The Serafina Series

Serafina’s mother moved quickly towards her and flattened herself beside her. Serafina didn’t understand what she was doing. Then the darker lion came and nudged Serafina’s body with his head. At first, she thought the lions were trying to rub against her and disguise her scent with theirs, but then she realised their true intention.

Serafina climbed onto her mother’s back, clutching her neck and shoulders. With the lioness carrying her and the dark lion close at her side, the three of them moved into the trees, slowly at first, and then more quickly. Serafina felt her mother’s fur against her face, and the force of her mother’s lungs, and the power of her muscles. The lioness began to move more swiftly through the forest. Soon they were running.

It was the most incredible feeling, streaming through the night at high speed, propelled by the undulating rhythm of the lioness’s bounding stride, so strong and quiet and fast, the dark lion running beside her. Serafina had dreamed of running like this many times, but she had never moved this fast in her entire life. What amazed her was how smooth it was, how agile her mother’s movements, how quickly she could change direction and speed, with both grace and power at her command.

When they reached a prominence of high ground, the two lions paused and looked down towards the river. They watched as the five wolfhounds followed Serafina’s scent to the edge of the river, then crossed it. But they went straight across, not realising she had been swept far downstream by the powerful current. At the time, it had felt like a catastrophe that the river had pulled her off her feet and carried her away, but now she realised that it had saved her. The wolfhounds sniffed the ground, circling in confusion. They’d lost her scent. And when they ran up and down the edge of the river looking to find her trail, their confusion mounted.

They can’t find me, Serafina thought with a smile as she clung to her mother’s back. All they can smell is mountain lion.

Suddenly, the lions were moving again, running through the forest at high speed, leaping small ravines and creeks, dashing through ferns. The branches and trunks of the trees flashed by. The whistle of the wind filled her ears.

They ran for so long through the night that Serafina’s eyes closed, and all she could feel was the movement of the running, the coolness of the air above her, and the warmth of her mother beneath her.

Serafina awoke a short time later on a bed of soft bright green grass that glowed in the moonlight. She felt the warmth of nuzzling fur and the deep and gentle vibration of purring. Her mother’s two cubs snuggled up against Serafina, kneading her back with their tiny paws, so happy to see her that they were giving her a back rub. She couldn’t help but smile. She could feel their little noses pressing against her shoulders and their whiskers tickling her neck. Over the last few weeks that she’d been visiting the cubs at her mother’s den, she had come to love her half brother and half sister, and she knew they had come to love her too.

She reached up to feel the cut on her head. It had been dressed with a leafy compress that had stopped the bleeding and numbed the pain. The wounds on her arms and legs had been treated with poultices of forest herbs. She didn’t want to, but she was pretty sure she could move if she needed to. She had noticed in the past that pain didn’t slow her down like it did many other people. She had surprised her pa in this regard more than once. Cold weather didn’t affect her either. Like her kin, she seemed to have been born with a natural toughness, the ability to keep going even when she had been battered and bloodied. But, even so, the medicine on her cuts and punctures was a welcome relief.

Feeling a gentle hand on her shoulder, she looked up. Her mother was in her human form – with her golden feline eyes, strikingly angled cheekbones, and long light brown hair. But the most striking feature was that whenever Serafina looked into her mother’s face she knew that her mother loved her with all her heart.

‘You’re safe, Serafina,’ her mother said as she checked the dressing on her head.

‘Momma,’ she said, her voice weak and ragged.

Looking around her, Serafina saw that her mother had brought her deep into the forest, to the angel’s glade at the edge of the old, overgrown cemetery. Beneath the cemetery’s dark cloak of twisted and gnarled trees, thick vines strangled the cracked, lichen-covered gravestones. Straggly moss hung down from the dead branches of the trees, and the darkened earth oozed with a ghostly mist. But the mist did not seep into the angel’s glade itself, and a small circle of lush grass always remained perfect and green, even in winter. In the centre of the glade stood a stone monument, a sculpture of a beautiful winged angel with a glinting steel sword. It was as if the angel protected the glade in a cusp of time, making it a place of eternal spring.

