Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series)

by Robert Beatty

  ‘Thank you, Mrs King,’ Mrs Vanderbilt said appreciatively. ‘Please take the children to the library.’

  When Mrs Vanderbilt called her and Braeden ‘children’, Serafina saw the satisfaction in Lady Rowena’s face.

  ‘Come this way,’ Mrs King instructed Braeden and Serafina. It was the kind of voice that was used to being obeyed.

  Mrs King had been running Biltmore for years, even before Mr Vanderbilt married and Mrs Vanderbilt arrived. As Serafina followed the matron through the Entrance Hall, she wiped her teary eyes and tried to think about what her pa would tell her at this moment. Quit yer snifflin’ and get your wits about ya, girl, he’d say, and he’d be right. If she was going to be questioned by an investigator for a murder that she’d been a part of, she had to pull herself together.

  Serafina studied Mrs King as she followed her down the long length of the Tapestry Gallery towards the library, for she had seldom been this close to her.

  One of the things that had always mystified Serafina about Mrs King was that she lived in an area of Biltmore that Serafina had never seen. She was the one and only inhabitant of the mysterious second-and-a-half floor. Serafina couldn’t imagine how a whole floor, or even half of one, could exist between two other floors. But she’d learned long ago that all manner of both grand and wicked things were possible at Biltmore. The palm trees, for example, were particularly untrustworthy.

  She couldn’t help but notice the key ring hanging on Mrs King’s sash. It was a large brass ring with all the keys of the house, for every door, cupboard and secret hatch, from the basement to the top floor. Serafina had always been mesmerised by the jingling, jangling sound of the hanging keys. But just as she was looking at it something tiny pulled a key from the ring, darted down Mrs King’s dress, and shot along the floor quicker than two blinks and a sneeze. The little brown creature had been so small and had moved so fast that Serafina barely saw it. And she was quite sure that no one else had. But she’d been C.R.C. long enough to know what it was: a mouse. Sometimes mice move so fast that they’re just a flash and then they’re gone. Already, she started doubting that she’d actually seen it. How in the world could a live mouse run down Mrs King’s dress? And what was it doing? Stealing a key to the cheese cupboard?

  But she had bigger problems to face. As she and Braeden plodded along behind Mrs King, Serafina looked over at Braeden. His lips were pressed together, his face filled with worry. It felt like Mrs King was taking her and Braeden to their trial, sentencing and execution. She had half a mind to turn and run, just get out of there while she still had the chance. She’d be as gone as yesterday’s breeze before Mrs King even noticed she was missing. But she knew she couldn’t leave poor Braeden behind, so she trudged glumly along beside him, not knowing what else to do. She felt like she was tied up in a poke sack and was just about to get chucked into the river.

  As they entered the library, Serafina gazed across the familiar room. Thousands of Mr Vanderbilt’s leather-bound books lined the walls of intricately carved wood and sculpted marble-work. The books reached all the way up to the angelic Italian painting on the ceiling some thirty-five feet above their heads. But there was no one in the room. The globes of the brass lamps were lit, and a fire burned in the massive black marble fireplace, but the library was completely empty.

  When she glanced at Braeden, it was clear that he was as confused as she was. But the stalwart Mrs King appeared undeterred. She led them along the bookcases built into the western wall, then turned right and stopped. They were now looking at a section of the room’s oak panelling. It took Serafina nearly a second to recognise that it wasn’t just a wall. It was a door. And the carving on the door’s centre panel is what disturbed her: a robed man holding a finger to his mouth as if to say, Shhh! There was blood dripping down his head and a knife stuck in his back.

  ‘You may step through the door,’ the matron said. ‘They are expecting you.’

  Serafina stepped cautiously into the dimly lit room. It was a cramped, closed-in den with leather furniture, shades blocking out the setting sun and a dark ceiling patterned like the bones of a bat’s wing. This was not his usual office, but Mr Vanderbilt sat behind the desk.

