Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,21
grasp all that was possible in a place like Biltmore. There were thousands of places to hide. She hoped they would somehow find Clara, despite what she had seen happen the night before, but she didn’t think they would. Clara Brahms was gone.
You’re too loud and moving too fast, she thought as the searchers went by. You’re never going to find her that way. You’ve got to catch the rat.
Her pa had told her to leave them to it, that it wasn’t any of her business, that they weren’t her kin, but who was he to say who was kin and who wasn’t? He stole babies out of the woods! What if Clara was still alive and needed her help? How could she just sit there and watch? What if the Man in the Black Cloak came again and took someone else? She resolved that she needed to find Braeden Vanderbilt again and tell him what she’d seen. It wouldn’t be right not to. She’d always dreamed of having a friend, but what kind of friend was she going to be to Clara Brahms if she didn’t try to help her?
When the corridor was clear, she crawled out of the chute and snuck away. Her plan was to creep upstairs, but when she passed the mossy stairway that led down to the lower levels of the basement, she wondered if there’d be any sign of what had happened the night before. The young master would be far more likely to believe her story if she could bring him some sort of evidence of what she’d seen.
She slinked down the stairs, down and down again, into the damp darkness of the subbasement until she came to the slanted, brown-dripping corridor.
She couldn’t stop her breathing from getting heavier, but she kept going, telling herself that she’d be safe.
She crept through the darkness until she came to the spot where she’d seen the Man in the Black Cloak. There was no sign of Clara Brahms, but there were red drips on the wall. On the floor she found a tiny shard of glass. From the broken lantern, she thought.
She searched the area but found nothing else.
On her way back, she followed the same series of corridors she had used to escape the demon or whatever it was. She studied the areas where she had battled for her life. She spotted something lying at the base of the wall that, at first glance, looked like a dead, rotting rat. It had the size and color of one of the nasty vermin, but as she took a step closer, her nose wrinkled. It gave off a putrid, foul smell, but it wasn’t a rat. She clenched her teeth and got down onto her hands and knees and examined it. It was a glove lying crumpled on the floor. Images of the Black Cloak swirling around her rose up in her mind, the cloak cutting her off from all she knew and loved.
It’s just a glove, you silly fool, she thought, smiling at her scaredy-cat thoughts, but when she picked it up, her mouth curled in disgust. Inside the glove there were bloody patches of skin.
It was so disgusting, far worse than any rat carcass she’d ever found, but she forced herself to examine it more closely. The glove was made out of a fine, thin, black satin material. The flakes and patches of skin inside appeared as if they had sloughed off the hand that had last worn the glove. The skin had black spots and gray hairs. It was as if the owner of the glove hadn’t just been old, but aging rapidly, almost disintegrating. Her muscles twitched as she remembered fighting for her life. She had bitten and clawed in a wild frenzy. The glove must have fallen from his belt or pocket, for she remembered that his hands had been bare and bloody when she fought him.
Men’s gloves were as common as top hats and canes, so it wasn’t a very good clue. It didn’t provide her evidence to show to the young master. But it did stiffen the idea that whoever or whatever the Man in the Black Cloak was, there was something wrong with him.
Anxious to get out of the damp and more determined than ever to find the young master, she scampered her way up to the main level of the basement.
Many of the rooms on this level had windows at the tops of the walls. Outside, she could