Читать книгу Serafina and the Splintered Heart - Robert Beatty - Страница 13

Serafina burst out of her hiding spot and fled. She leapt from branch to branch down through the tree. As soon as she hit the ground, she ran, her bare feet thrashing quickly across the forest floor. When she looked over her shoulder, she didn’t see any sign of the sorcerer, but she kept running.

Putting the dark river behind her, she fled way up into the rocks and trees of a high ridge, then through a wide, forested valley. When she finally slowed down, she could tell by the type and age of the trees that she was getting closer. She could see a soft glow of light in the distance, and it drew her home like a beacon.

As she made her way along the edge of Biltmore’s bass pond, she noticed that the little stream that normally trickled into it was swollen with rain, filling the pond with more water than usual. The storms are coming, Serafina thought.

The calm, flat water of the pond reflected the light of the stars and the moon, but she didn’t linger to admire it. She was anxious to get home, to make sure Braeden and her pa were all right, and to warn them about what she’d seen in the forest.

She followed the garden path up through the pink and orange azaleas, which were blooming as bright as the moon itself. When she saw a faint green glow up the hill towards the rest of the gardens, she paused, uncertain. She knew Biltmore’s gardens well, but had never seen a greenish light like this before.

Her first thought was that the sorcerer was already here, had already taken over and made Biltmore his domain. Then she heard the murmur of many voices.

As she approached more closely, she saw that the green glow wasn’t a sorcerer’s spell, but the conservatory all lit up for an evening party, the light shining through the leaves of thousands of orchids, bromeliads and palms, and out through the greenhouse’s many panes of glass.

She crept along the edge of the building and looked into the Walled Garden, where she saw hundreds of ladies in formal summer dresses and gentlemen in black tailcoats gathered for the party. The windows of Biltmore House blazed above, the south walls and towers of the mansion rising like an enchanted castle into the night.

The walled garden had been strung with the kind of softly glowing Edison bulbs that her pa used. And smaller lights hung along the wooden arbour that covered the central path of the garden, the lights tucked among the leafy vines and flowering blooms like little faeries taking refuge among the leaves. She had never seen so many beautiful lights in her life.

Hiding in the bushes near the rose keeper’s stone shed, she scanned the crowd for Braeden, but she didn’t see him. He was a reserved boy, not always the centre of attention, but his aunt and uncle usually encouraged him to attend the estate’s social events. She and Braeden had shared so many adventures. And they had been through so much together. He was her closest and most trusted friend. She couldn’t wait to see him.

The fancy folk were mingling about on the perfectly manicured paths of the garden, holding champagne flutes in their elegant, flawless hands, chatting and sipping lightly as they promenaded among the roses, dahlias and zinnias. Bathed in the conservatory’s glow, a string quartet played a beautiful song. Footmen in their formal black-and-white livery strolled among the crowd serving custard tarts, cheeses and freshly baked cream puffs from their trays. Serafina suddenly felt pangs of hunger.

But everything about this party flummoxed her. It must have taken weeks of planning to arrange all this, and yet she hadn’t heard anything about it. And why wasn’t Braeden here? There were so many strangers. Where were Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt?

A few of the more adventurous adult guests and a coterie of their fancifully attired children huddled together and lit candles inside small paper lanterns, then held them aloft. As if by magic, the rising heat of the candles lifted the lanterns upward out of their hands into the nighttime sky. Serafina watched with the other children as the lanterns floated slowly up into the heavens. She couldn’t help but smile at the sight of it, but then a melancholy swept through her. She knew it was foolish after everything she’d been through, but she felt so sad that she hadn’t been invited to this wonderful party. It was an evening party. And she was a creature of the night! If anyone should have been part of it, she should have been! It felt like so much had changed, like the whole world had been slipping by without her.

After destroying the Black Cloak and freeing the estate’s lost children from its dark imprisonment, she had entered the daylight world upstairs. The Vanderbilts had welcomed her into their home. She had become part of Biltmore now. Hadn’t she? So why wasn’t she at this party? It made her qualmish in her stomach thinking about it. What had happened? What had she missed? Hadn’t anyone noticed that she wasn’t there?

It was hard to understand how all these fancy-dressed people could gather for this lovely party, when just a few miles away a storm had raged through the forest. A short distance down the hill the inlet stream was quietly flooding the pond. A dark force was coming, but they seemed to have no idea.

When she heard Mrs Vanderbilt’s gentle laugh in the distance, Serafina turned hopefully towards the sound. She saw right away that Braeden wasn’t there, but Mr Vanderbilt and Mrs Vanderbilt were standing together with several of their guests near one of the rose trellises.