  She had been watching the master of Biltmore all her life, but she’d never been able to figure him out. He was a man of immense wealth but quiet word, a refined, bookish gentleman with a slight frame and slender hands. He had shrewd, dark eyes, black hair and a black moustache.

  ‘Come into the room,’ he said gravely. He seemed to be in a grim and unforgiving mood.

  As she and Braeden stepped slowly forward, she saw something out of the corner of her eye: a man sitting in the shadows, unmoving, studying her. She couldn’t help but pull in a breath. Her heart began to beat heavy in her chest, marking time like a slow, powerful drum.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, she began to see the stranger’s features. To her surprise, it wasn’t the elderly man she’d seen walking into the forest with Mr Vanderbilt. This man’s straggly rat-brown hair fell to his shoulders, and he had a short goatee. He stared at her with intense, unrelenting eyes. He might have been handsome in the past, but so many raised grey scars traced his face that she could see an entire history of battle there, against both blade and claw – it was a wonder that he had survived them. His brown woollen coat and shoulder cape were matted and wind-worn, tattered at the edges, like he’d been on the road for many years.

  As the man looked at the scratches on her face and the bite wounds on her hands, it felt like something was crawling up her spine. The muscles in her body twitched and tensed, wanting to fight or flee. He could see too much. Terrifying images flashed through her mind: the grey-bearded man in a wide-brimmed hat stepping onto the road, the snapping jaws of the white-fanged hounds, the black silhouette of a figure sitting in the carriage as it pulled away.

  Had this man looked out from the carriage and seen her? If he had seen her at all, he could only have caught a glimpse of her as she ran away. She was wearing different clothes now, and her hair had changed. Whatever it was, he seemed as uncertain about her as she was about him.

  In his hand, he held a cane with a spiralling shaft and a curving antler handle. There was something about the cane that made her think it was far more dangerous than it appeared. But it seemed to be a different style than the one she’d seen the night before. It was like there were little flaws in her memory. Had she seen a gnarly stick or a more formal, spiralling cane with a hooked horn handle like this one? Could it change shape?

  ‘Sit down,’ Mr Vanderbilt instructed. He pointed to the two small, bare, wooden chairs in the middle of the room. Serafina had seldom heard Mr Vanderbilt so stern, so sharp of tone, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he was angry with her and Braeden or because of this detective’s unexpected presence in his home. Mr Vanderbilt had welcomed all sorts of guests to entertain themselves in the magnificent mansion he had built for that purpose, but he himself had a tendency to withdraw from revelry. He often sat in a quiet room by himself and read rather than imbibe with others. He was a man of his own spirit. And now here was a stranger, a detective, a man of the road, come to call with words of murder, and Mr Vanderbilt seemed none too pleased about it.

  As she and Braeden sat down in the two chairs, she glanced over at her friend. He looked scared and alone. Mrs King had instructed him to leave Gidean outside the room. He seemed vulnerable without his canine protector at his side, which made Serafina more determined than ever to make sure this Detective Grathan did not get the better of them.

  Mr Vanderbilt looked at her and Braeden. ‘Detective Grathan is investigating the disappearance of Mr Thorne. He theorises that Mr Thorne did not take his leave of Biltmore of his own accord but encountered foul play while he was here.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Braeden said, trying to sound steady, but Serafina could hear the quiver in his voice. There was no doubt in her mind, either, that if they made a mistake here they might be arreste
d and charged with conspiring to murder Mr Thorne. She had led him into the trap. And Braeden owned the dog that had helped kill him.

  ‘I recommend that you answer all his questions truthfully,’ Mr Vanderbilt said.

  Serafina glanced at Mr Vanderbilt, for the tone in his voice had an unexpected edge to it. On the face of it, he was telling her and Braeden to do the right thing, to cooperate with the detective’s investigation. But in another way it seemed to her that he was signalling them, warning them that they needed to be very careful, as if saying the man might possess the power to discern truth from lie.

