’ She looked down at the ground and pulled in a long, ragged breath. And then she lifted her eyes and looked at Serafina again. ‘I am so thankful that we had this time together, that I got to know you and see what a wonderful girl you’ve grown up to be. I love you with all my heart, Serafina, but I can’t be your mother the way I know I should be.’

  ‘Momma, please don’t say that . . .’ Serafina said.

  ‘No, Serafina,’ her mother said, holding her with trembling hands. ‘Listen to me. You almost died tonight. I should have never let you wander the forest alone. I almost lost you.’ Her mother’s voice cracked. ‘You have no idea how much you mean to me . . . and you have no idea how dark a force has been stirred. I want you to go back to Biltmore and stay there. That is your home. You’re safe inside those walls. Things are changing here. I must take the cubs and go. The forest is far too dangerous for you, especially now.’

  Serafina looked up at her. ‘You’re going? What do you mean, “especially now”? Tell me what’s happening, Momma. Why are all the animals leaving?’

  ‘This is not your battle to fight, Serafina. With your two legs, you can’t run fast enough to escape this danger. And you can’t claw hard enough to fight against it. Once you’ve rested, I want you to go home. Be very careful. Stay clear of everything you see. Go straight back to Biltmore.’

  Serafina tried to keep from crying. ‘Momma, I want to be here with you in the forest. Please.’

  ‘Serafina, you don’t be –’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘You have to listen to what I’m saying,’ her mother said more forcefully. ‘You don’t belong here, Serafina.’

  Serafina rubbed the tears out of her eyes in fury. She wanted to belong. She wanted to belong more than anything. Her mother’s words were splitting her heart in two. She wanted to keep arguing, but her mother would say no more.

  Her mother laid Serafina’s head down in the grass. ‘I’ve given you something to help you sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake.’

  Serafina lay quietly, just as her mother had told her, but it was all so confusing. Whether house or forest, she just wanted to find a place to be. She seemed to have friends who weren’t her friends, kin who weren’t her kin. It felt like a dark force was gathering in the forest and seeping into her heart, like the Black Cloak slowly wrapping itself round her soul.

  Lying at the base of the angel, she felt herself drifting into a deep and blackened sleep, like she was falling into a bottomless pit, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  When she woke a few hours later, she was no longer lying in the grass. She found herself in total darkness. She felt dirt all around her – below her, above her and on all sides.

  It took Serafina several seconds to realise that she was lying in her mother’s earthen den. Her mother must have picked her up and carried her into the den when she was sleeping.

  She felt warmer and stronger than she had before. She got herself up onto her hands and knees and crawled out of the den, then stood in the moonlight of the angel’s glade. Looking up at the stars, it felt like a few hours had passed.

  Her bleeding had stopped and her wounds did not hurt as badly as they had before. But, as she looked around her, her heart sank, for her mother and the cubs and the dark lion were gone. They had left her here alone.

  She found words traced into the dirt.

  If you need me, winter, spring, or fall, come where what you climbed is floor and rain is wall.

  Serafina frowned. She didn’t know what the words meant or even if they had been left for her.

  She gazed around the angel’s glade and then out into the trees. The forest was utter stillness, nothing but a mist drifting through the wet and glistening branches, and she could not hear a single living thing. It was as if the entire world outside the glade had disappeared.

  She thought about her mother, and the cubs, and the dark lion, and what her mother had said: You don’t belong here, Serafina! Of all the wounds she’d suffered, that one hurt the most.

  Then she thought about Braeden, and her pa, and Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt, and everyone at Biltmore living their daytime lives so separate from her own.

  You don’t belong there, either.

  Standing in the centre of the angel’s glade, she came to a slow and aching realisation.

  She was once again alone.

  Just alone.

  When she thought about what her mother had told her she would never be able to do, an aching, broken, throbbing part of her just wanted to kneel down and cry. She didn’t understand. She had been so hopeful with all the changes that were happening in her life, but now she felt like she was caught in between, like she didn’t belong anywhere. She was neither forest nor house, neither night nor day.

  After a long time, she turned and looked at the beautiful, silent stone angel, with her graceful and powerful wings and her long steel sword. Serafina read the inscription on the pedestal.

  OUR CHARACTER ISN’T DEFINED

  BY THE BATTLES WE WIN OR LOSE,

  BUT BY THE BATTLES WE DARE TO FIGHT.