Mr Vanderbilt was easily recognisable with his black hair and moustache, and his lean, shrewd face with dark, inquisitive eyes. He was dressed in a handsome black tux with tails and white tie. Many of the men she’d spied on over the years were loud of voice and boisterous of manner, but Mr Vanderbilt was a quieter, more refined, thinking kind of gentleman. Usually, if he wasn’t reading in his library, he was watching and learning from those around him. He was always kind and welcoming in spirit when he spoke to people, whether they were guests or servants or workers on the estate, but he also seemed to enjoy watching people from a distance at parties, taking everything in.

Mrs Vanderbilt was more outgoing, more talkative and social with the guests. She had dark hair like her husband, and a similar spark of intelligence, but she had an easy charm and a gracious smile. She wore a lovely, loosely flowing mauve dress, but what truly stunned Serafina was that Mrs Vanderbilt’s belly was large with her baby. The last time Serafina had seen her, she couldn’t even tell that she was with child.

It hasn’t just been twenty-eight days, Serafina thought. She felt as if she were being lowered into a deep, dark well. I’ve been gone for months . . . They’ve all forgotten about me . . .

‘And where is that dear nephew of yours tonight?’ one of the lady guests asked Mrs Vanderbilt.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the lady’s husband. ‘Where is Young Master Braeden?’

‘Oh, he’s around,’ Mrs Vanderbilt said lightly, but Serafina noticed that the mistress of the house didn’t actually look around her when she said these words. It was as if she already knew her nephew wasn’t nearby. She was acting cheerful in front of her guests, but Serafina could hear the twinge of concern in her voice.

As Mrs Vanderbilt and her friends continued their conversation, Mr Vanderbilt stepped back from them and looked up towards the library terrace. Serafina could see the wrinkles of worry around his eyes and mouth.

‘So, how has Braeden been doing?’ one of the guests asked Mrs Vanderbilt.

‘Oh, he’s fine,’ Mrs Vanderbilt said. ‘He’s fine. He’s doing well.’

One he’s fine was enough, Serafina thought, but two was too many. There was definitely something wrong.

‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment,’ Mr Vanderbilt said. He touched his wife’s arm and then left them.

As Mr Vanderbilt walked quickly through the crowd, several people tried to talk to him, for he was host of the grand party, but he kindly gave his regrets and kept moving.

Ducking through the hedges, Serafina followed him. After being away for months, the sight of her was no doubt going to startle him, but as soon as he was alone, she was going to tell him about the dangers she’d seen in the forest. She could show him the rising water of the pond as evidence of it all. But she sensed the urgency in his movement.

Mr Vanderbilt ascended the steps through the walled garden’s arched stone entrance and up the next set of steps to the path through the shrub garden. Serafina darted through the roses and then weaved behind the fruit trees to follow him, careful to avoid the detection of the guests. She had lost her ability to shift shape, but she certainly hadn’t lost her knack for sneaking unseen or unheard. She was as fast and light on her feet as she had always been.

She followed Mr Vanderbilt up past the purple-leafed beech and then the elm tree with its low, splaying branches, until he went up the steps and reached the pergola.

‘Wine, sir?’ a footman said as he hurried down from the house towards the party with his tray restocked.

‘No, thank you, John,’ Mr Vanderbilt said. ‘Do you happen to have a sweet tea on your tray?’

‘Oh, yes, sir, I do,’ the footman said in surprise, for iced tea was not his master’s normal drink. Braeden, Serafina thought.

‘Thank you very much, John,’ Mr Vanderbilt said as he took the tea and kept moving. ‘Take good care of everyone.’

‘I will, sir,’ John said, a worried twinge in his voice as he watched his master rush up the steps towards the terrace.

Finally the footman turned and continued on his way towards the party.

As Serafina slipped behind a tree trunk to avoid the passing footman’s attention, she couldn’t help but wonder about how little people noticed the things around them. She knew that theoretically she could walk openly among the guests of the house, and she had felt left out about not being there, but the truth was, she still felt far more comfortable spying on a party than attending it. And the soaking wet, grave-dirtied, dress-torn, bloodstained look of her would have shocked them all. Right now, she had her eyes fixed on one person, and that was Mr Vanderbilt.

Serafina went right after him. She ran across the gravel path, making barely a rustling step of noise, then bounded up the stone steps at the southeast corner of the house to reach the library terrace. It was a flat area just outside the glass doors of the library with a view to the forest and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The terrace was covered by an arbour heavily laden with long, hanging purple wisteria. The vines grew thick and twisty around the arbour’s stout posts and up into its latticework above. The warm amber light of the library fell through the open doors onto the terrace.

A boy was sitting on a bench, facing out towards the forest. When she first saw him, she didn’t recognise him. But as she crept closer and saw his face, she knew.