  ‘Detective Grathan,’ Mr Vanderbilt said as he turned to the man, ‘everyone at Biltmore will, of course, cooperate with your investigation. This is my nephew Braeden Vanderbilt, my late brother’s son, and his friend Serafina. Along with the others you’ve already spoken to, they were present on the day of Mr Thorne’s disappearance. You are free to ask them any questions you deem necessary to complete your investigation.’

  The detective nodded, then spoke to Mr Vanderbilt in a serious tone. ‘You do not have to be present for this questioning.’

  Whoa, Serafina thought. He just asked Mr Vanderbilt to leave the room. No one asked Mr Vanderbilt to leave anywhere. It was his house. Serafina could sense the tension increasing between the two men.

  ‘I will remain,’ Mr Vanderbilt said unequivocally.

  Detective Grathan looked at him and seemed to decide that for the moment he would not argue with the master of Biltmore. Instead, he pivoted his head slowly towards Serafina. She swore she could hear the sound of ticking cartilage as his head turned. The man studied her for several seconds, seeming to pull every detail of her apart, bit by bit. She noticed his fingers wrapping slowly round the antler handle of his cane. Then he spoke.

  ‘Your name is Serafina – is that correct?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. And your name is Mr Grathan, she wanted to say in return. Do you and your master own five mangy, overgrown tracking hounds with teeth like daggers?

  ‘Did you know Mr Thorne?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I knew him,’ she replied truthfully, ‘but I only spoke to him a few times.’

  The man studied her. He held his cane – or staff or stick or whatever it was – as he spoke to her. Then he slowly pivoted his head and looked at Braeden. ‘And did you know Mr Thorne as well?’

  ‘He was my friend,’ Braeden said, which was also the truth.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘At the party on the night of his disappearance,’ Braeden said. It seemed that he, too, had picked up on his uncle’s warning. When Braeden glanced at her with a knowing look, she was sure of it. In that moment, the two friends silently agreed what course they must take: to give the detective no advantage, to speak the careful truth but nothing more.

  The detective turned his head slowly back to Serafina. ‘And when was the last time you saw Mr Thorne?’

  The last time she’d seen him, he’d been lying dead on the ground in the graveyard, his blood leaking out of him, and then his body decomposed before her eyes, his worldly carcass becoming nothing but blood-soaked earth.

  ‘I believe it was the last day we all saw him,’ she said. ‘The day he disappeared.’

  ‘At what time did you last see him?’

  ‘As I recall, it was after dark,’ she said, but midnight would have been more accurate.

  ‘So you were one of the last people to see him here at Biltmore.’

  ‘I believe I must have been.’

  ‘And what was he doing when you saw him last?’

  ‘The last time I saw him here at Biltmore, he was putting on his cloak and going out the door.’

  ‘You saw him leave Biltmore?’

  ‘Yes, very clearly. He was running out the door.’

  ‘Running?’ the detective asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes. Running.’ He was chasing me, she thought, and I led him to his death.

  The detective’s head pivoted to Braeden.

  ‘And did you see this as well?’

  ‘No,’ Braeden said. ‘I went to bed after the party.’

  The detective’s eyes held steady on Braeden for several seconds as if he did not believe his answer. Then he said, ‘The black dog is yours.’ Serafina had no idea how he knew this, because Gidean wasn’t even in the room.

  ‘Yes,’ Braeden replied uncertainly.

  ‘The dog is almost always with you, but you say you went to bed early that night. How and when did the dog suffer a wound to its right shoulder?’

  ‘I . . .’ Braeden said, confused and disturbed by the question.

  ‘How was the dog wounded?’ the detective pressed.

  ‘I did not see him get hurt,’ Braeden said truthfully.

  ‘But when did it happen?’

  ‘It was the morning we discovered that another child had gone missing. I sent Gidean out into the woods to track the child,’ Braeden said.

  Serafina thought it was clever the way Braeden said another child had gone missing, disguising the fact that it had actually been she who had gone missing. She had gone out to trap Mr Thorne. And she liked the way Braeden described it as the morning, which was technically correct because it had been after midnight, but gave the impression that it was the next day.

