Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,14
joke that their master must have secretly discovered the Fountain of Youth. Mr. Vanderbilt was a meticulous dresser, and as she admired his commanding presence, she couldn’t help but notice his clothes, too. In particular, his shoes. Like the other gentlemen present, he wore a gentleman’s riding jacket, but instead of riding boots, he wore expensive black patent-leather shoes. As he strode across the hard surface of the marble floor, his shoes made a familiar clicking sound…the same sound that she’d heard in the corridors of the basement the night before.
She looked at the other men’s shoes. Braeden, Mr. Thorne, and Mr. Bendel wore riding boots in preparation for their outing, but Mr. Vanderbilt was wearing his dress shoes.
He approached the lost girl’s mother and consoled her. “We’re going to search this place from top to bottom, Mrs. Brahms, and we’ll keep looking until we find her.” He turned to the ladies and gentlemen and waved over the footmen and maidservants as well. “We’ll break up into five separate search parties,” he explained. “We’ll search the entire house, all four floors and also the basement. If anyone finds anything suspicious, report it immediately.”
Mr. Vanderbilt’s words struck fear into Serafina’s heart. They were going to search the basement! The basement! That meant the workshop! With a mighty twist of her body, she yanked herself out of Mr. Boseman’s grip and darted away before he could stop her. She bounded headlong down the stairs into the basement. She had to warn her pa. The leftovers from last night’s dinner, the mattress she slept on…they had to hide it all.
Serafina rushed up to her father in the workshop and grabbed his arm. Trying to talk and catch her breath at the same time, she gasped, “Pa, there’s a girl missing just like I said, and Mr. Vanderbilt’s searching the whole house!” Her words tumbled out with a mixture of urgency and pride. As she hurriedly reminded him of what she’d seen the night before, she was sure that he’d see now that she wasn’t dreaming or making up stories.
“They’re searchin’ the house?” he asked, ignoring everything else. He turned and quickly gathered his cooking supplies and razor from the bench, then dragged her mattress into the hidden area he’d constructed behind the tool rack. There could be no evidence of their living there when the search party came through.
“What about the girl I saw disappear?” she asked in confusion. She couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t more interested in what she was telling him.
“Children don’t just disappear, Sera,” he said as he continued his efforts.
Her heart sank. He still didn’t believe her.
Her pa looked around the room one last time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, and then he looked at her. For a moment, she thought he was finally going to listen to what she was saying, but then he pointed at her hairbrush and snapped, “For God’s sake, girl, pick up your things!”
“But what about the Man in the Black Cloak?” she argued.
“I don’t want you thinking about anything like that,” he barked. “It was nothing but a nightmare. Now hush up.”
She flinched from the words. She couldn’t understand why he was being so mean. But she could hear the worry in his voice along with the anger, and in the distance she could hear the search party coming down the stairs. She knew it wasn’t just the threat of discovery that scared him. He hated any talk of the supernatural or any sort of dark and fiendish forces out in the world that he couldn’t fix with his wrenches, hammers, and screwdrivers.
“But it’s real!” she demanded. “The girl’s actually gone, Pa. I’m telling the truth!”
“A little girl’s gotten herself lost, that’s it, and they’re lookin’ for her, so they’ll find her, wherever she is. Get your wits about you. People don’t just vanish. She’s gotta be someplace.”
She stood in the center of the room. “I think we should both go out there right now and tell them everything I saw,” she declared boldly.
“No, Sera,” he said. “They’ll spit nails if they find me livin’ down here. They’ll fire me. Do you understand that? And God knows what they’ll make of you. They don’t even know you’re alive, and we’re gonna keep it that way. I’m talkin’ to you dead straight now, girl. You hear me?”
The sound of the search party could be heard down the corridor, and it was coming their way.