Her mother had been raising her two new cubs in a den beneath the roots of a large willow tree at the edge of the glade. And on a very different night from tonight, it had been the battleground on which Serafina and her allies had defeated Mr Thorne, the Man in the Black Cloak.

Find the Black One! the bearded man with the wolfhounds had said earlier that night. She could not help but gaze around the glade for signs of the Black Cloak that she had torn to pieces on the razor-sharp edge of the angel’s sword. She’d been sure that she had destroyed it, but she should have smashed its silver clasp and burned the leftover scraps of cloth. She looked towards the graveyard, with its tilting headstones and its broken coffins, and wondered what might have happened to the last remnants of the cloak.

For as long as she could remember, she had prowled through Biltmore’s darkened corridors on her own. All her life, she’d hunted. It had been her instinct. She had never known why she had a long, curving spine, detached collarbones, and four toes on each foot. She had never known why she could see in the dark and others could not. But when she’d finally met her mother she’d understood. Her mother was a catamount, a shape-shifting cat of the mountains. Serafina had come to understand that she wasn’t just a child. She was a cub.

Desperate to learn more, she had hunted with her mother in the forest every night for the last several weeks, not just learning the lore of the forest, but what it meant to be a catamount. She had listened diligently to her mother’s teachings and studied her mother when she was in her lion form. She had concentrated with all her mind and all her heart just like her mother had taught her. She had tried countless times to envision what she would look like, what it would feel like, but nothing ever happened. She was never able to change. She stayed just who she was. She wanted so badly to ask her mother to help her try again right now, but she had a sick feeling in her stomach that her mother wouldn’t do it.

As the cubs trundled around in front of Serafina and nuzzled her face, she petted them and snuggled them, pressing their little ears back with her hands. The cubs were pure mountain lions, not shape-shifters, but they had accepted her from the beginning, never seeming to notice or care that her teeth were short and her tail was missing.

She wondered where the dark lion had gone. He was too young to be the father of her mother’s cubs, so why had he been with her?

‘Who was that other lion, Momma?’ she asked. ‘The young one –’

‘Never mind about him,’ her mother snarled. ‘I’ve told him to keep his distance from all of us, especially you. This isn’t his territory and he knows it. He’s only passing through with the others.’

Serafina looked up at her in quick surprise. ‘What others?’

Her mother touched her cheek. ‘You need to rest, little one,’ she said, and then began to pull away.

‘Please, tell me what’s happening,’ Serafina pleaded, grabbing her mother’s arm. ‘What others are you talking about? Why are the animals leaving? Who was that man in the forest? Why has he come?’

Her mother turned and looked into her eyes. ‘Never let yourself be seen or heard in the forest, Serafina. Always stay low and quiet. You must keep yourself safe.’

‘But I don’t want to be safe. I want to know what’s happening,’ she said before she could stop herself, realising how childish she sounded.

‘I understand your curiosity. Believe me, I do,’ her mother said gently as she reached out and touched her arm. ‘But how many lives do you think you have, little one? The forest is too dangerous for you. One of these nights I might not be there in time to save you.’

‘I want to be able to change like you, Momma.’

‘I know you do, kitten. I’m sorry,’ her mother said, wiping Serafina’s cheek.

‘Tell me what I need to do,’ Serafina begged. ‘I’ll keep practising.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘Catamount kittens change with their mothers when they are very young, before they walk or run or speak. It becomes so much a part of how they envision themselves that they cannot even remember it being any other way. They see themselves as a catamount, and a catamount they become. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there to teach you when you were young.’

‘Teach me now, Momma.’

‘We’ve been trying every night – you know we have,’ her mother said, ‘but I’m afraid it’s too late for you. You won’t ever be able to change.’