  ‘And did the dog find the missing child?’ the detective asked.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ Braeden said. Then he looked at Mr Vanderbilt. ‘Uncle, why is he asking me all these questions about Gidean? Does he think Gidean and I did something wrong?’

  Serafina couldn’t tell if Braeden was faking his expression of fear and bewilderment or whether it was genuine, but either way it was convincing.

  ‘No, of course not, Braeden,’ Mr Vanderbilt said, looking firmly at the detective when he said these words. ‘He’s just doing his job.’ It was clear that Mr Vanderbilt would brook little more of this imposition. ‘Just answer his questions truthfully,’ he said again, and this time Serafina was sure of it – he was helping them. He was on their side. Choose your words carefully, he was telling them. She knew that the key was to avoid and deflect the difficult questions.

  The detective turned his head with a sharp scrape of his neck and looked at Serafina. ‘Do you know what happened to Mr Thorne on the night about which we speak?’

  How in the world was she going to avoid that question without lying through her teeth? She could already see them erecting the gallows and tying the noose for her neck.

  ‘God rest his soul,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Then you think that he’s not just missing but actually dead?’ the man said, leaning forward and peering at her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Because he has not returned.’

  ‘But do you know how he died? Did you see a body? Was there some sort of unnatural force involved?’

  In those last few words, the rat betrayed himself. What was he truly looking for? When he said unnatural force, did he mean black magic? The man in the forest had instructed his dogs to hunt down what he had called the Black One. This man wasn’t just looking for Mr Thorne’s murderer. He was looking for the Black Cloak!

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he pressed her.

  ‘I believe a powerful force must have surprised him and killed him,’ she said. ‘Everyone in the mountains knows that the forest is filled with many dangers.’ And then she remembered the expression that Essie had said always spooked her. ‘Maybe the old man of the forest is up to his old tricks again.’

  The detective’s expression widened when she said these words. ‘What kind of powerful force are you talking about?’

  ‘I think there are forces both good and evil in the forest.’

  ‘And you believe it was these forces that killed Mr Thorne?’ the detective asked.

  ‘It could be,’ she said. What she wasn’t saying was that it had been the good forces rather than the evil ones that had killed Mr Thorne.

>   Mr Vanderbilt leaned forward. ‘I don’t know where your questions are going, Mr Grathan. I suggest we proceed with the other people on your list.’

  ‘I have more questions for these two,’ the detective said sharply, not looking at Mr Vanderbilt. Serafina could feel the barely controlled intensity rising within the detective. It was as if he had come in the disguise of a civilised person, a police investigator, but now his true character was beginning to show itself.

  He thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out a silver clasp engraved with an intricate design: a tight bundle of twisting vines and thorns.

  Serafina’s heart began to pound in her chest. Now there was no doubt. The detective had found the remnants of the Black Cloak. That meant he had indeed been out to the area of her mother’s den. A flash of new fears flooded her mind. She could feel the heat rising in her body.

  ‘Do you recognise this?’ the detective asked her.

  The pulse of her blood thumped in her temples. She could barely hear his words.

  ‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked again.

  ‘It appears to be a clasp from an article of clothing,’ she said, trying to keep her voice as flat and undisturbed as possible.

  ‘But you’re not answering the question!’ he pressed her.

  ‘Mr Grathan, calm yourself,’ Mr Vanderbilt warned him.

  ‘Do you recognise it?’ Mr Grathan asked her, ignoring him.

  ‘It looks as if whatever it once held is now set free,’ she said.

  ‘But have you seen it before?’ he asked again, gripping the handle of his cane like he was going to swing it around and wield it like a weapon at any moment.

  She felt a great weight pressing in on her. But as she pretended to examine the clasp, she noticed that something was different: the tiny faces that had been behind the thorns were gone now.

  ‘I have never seen a silver clasp with this design,’ she said, at last finding a way to hew to the truth.