  Then she looked back out into the forest once more. She decided that no matter what she could or couldn’t do, no matter who did or didn’t want her, she was still the C.R.C. – that much she knew for sure. And she’d seen things in the forest tonight that she couldn’t account for. She didn’t know who the bearded man was, except that he was something so dark that the animals fled before him, something so dangerous that even her mother believed that he could not be fought. Her mother was sure the darkest dangers lurked in the forest, and no doubt they did, but Serafina knew from experience that sometimes they crept into the house. She remembered the driverless carriage and the four stallions going onward up the road towards Biltmore. She could swear there had been someone else in that carriage. In what guise would this new stranger arrive and slither his way into Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt’s home? Into her home. And what had he come for? Was he a thief? Was he a spy?

  Standing there in the angel’s glade, Serafina came to a decision. If there were a rat in the house, she was going to find it
.

  Serafina stopped at the edge of Biltmore’s lagoon, crouched down in the undergrowth and scanned the horizon for danger.

  She waited and she watched.

  From her current vantage point, she didn’t see any signs of trouble. Everything looked peaceful and serene.

  The mirrorlike surface of the lagoon reflected the last of the shimmering stars that would soon give way to dawn. A family of swans flew low over the smooth water, then circled round and came in for a landing, shattering the reflection of the starlit sky.

  In the distance, Biltmore House sat majestically atop a great hill, seeming to rise up out of the trees of the parkland that surrounded it. The windows glinted as the first light of the rising sun touched its walls. With its slate-blue roof, elegant arches and spired towers, it looked like a fairytale castle of old, the kind she had read about in the mansion’s library when everyone else was asleep.

  Seeing the house, a gentle warmth filled her heart. She was glad to be coming home. She decided that she would try to rekindle her friendship with Braeden, and she’d make sure she thanked Mrs Vanderbilt again for the dress she’d given her. And she would do her best to mind her pa. But the first thing she had to do was to make sure she watched out for any strangers who had arrived at Biltmore during the night. The pain of her wounds had lessened, but the frightening images of the bearded man in the forest and the other figure in the carriage blazed in her mind. And she kept wondering what had happened to the feral boy who had helped her and then disappeared.

  She headed towards the house, making her way up the slope through an area of open grassland dotted with large trees. She slinked from tree to tree, careful to stay hidden.

  When she spotted two men and a dog in the distance walking towards the edge of the forest, she crouched low and took cover. She immediately recognised the lean, dark-haired figure of Mr Vanderbilt, the master of Biltmore Estate, in his calf-high boots, woodsman jacket and fedora hat. Like most gentlemen, he often carried a stylish cane when he was out and about on formal occasions, but today he had equipped himself with his usual chestnut hiking stave with its spiked metal ferrule and leather wrist strap. Cedric, his huge white and brown St Bernard, walked loyally beside him. Over the last few weeks, she’d got to know Mr Vanderbilt better than she had before. There was much about the quiet man that was still a mystery to her, but she’d come to appreciate him, and hoped he felt the same about her. She was relieved to see him safe and out for what looked like an early-morning walk. This was surely a good sign that all was well at Biltmore.

  But then she saw the man walking with him.

  He wore a long tannish-brown coat over his light-grey gentleman’s suit, and carried a walking stick with a brass knob that glinted in the sun as he moved. He had an old face, a balding head and a thick grey beard. Serafina narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She immediately thought of the terrifying man she’d seen in the forest, with his silvery glinting eyes and his craggy face. They were disturbingly similar figures. But, as she watched, she decided that this wasn’t him.

  The man walking with Mr Vanderbilt was older, slower in movement, more bent of frame. She could not see his face well enough to know who he was, but he seemed familiar. And she remembered that the man with the dogs had exited the carriage and sent it on towards Biltmore. Was this the second occupant of the carriage? Maybe it was one of the bearded man’s servants sent ahead to spy. Or was he a demon like the Man in the Black Cloak? She knew that someone had come to Biltmore during the night. She just needed to find out who it was.

  She slipped behind a large black walnut tree and watched the two men. As they walked slowly into the forest, the stranger poked a hole in the ground with the tip of his cane. Then he took something out of his leather shoulder satchel, knelt down and seemed to bury it in the earth. Serafina thought that this was very peculiar behaviour.

  The two men and the dog finally disappeared into the foliage, leaving Serafina with nothing but lingering doubt about who this stranger was and how he was connected to the man she’d seen the night before.

  As she puzzled through what she’d seen, she continued up the slope towards the house. Her heart leapt when she saw Braeden by the stables saddling one of his horses.

  Seeing her friend safe and sound, Serafina smiled and felt her muscles relaxing. She could see now that whoever or whatever had come to Biltmore in the carriage during the night hadn’t hurt her friend. But the first thing she was going to do was tell Braeden what had happened to her in the forest and warn him about what she’d seen.

