Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,16
pa sat on the floor facing her, with his back against the wall. Staring down at the floor and deep in thought, he began to talk.
“Years ago, I was workin’ as a mechanic in the train yard in Asheville,” he said. “The foreman and his wife had just had their third baby boy and their home was full of joy, but while everyone else celebrated, I sat alone in a kind of self-made misery. I ain’t proud of it, the way I was soppin’ around that night, but things just weren’t workin’ out for me the way they were supposed to in a man’s life. I wanted to meet a good woman, build a house in town, and have children of my own, but years had gone by and it hadn’t happened. I was a big man and not much to look at. I sweated all day on the engines, and those few times I encountered any womenfolk, I could never find my words. I could talk about nuts and bolts till the mornin’ come, but not much else.”
She opened her mouth to ask a question, but she didn’t want to disrupt the story that was finally pouring out of her pa.
“That night, while everyone was tipping the jug,” he continued, “I was feelin’ pretty poor, and I headed out. I went for a long walk, just walkin’ like ya do when you got too much on your mind to do naught else. I went deep into the forest, up through River’s Gap, and into the mountains. When night came, I just kept walkin’.”
It was hard for her to picture her father traveling through the forest. All those times he had warned her had led her to believe that he would never set foot in the forest. He hated the forest. At least he did now.
“Were you scared, Pa?”
“Naw, I weren’t,” he said, shaking his head and still looking at the floor. “But I shoulda been.”
“Why? What happened?” She couldn’t even imagine what it was. The flicker of the lantern cast an eerie shadow on his face. She had always loved his stories, but this one felt closer to his heart than any story he had ever told.
“As I was walkin’ through the woods, I heard a queer howlin’ noise, like an animal in terrible, writhing pain. The bushes were movin’ somethin’ fierce, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.”
“Was it somethin’ dyin’, Pa?” She leaned toward him.
“I don’t think so,” he said, looking up at her. “The ruckus in the bushes went on for a spell, then the noise stopped all sudden-like. I thought it was over, but then a pair of greenish-yellow eyes peered at me from the darkness. Whatever sort of man or beast it was, it circled slowly around me, taking one position and then another, studying me real careful, like it was trying to make a decision about me, whether I was worth eatin’ or just lettin’ be. I sensed a real power behind those eyes. But then the eyes disappeared. The beast was gone. And I heard a strange mewling, crying sound.”
She straightened her back and looked at him. “Crying?” she asked in confusion. That definitely wasn’t what she was expecting.
“I searched through the bushes. Blood covered the ground, and in the blood lay a pile of small creatures. Three of ’em were dead, but one remained just barely alive.”
She got off the wooden spool and crouched down beside her pa. She stared at him, totally absorbed in his story. In her mind, she could see the bloody creatures on the ground.
“But what kind of creatures were they?” she asked in amazement.
He shook his head. “Like everyone else who lives in these mountains, I’d heard the stories of black magic, but I never gave them much credit until that night. I studied the one that was still alive the best I could in the darkness, but I still couldn’t figure what kind of thing it was. Or more like my mind just couldn’t believe it. But when I finally took up the creature in my bare hands and held it, I realized that it was actually a tiny human baby curled into a little ball.”
Serafina’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “What? Wait. I don’t understand. What happened? How did a baby get there?”
“The same question was runnin’ through my own mind, believe me, but one thing I knew for certain: regardless of how she came into the world, I had to get