Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,29
together at Biltmore would be over. They might even go to prison for stealing food all those years.
Just as Braeden was about to speak, the horses screamed and the carriage slammed to a halt. She was hurled across the open space and crashed into him. Gidean leapt to his feet and began to bark wildly.
“Something has happened,” Braeden said fiercely as he quickly untangled himself from her and opened the carriage door.
It was pitch-dark outside.
She tried to listen for what was out there, but her heart pounded so loudly that she couldn’t hear a thing. She tried to calm herself down and really listen, but the forest was too quiet. There were no owls, no frogs, no insects, no birds—none of the normal night sounds she was used to hearing. Just silence. It was like every living creature in the forest was hiding for its dear life. Or already dead.
“Mr. Crankshod?” Braeden asked uncertainly into the darkness.
No answer came.
The hairs on the back of Serafina’s neck stood on end.
Braeden stepped partway out of the carriage and looked up at the driver’s bench at the front. “There’s no one there!” he said in astonishment. “They’re both gone!”
The four horses were still in the harnesses, but the carriage had stopped dead in the road. Right in the middle of the forest.
Serafina climbed slowly out of the carriage and stood at Braeden’s side. The forest surrounded them, black and impenetrable, the craggy-barked trees packed densely together. Her legs jittered beneath her, filled with nervous impulse. She tried to steady her breathing. Her whole body wanted to move, but she forced herself to stay with Braeden and Gidean.
She watched and listened to the unnaturally quiet forest, extending her senses out into the void. She couldn’t hear a single toad or whip-poor-will. But it felt like there was something out there, something big but extremely quiet. She didn’t even know how that was possible.
Gidean stood beside her on full alert, staring into the trees. Whatever it was, he sensed it, too.
Braeden looked warily into the darkness that surrounded them and walked forward a few feet in the direction the carriage was facing.
“I wish I had a lantern,” he said. “I can’t see anything at all.”
The horses fidgeted in their harnesses, their hooves shifting uneasily in the gravel.
“When they’re scared, they move their feet,” Braeden said sympathetically. “They have no claws, no sharp teeth, no weapons. Their speed is their main defense.”
She marveled at how Braeden didn’t just see the horses but understood how they thought.
When a breeze passed through the woods and rattled the branches of the trees, the horses spooked. All four of them pulled and tugged against their harnesses. It was like they were being attacked by some invisible predator. Squealing, the front two horses reared up on their hind legs and struck the air with their hooves.
As Serafina shrank back from the danger in frightened dismay, Braeden rushed forward and put himself between her and the horses. Standing in front of them, he raised his open hands to calm them. They towered above him, their eyes white with fear, their heads thrashing and their hooves flying. She was sure they were going to kick him in the head, or slam him with a shoulder, or trample him to death, but he stood with his hands raised, speaking to them in soft, gentle tones. “It’s all right. We’re all here,” he said to them. “We’re all together.”
To her astonishment, the horses were calmed by his presence and his words. He touched their shoulders with his outstretched hands and seemed to bring the rearing horses back to the ground. Then he held the head of the lead horse in his hands and pressed his forehead to the horse’s forehead so that they were looking at each other eye to eye, and he spoke to the horse in quiet, reassuring tones. “We’re in this together, my friend. We’re going to be all right…There’s no need to run, no need to fight…”
The lead horse breathed heavily through its nose as it listened to Braeden’s words, then settled and became still. The other horses quieted as well, reassured by the young master.
“H-how did you…?” she stammered.
“These horses and I have been friends for a long time,” he replied, but said nothing more.
Still astounded by what he’d done, she looked around at their surroundings. “What do you think frightened them?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen them so scared.”