Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,77
wear it for a few seconds, just long enough to see how it felt.
As she pulled on the cloak, it spoke to her once more.
Welcome, Serafina. I’m not going to hurt you, child…
As soon as Serafina put the cloak on, her world changed. The weight of the cloak on her shoulders felt strangely satisfying. The cloak gave off no stench or foul smell. There was no blood or fear while she was wearing the cloak. It made no rattling sound. Everything about it felt fine and good.
She used her fingers to clasp the cloak at her throat. Although it had been a full-length cloak on the much taller Mr. Thorne, it fit her body perfectly. She held out her arms and pivoted and looked at the cloak on her body. She thought she looked very sophisticated and aristocratic wearing it. Then she walked a few paces back and forth, testing how it draped and flowed. It felt like she was dancing with every movement she made.
“I look good in this,” she said. Her voice sounded strong and confident.
She didn’t feel nearly as confused, tired, and discouraged as she had just a moment before. No, she wasn’t tired at all anymore. She felt rested, capable. Optimistic. She felt powerful. Wearing the cloak, she felt as if she could do almost anything, solve any puzzle, accomplish any task, play any instrument, speak another language, and if she tried, maybe even fly. It was a wonderful, glorious feeling, and she spun around the angel’s glade kicking up the snow.
The power is within us…the cloak whispered.
She tried to imagine it. She’d be famous and popular, and everyone would love her. She’d have many friends and a huge family of people who adored her. She’d travel all over the world. She’d know more than everyone else. No one could defeat her.
We will work together…
She’d be the most powerful girl in the entire world.
We will be a great force…
With the fabric of the cloak wrapped around her, she began to understand things about it that she could not before. She could see its history, like a dark dream in her mind. The cloak had been conjured by a sorcerer who had lived in a nearby village. He’d intended to use it to gain talents and understanding, to learn languages and skills, and to become a great, unifying leader in society, but his creation went terribly awry. He hadn’t just created a concentrator of knowledge: he’d created an enslaver of souls. When he realized what he had done, he tried to hurl the cloak into the village’s deepest well. He fought with the cloak, tearing and pulling and throwing, but the cloak grasped at him and twisted around him and would not let go until, finally, the sorcerer threw himself and the cloak together down the well, thinking that he would destroy them both. As the years passed, the sorcerer’s body rotted in the well, putrefied, but the cloak remained, perfect and unharmed, until years later when it was found by the drunken and desperate Mr. Thorne. The cloak had the power to acquire knowledge and capability, to concentrate the talents of a hundred people into a single person. She had seen what Mr. Thorne did with that capability. She imagined what she could do with it. She’d be able to do anything she wanted. She could go anywhere. She’d know everything. She’d finally find all the answers.
She ran her fingers down the fabric of the cloak and felt its potency coursing through her. It contained such tremendous capability, she thought. She tried to imagine what great things she could do with it, what good and beneficial deeds she could accomplish in the world. It seemed like it would be such a shame to waste that power. Someone had to use the cloak; it might as well be her.
Lift the hood of the cloak…
She felt good and hopeful and buoyant.
Put on the hood…
She reached up and gathered the cloak’s hood in her fingers and pulled it onto her head.
Then she screamed in horror at the shock of what she saw.
The edges of her sight blurred into a dark and vibrating tunnel. She could still see the physical world directly in front of her, but the hood pressed in on her peripheral vision with a crush of dead children and adults pushing their faces up against hers. The faces of the dead children surrounded her.
A little blond girl cried as she pressed her cold dead face against Serafina’s,