Serafina shook her head fiercely, so frustrated and hurt by her words that she was almost growling at her mother. ‘I know I can do it. Don’t give up on me.’

‘The forest is too dangerous for you to be here,’ her mother said, her eyes filled sadness.

‘You can come back with me to Biltmore in your human form,’ Serafina said excitedly. ‘We can be together.’

‘Serafina,’ her mother said, her tone both soft and firm at the same time, like she knew the loneliness and confusion that Serafina must be feeling. ‘I was trapped in my lion form for twelve years. I can’t even imagine going back into the world of humans again, not yet. You have to understand. My soul was cleaved. I need time to heal, to understand what I am. I’m so sorry, but right now I belong in the forest, and I need to take care of the cubs.’

‘But –’ Serafina tried to say.

‘Wait,’ her mother said softly. ‘Let me finish what I was saying. I need to tell you this.’ She paused, filled with emotion. ‘During those same twelve years that I was a lion, you were as trapped as I was. You were trapped in your human form.’ Her mother wiped a tear from her own eye. ‘That is what you are now. That is what you’ve grown up to be. You’re a human . . . and I’m a catamount.’ She looked down at the ground and pulled in a long, ragged breath. And then she lifted her eyes and looked at Serafina again. ‘I am so thankful that we had this time together, that I got to know you and see what a wonderful girl you’ve grown up to be. I love you with all my heart, Serafina, but I can’t be your mother the way I know I should be.’

‘Momma, please don’t say that . . .’ Serafina said.

‘No, Serafina,’ her mother said, holding her with trembling hands. ‘Listen to me. You almost died tonight. I should have never let you wander the forest alone. I almost lost you.’ Her mother’s voice cracked. ‘You have no idea how much you mean to me . . . and you have no idea how dark a force has been stirred. I want you to go back to Biltmore and stay there. That is your home. You’re safe inside those walls. Things are changing here. I must take the cubs and go. The forest is far too dangerous for you, especially now.’

Serafina looked up at her. ‘You’re going? What do you mean, “especially now”? Tell me what’s happening, Momma. Why are all the animals leaving?’

‘This is not your battle to fight, Serafina. With your two legs, you can’t run fast enough to escape this danger. And you can’t claw hard enough to fight against it. Once you’ve rested, I want you to go home. Be very careful. Stay clear of everything you see. Go straight back to Biltmore.’

Serafina tried to keep from crying. ‘Momma, I want to be here with you in the forest. Please.’

‘Serafina, you don’t be –’

‘Don’t say that!’

‘You have to listen to what I’m saying,’ her mother said more forcefully. ‘You don’t belong here, Serafina.’

Serafina rubbed the tears out of her eyes in fury. She wanted to belong. She wanted to belong more than anything. Her mother’s words were splitting her heart in two. She wanted to keep arguing, but her mother would say no more.

Her mother laid Serafina’s head down in the grass. ‘I’ve given you something to help you sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake.’

Serafina lay quietly, just as her mother had told her, but it was all so confusing. Whether house or forest, she just wanted to find a place to be. She seemed to have friends who weren’t her friends, kin who weren’t her kin. It felt like a dark force was gathering in the forest and seeping into her heart, like the Black Cloak slowly wrapping itself round her soul.

Lying at the base of the angel, she felt herself drifting into a deep and blackened sleep, like she was falling into a bottomless pit, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

When she woke a few hours later, she was no longer lying in the grass. She found herself in total darkness. She felt dirt all around her – below her, above her and on all sides.

It took Serafina several seconds to realise that she was lying in her mother’s earthen den. Her mother must have picked her up and carried her into the den when she was sleeping.

She felt warmer and stronger than she had before. She got herself up onto her hands and knees and crawled out of the den, then stood in the moonlight of the angel’s glade. Looking up at the stars, it felt like a few hours had passed.

Her bleeding had stopped and her wounds did not hurt as badly as they had before. But, as she looked around her, her heart sank, for her mother and the cubs and the dark lion were gone. They had left her here alone.

