Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,52
eyes and growled.
“Shh,” she whispered. “You know me.…”
Gidean’s ears went down in relief when he recognized her voice, and he stopped growling.
Now, that’s a good dog, she thought. And it was a pretty good sign that her hopes for friendship with Braeden weren’t on the completely wrong mountaintop. She’d get a chuckle out of that—if she became friends with the dog but not the boy.
She gently closed the door behind her and locked it. At first, she thought it was the foolish adults who had forgotten to lock the door and protect Braeden from whoever or whatever was making their children disappear, but then she realized that it was the type of door that could only be locked from the inside. She couldn’t decide whether to be angry with him or pleased. She couldn’t help but smile a little when she realized that maybe he’d left it unlocked for her. Maybe he was hoping that she would come.
Standing quietly by the door, she gazed around the room. The warm embers of the fire glowed in the fireplace. The red oak-paneled walls were covered with paintings of horses, cats, dogs, hawks, foxes, and otters. His shelves were filled with books about horseback riding and animals. Award plaques and blue ribbons from equestrian events were everywhere. Soon they would need to build the young master a new room for all his first-place finishes. Knowing the Vanderbilts, it wouldn’t be just a room but a whole wing.
It felt good to be there with Braeden, to be in the warmth and darkness of his room. She could see that this was his refuge. But she had the feeling that maybe even here, in this seemingly protected place, they weren’t completely safe. Something was telling her that she should stay on her guard, at least a little while longer.
Careful not to wake him, she moved quietly over to the window and scanned the grounds for signs of danger. The moon cast a ghostly silver light across the Rambles, a maze of giant azaleas, hollies, and other bushes. The branches of the trees swayed in the wind. It was in the Rambles that Anastasia Rostonova had disappeared, leaving her little white dog behind to search the empty paths for her.
As she looked down from the second floor to the moonlit gardens below her, she could almost imagine seeing herself a few nights before, walking across the grounds toward the forest’s edge, two rats clenched in her fists.
She looked behind her at Braeden, lying in the bed. Then she looked out across the forest once more. An owl glided on silent wings across the canopy of trees and then disappeared.
I am a creature of the night, she thought.
When she finally began to feel tired, she pulled herself away from the window. She went over to the fireplace and felt the warmth of its glowing coals. Then she pulled a blanket off the leather chair and curled up on the fur rug on the floor in front of the fire. She fell asleep almost immediately. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, she slept soundly and dreamed deeply for hours. It felt good to be home.
In the middle of the night, she awoke slowly to the gentle sound of Braeden’s voice. “I was hoping you would come,” he said. It didn’t seem to surprise him at all to wake and find her curled up by his fireplace. “I was worrying about you all day.”
“I’m all right,” she said, her heart filling with warmth as much from the tone of his voice as the words he spoke.
“How did you make it home?” he asked.
She told him everything, and for the first time, it all began to feel real in her mind and in her heart. It didn’t feel like just a dream or a child’s fantasy, but actually true.
Braeden turned onto his back and listened to her account with rapt attention. “That’s amazing,” he said several times.
When she was done, he paused for a long time, as if he was envisioning it all in his mind, and then he said, “You’re so clever and brave, Serafina.”
She couldn’t suppress a sigh as all the fear, uncertainty, and helplessness that had built up inside her drifted away.
They sat quietly in the darkness for a long time, he in his bed and her by the fireplace, not moving or talking, and it felt good just to be there for a while.