Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,15

frustration and stood before him. “Why, Pa? Why? Why can’t people see me?” She didn’t have the courage to tell him that at least one Vanderbilt already had, and that he knew her name. “Just tell me, Pa, whatever it is. I’m twelve years old. I’m grown up. I deserve to know.”

“Look, Sera,” he said, “last night, somebody sabotaged the dynamo, did it some real damage that I’m not sure I can mend. If I don’t get it fixed by nightfall, there’s gonna be hell to pay from the boss, and rightly so. The lights, the elevators, the servant-call system—this whole place depends on the Edison machine.”

She tried to imagine someone sneaking into the electrical room and damaging the equipment. “But why would someone do that, Pa?”

The search party was making its way through the kitchens and would arrive in the workshop at any moment.

“I ain’t got time to think about it,” he said, moving toward her with his huge body. “I just gotta get it workin’, that’s all. Now do what I tell ya!”

He charged around the room and hid things with such roughness and loudness and violence that it frightened her. She crept behind the boiler and watched him. She knew that when he was like this she couldn’t get anywhere with him. He just wanted to be left alone to do his job and work on his machines. But it was gnawing at her, and the more she thought about it, the madder she got. She knew it wasn’t the right time to talk to him about everything she’d been thinking and feeling, but she didn’t care. She just blurted it out.

“I’m sorry, Pa,” she said. “I know you’re busy, but please just tell me why you don’t want anyone to see me.” She stepped out from behind the boiler and faced him, her voice getting louder now. “Why have you been hiding me all these years?” she demanded. “Just tell me what’s wrong with me. I want to know. Why are you ashamed of me?”

By the time she was done, she was practically screaming at him. Her voice was so loud and shrill that it actually echoed.

Her pa stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her. She knew she had finally reached down inside him and grabbed that armored heart of his. She’d finally stirred him up. She felt a sudden impulse to take it all back and dart behind the boiler again to hide, but she didn’t. She stood before him and looked at him as steadily as she could, her eyes watering.

He stood very still over by the bench, his huge hands balled into fists. A visible wave of pain and despair seemed to pass through him all at once, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

“I’m not ashamed of you,” he said gruffly, his voice strangely hoarse. The searchers were now only one room away.

“You are,” she shot back. She was trembling in fear, but she wasn’t going to give up this time. She wanted to shake him. She wanted to shake him to the core. “You’re ashamed of me,” she said again.

He turned away from her so that she couldn’t see his face, just the back of his head and huge, bulky body. Several seconds of silence went by. Then he shook his head like he was arguing with himself, or furious with her, or both—she wasn’t sure.

“Just keep your mouth shut and follow me,” he said as he turned and walked out of the room.

Scurrying after him, she caught up with him in the corridor. Her body felt queasy all over. She didn’t know where he was taking her or what was going to happen. She could barely suck in breaths as he led her down the narrow stone stairs to the subbasement and into the electrical room with the iron dynamo and thick black wires that spidered up the walls. They had left the search party behind them, at least for a little while.

“We’ll hole up in here,” he said as he pulled the door shut with a heavy thud and locked them in. As he lit a lantern against the darkness, she’d never seen him look so serious, so grave and pale, and it frightened her.

“What’s happening, Pa?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“Sit down,” he said. “Ya ain’t gonna like what I got to tell ya, but it might help ya understand.”

Serafina swallowed, sat on an old wooden spool of copper wire, and prepared herself to listen. Her