It was Braeden.

But what she saw – the way he was sitting and the look of his face – struck her such a blow that she couldn’t help but suck in a gasp of air. She was too startled to move immediately towards him like she normally would have. She watched from the shadows and tried to understand what she was seeing.

The first thing she noticed was that Gidean, Braeden’s once-beloved black Doberman, wasn’t lying at his young master’s feet like he normally did. The poor dog was lying twenty feet away, his head down, his ears drooped, a sad, dejected expression on his face, as if Braeden had sent him away, scorned and unwanted.

Braeden sat on the bench alone. There was a plaid blanket around his legs despite the fact that it wasn’t cold outside. He was twelve years old, but he looked smaller, frailer than she had ever seen him before. His brown hair was longer, his skin different, paler, like he hadn’t been outside as much as he usually was. But what caught her most of all was that there were long, jagged scars on the side of his face, and his right leg had been strapped into some sort of leather-and-metal brace, with hinges at the knee.

Her heart swelled with grief. She wanted to reach out to him. What had happened to Braeden? Had the dark forces she’d seen in the forest already attacked him?

‘It’s just me,’ Mr Vanderbilt said softly as he approached his nephew. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ Braeden said, his voice sombre, ‘I’m all right,’ but his words were laced with tones that tugged at her heart.

Braeden seemed so sad. His mouth hung grim. His eyes were dull of spirit. And as she crept closer to him, an even darker, more despairing expression clouded his face, as if something was suddenly causing him even more anguish than moments before.

But she could see him trying to steady himself the best he could, at least for his uncle’s sake. ‘Did you come all the way up here for me?’ he asked.

‘There wasn’t anything to do down there,’ Mr Vanderbilt said, smiling a little, and Braeden gave him a wan, knowing smile in return.

Mr Vanderbilt offered him the glass of sweet tea. It had always been Braeden’s favourite. But as he reached out with his left hand to take the glass from him, his hand was shaking so badly that it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to hold the tea without spilling it.

‘I don’t want that!’ Braeden snapped at his uncle, knocking the tea away.

Mr Vanderbilt stepped back and took a long breath. The master of Biltmore wasn’t at all used to someone treating him like that, but after a moment, he stepped closer once more.

‘Try it again,’ he said gently, handing the glass to Braeden. ‘Your right hand works better, I think.’

Braeden looked at him sharply, but slowly reached over with his right hand and took the glass. His right hand was trembling, too, but not nearly as badly as the left.

Steadying the glass of tea in two hands now, Braeden took a long drink in silence. When he was done, he nodded. It was as if he had forgotten how much he liked the drink. ‘Thank you,’ he said to his uncle, almost sounding like his old cheerful self again for a moment, but then he pressed his lips together and shook his head, barely holding back tears.

Mr Vanderbilt sat on the bench beside him. ‘Is it bad tonight?’

Braeden nodded. ‘For the last few weeks it finally felt like I was getting a little better, but all of a sudden, I feel so awful.’

‘Is it the party?’ Mr Vanderbilt asked regretfully.

‘I don’t think so,’ Braeden said shaking his head, ‘I don’t know . . . maybe . . . maybe it’s the beautiful night, the moonlight, the stars. She loved nights like this.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Vanderbilt said.

‘Sometimes, I almost feel like I’m going to get back to normal again, but other times I feel a terrible aching inside, like she’s standing right beside me.’

I am, Braeden, Serafina thought. I’m here! But she was so transfixed by what she was seeing and hearing that she couldn’t speak or move. It was like she was locked in a dream that she could only watch.

‘Sometimes,’ Mr Vanderbilt said gently, ‘you have to push on through your life even when you don’t feel too well. She might have left Biltmore for any number of reasons. But if the worst has happened, then we need to keep her in our hearts. She’ll live on in your memories of her. And she’ll live in my heart as well. She was a good, brave girl, and I know she was a very special friend to you.’

Braeden nodded, agreeing with everything his uncle was saying, but Serafina noticed a peculiar expression on Braeden’s face, a hesitation in his movement. Serafina knew him well enough to know that there was something he wasn’t telling his uncle.

Mr Vanderbilt put his arm gently around his nephew. ‘No matter what’s happened, we’ll get through this.’

It was strangely fascinating to watch and listen, to imagine a world where she had disappeared, but Serafina couldn’t stand it any more. She had to tell them that she was alive and well, that she was finally home. And more than anything, she had to warn them. The talon-clawed creature, the black shapes, the storms, the dark river, the sorcerer . . . they were coming.

Taking in a deep breath, she stepped out from behind the column and showed herself to both of them.

‘Braeden, it’s me. I’m back.’