  Braeden was wearing his usual brown tweed hacking jacket and vest, with a white shirt and beige cravat. He moved around easily in his leather riding boots. His tussle of brown hair was blowing in the breeze a little bit. It did not surprise her to see Gidean, his Dobermann, at his side. Braeden seemed to make a lasting bond with whatever animal he met. He had befriended the unusual, pointed-eared black dog while travelling in Germany with his family a few years ago. After the tragic death of his family in a house fire, the boy and his dog had become inseparable. In some ways, Gidean was the last remaining member of Braeden’s family before he came to Biltmore to live with his uncle, and he had found few other friends.

  Serafina knew that Braeden rode every day. He’d gallop across the fields like the wind, his horse running so fast that it was like they weren’t even in contact with the earth. It was good to see him here.

  She broke from her cover and ran towards him, thinking that she’d pounce on him and knock him to the ground in fun. She was just about to shout, Hey, Braeden! when a second figure stepped out from behind the horse. Serafina dropped quickly into the tall grass.

  When she didn’t hear anyone shout, Hey, there’s a peculiar girl in the grass over there! she crawled over to the base of a nearby tree and peeked out.

  A tall girl about fourteen years old with long, curly red hair stood waiting for Braeden to adjust the stirrup on her horse’s sidesaddle. She wore a fitted emerald-green velvet riding jacket with an upturned collar, triangular lapels and turned-back cuffs. The jacket’s gold buttons glinted in the sunlight whenever she turned her body or lifted her wrist. Her trim green-and-white-striped waistcoat and long skirt matched her jacket in every detail.

  Serafina frowned in irritation. Braeden normally rode alone. His aunt and uncle must have asked him to entertain this young guest. But what should she do now? Should she brush off her ripped, dirtied, bloodstained, fang-shredded dress, and walk over to Braeden and the girl and introduce herself? She imagined an exaggerated, backwoods version of herself coming out of the brush towards them. ‘Mornin’, y’all. I’m just back from catchin’ some wood rats and nearly gettin’ eaten up by a pack of wolfhounds. How you two doin’ this mornin’?’

  She thought about approaching them, but maybe interrupting Braeden and the girl would be a rude, unwelcome imposition.

  She had no idea.

  Out of instinct more than anything else, she stayed hidden where she was and watched.

  The girl allowed Braeden to help her up into the saddle, then rearranged her legs and the long folds of her riding skirt to drape over the left side of the horse. That was when Serafina noticed that she was wearing beautiful dove-grey suede, laced-up, flower-embroidered ankle boots. They were completely ridiculous for horseback riding, and Serafina couldn’t even imagine running through the forest in such delicate things, but they sure were pretty.

  Along with her fancy attire, the girl carried a finely made riding cane with a silver topper and a leather whip end. Serafina smirked a little. It seemed like all the fancy folk liked to carry some sort of cane or walking stick or other accoutrement whenever they went outside, but she preferred to have her hands free at all times.

  Seeing the whip, Braeden said, ‘You won’t need anything like that.’

  ‘But it goes with my outfit!’ the girl insisted.

  ‘If you say so,’ Braeden said. ‘But please don’t touch the horse with it.’

  ‘Very w
ell,’ the girl agreed. She spoke in a grand and mannerly tone, as if she’d been raised in the way of a proper lady and she wanted people to know it. And Serafina noticed that she had an accent like Mrs King, Biltmore’s head housekeeper, who was from England.

  ‘So, do tell,’ the girl said. ‘How do I stop this beast if it runs away with me?’

  Serafina chuckled at the thought of the horse bolting with the screaming, frilly-dressed girl, jumping a few fences in wild abandon and then landing in a mud pit with a glorious splat.

  ‘You just need to pull back on the reins a little bit,’ Braeden said politely. It was clear that he didn’t know this girl too well, which further reinforced Serafina’s theory that Braeden’s aunt and uncle were putting him up to this.

  Beyond all the girl’s fanciness and airs, there was something that bothered Serafina about her. A highfalutin fashion plate like her would certainly know how to ride a horse, but she seemed to be pretending that she didn’t. Why would she do that? Why would she feign helplessness? Was that what a girl did to attract a boy’s attention?

  Seemingly unmoved by the girl’s ploy, Braeden walked over to his horse without further comment. He slipped effortlessly onto his horse’s bare back. A week ago, he had explained to Serafina that he didn’t use a bridle and reins to control his horse but signalled the speed and direction he wanted to go by adjusting the pressure and angle of his legs.

  ‘Now, we mustn’t go too fast,’ the girl said daintily as the two young riders rode their horses at a walk out onto the grounds of the estate. Serafina could tell she wasn’t scared of the horse but simply pretending to be a delicate soul.

  ‘Actually, I thought we might do a bit of high-speed racing,’ Braeden said facetiously.

  Seeming to realise that Braeden wasn’t falling for her precious-princess routine, the English girl changed her tone as fast as a rattlesnake changes the direction of its coiling path.