Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,56

several seconds, the doorknob returned to its normal position and the footsteps resumed, continuing slowly down the hallway. She let go of Gidean, and they all finally started breathing normally again. She looked at Braeden.

“That was a close one,” she whispered.

“I’m glad you got here before he did,” Braeden said.

She went over and climbed back onto the bed. They lay in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the house—expecting running footsteps or a cry of terror in the night—but all they heard was the crackle of the fire and their own steady breathing as they drifted in and out of sleep.

Serafina woke the next morning to the sound of Braeden’s aunt knocking urgently on his locked bedroom door.

“Braeden, it’s time to get up,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “Braeden?”

Serafina slipped off the bed and looked for a place to hide.

“Here…” Braeden whispered as he pulled back a decorative brass vent cover on the wall beneath his desk.

“Braeden, are you all right in there?” his aunt asked through the door. “Please open up, darling. You’re worrying me.”

Serafina crawled into the air passage, and Braeden replaced the cover behind her. She watched him through the grille as he shoved the dress under his bed then glanced around the room to make sure there wasn’t any other evidence that she’d been there. Gidean studied his master with interest, the dog’s pointed ears raised upward and his head tilted to the side in inquiry.

“You don’t say a word,” Braeden warned him, and Gidean lowered his ears.

Finally, Braeden walked over to the door and opened it. “I’m here. I’m all right.”

His aunt swept into the room, wrapped her arms around him, and held him. That’s when Serafina realized that Mrs. Vanderbilt really did love Braeden. She could see it just in the way she clutched him.

“What’s happened?” Braeden asked his aunt uncertainly.

“The pastor’s son disappeared during the night.”

When she heard the news of another victim, Serafina felt a terrible knot in her stomach. That made three children in three nights now. It was like something was driving the attacker anew, pushing him harder and harder. She’d been so relieved that she and Braeden had been able to escape the Man in the Black Cloak by hiding in Braeden’s locked room, but now she realized all that meant was that he got someone else. Another child was gone. She had eluded the demon, but she had not stopped him.

Knowing that she had to find some way out other than through Braeden’s room, she crawled down the passage to see where it would lead. She came to an intersection of two other passages. She took the one on the right, where she came to another split. There appeared to be a whole network of secret passages running through the house. So this is where the rats have been hiding all these years.

She crawled past vents that led into the various private rooms of the house—sitting rooms, hallways, bedrooms, even bathrooms. She saw maids making beds, and guests getting dressed for the day. Everyone was whispering in worry and confusion. No one understood what was happening. They were talking about shades and murderers. Biltmore had become a haunted place where children disappeared.

She saw the footman, Mr. Pratt, walking hurriedly down a corridor with Miss Whitney. “No, no, Miss Whitney, this is no normal killer,” Mr. Pratt was saying as they went by.

“That’s an awful thing to say!” Miss Whitney protested. “How do you know they’re dead?”

“Oh, they’re dead, believe me. This is a creature of the night, something straight from hell.”

The phrase shocked Serafina. Creature of the night, he’d said. But she was a creature of the night. She’d used the phrase herself. Were creatures of the night evil? Did that mean she was evil? It horrified her to think that she was in some way associated with or like the Man in the Black Cloak.

“Well, what are we going to do about it? That’s what I want to know,” a man shouted.

She crawled a few feet through the passage in the direction of the man’s voice and looked down through a metal grate into the Gun Room. From her vantage point, she could see a dozen gentlemen standing and talking about what was going on.

“There is nothing we can do,” Mr. Vanderbilt said. “We have to let the detectives do their job.”

Mr. Vanderbilt knew all the ins and outs of Biltmore better than anybody. He designed the place. Why all the hidden staircases and secret doors? And he