Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,41
she said with a pang of uncertainty in her stomach, and she started walking. But she wasn’t exactly heading for home. Not directly.
The Man in the Black Cloak had seemed to know the forest very well, and she remembered the tales of folk going missing. She had a creeping suspicion that the Man in the Black Cloak might be in some way connected to the abandoned village that she’d heard tell about. She had decided she was going to find the old village and see if it gave her any clues. Why would all the people in a town abandon their homes and leave?
There was a part of her, too, that was anxious to delve into the shadows of the forest, to see this mysterious world. It drew her, not just because she’d been forbidden by her pa to come here, but by the thorny truth of her pa’s own account: she’d been born here.
She decided to walk on down the road a spell and see what she could see. Perhaps there would be an old sign pointing to the abandoned village, or perhaps she’d meet someone along the road who might be able to tell her how to get there. One way or another, it seemed like it would be pretty easy to find an entire town.
As she walked, her mind kept drifting back to her pa. She wished she could get a message to him. He’d be worried sick about her, especially with the horrible tales of disappearing children. She wondered if he ever got the dynamo working.
It created the one thing that everyone other than her needed so desperately at night: light. Who in the world would purposely damage an electric generator? And who would even know how to do something like that? Her pa was the only man on the estate who knew how it worked. Him, and maybe George Vanderbilt if he referred to one of the books in his library.
She thought that it was interesting how just about everyone had a special talent or skill, something they were naturally drawn to and good at, and then they worked years to master it. Nobody knew how to do everything. It wasn’t possible. There wasn’t enough time in the night. But everyone knew something. And everyone was a little different. Some people did one thing. Others did another. It made her think that maybe God intended for them to all fit together, like a puzzle made whole.
It still stunned her when she tried to imagine her big, train mechanic pa carrying a newborn baby out of the forest and taking care of her all those years. It had never occurred to her until now that she belonged anywhere but in the basement with her father, but now her mind ran wild with questions and ideas. She was anxious to get home, but walking down that road, she felt a little exhilarated that she was free and on her own. She could go in any direction she chose.
She walked for an hour without seeing a soul, nothing but blue jays and chickadees twitching about her, a few squirrels chattering away at her, and a mink dashing across the road in front of her like his life depended on it. She wasn’t even sure she was still heading in the right direction anymore, but she figured she couldn’t go wrong if she stayed on the road.
Then she came to a three-way split.
The left road was the widest and seemed to be the most traveled. She got down on her hands and knees and studied the rocky ground. It was hard to tell, but she thought that maybe she could see the indention of carriage wheels. But the middle road was wide and clear as well, with occasional dents in the ground that might be from the hooves of horses. Either one of these roads could be the road to Biltmore.
Only the third road was different. It wasn’t even right to call it a road, but what used to be a road. Two old, rotting fir trees had collapsed, making an X across the path. Thick vines of poison ivy and smothering creeper grew all around and seemed to strangle the two fallen trees. This road obviously hadn’t been traveled by carriage or horseback in years. She wasn’t even sure a person on foot could get through.
She didn’t see any sign or marker that identified the road, but it seemed possible that an old, unused pathway like this might