She found words traced into the dirt.

If you need me, winter, spring, or fall, come where what you climbed is floor and rain is wall.

Serafina frowned. She didn’t know what the words meant or even if they had been left for her.

She gazed around the angel’s glade and then out into the trees. The forest was utter stillness, nothing but a mist drifting through the wet and glistening branches, and she could not hear a single living thing. It was as if the entire world outside the glade had disappeared.

She thought about her mother, and the cubs, and the dark lion, and what her mother had said: You don’t belong here, Serafina! Of all the wounds she’d suffered, that one hurt the most.

Then she thought about Braeden, and her pa, and Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt, and everyone at Biltmore living their daytime lives so separate from her own.

You don’t belong there, either.

Standing in the centre of the angel’s glade, she came to a slow and aching realisation.

She was once again alone.

Just alone.

When she thought about what her mother had told her she would never be able to do, an aching, broken, throbbing part of her just wanted to kneel down and cry. She didn’t understand. She had been so hopeful with all the changes that were happening in her life, but now she felt like she was caught in between, like she didn’t belong anywhere. She was neither forest nor house, neither night nor day.

After a long time, she turned and looked at the beautiful, silent stone angel, with her graceful and powerful wings and her long steel sword. Serafina read the inscription on the pedestal.

OUR CHARACTER ISN’T DEFINED

BY THE BATTLES WE WIN OR LOSE,

BUT BY THE BATTLES WE DARE TO FIGHT.

Then she looked back out into the forest once more. She decided that no matter what she could or couldn’t do, no matter who did or didn’t want her, she was still the C.R.C. – that much she knew for sure. And she’d seen things in the forest tonight that she couldn’t account for. She didn’t know who the bearded man was, except that he was something so dark that the animals fled before him, something so dangerous that even her mother believed that he could not be fought. Her mother was sure the darkest dangers lurked in the forest, and no doubt they did, but Serafina knew from experience that sometimes they crept into the house. She remembered the driverless carriage and the four stallions going onward up the road towards Biltmore. She could swear there had been someone else in that carriage. In what guise would this new stranger arrive and slither his way into Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt’s home? Into her home. And what had he come for? Was he a thief ? Was he a spy?

Standing there in the angel’s glade, Serafina came to a decision. If there were a rat in the house, she was going to find it.

Serafina stopped at the edge of Biltmore’s lagoon, crouched down in the undergrowth and scanned the horizon for danger.

She waited and she watched.

From her current vantage point, she didn’t see any signs of trouble. Everything looked peaceful and serene.

The mirrorlike surface of the lagoon reflected the last of the shimmering stars that would soon give way to dawn. A family of swans flew low over the smooth water, then circled round and came in for a landing, shattering the reflection of the starlit sky.

In the distance, Biltmore House sat majestically atop a great hill, seeming to rise up out of the trees of the parkland that surrounded it. The windows glinted as the first light of the rising sun touched its walls. With its slate-blue roof, elegant arches and spired towers, it looked like a fairytale castle of old, the kind she had read about in the mansion’s library when everyone else was asleep.

Seeing the house, a gentle warmth filled her heart. She was glad to be coming home. She decided that she would try to rekindle her friendship with Braeden, and she’d make sure she thanked Mrs Vanderbilt again for the dress she’d given her. And she would do her best to mind her pa. But the first thing she had to do was to make sure she watched out for any strangers who had arrived at Biltmore during the night. The pain of her wounds had lessened, but the frightening images of the bearded man in the forest and the other figure in the carriage blazed in her mind. And she kept wondering what had happened to the feral boy who had helped her and then disappeared.

She headed towards the house, making her way up the slope through an area of open grassland dotted with large trees. She slinked from tree to tree, careful to stay hidden.

When she spotted two men and a dog in the distance walking towards the edge of the forest, she crouched low and took cover. She immediately recognised the lean, dark-haired figure of Mr Vanderbilt, the master of Biltmore Estate, in his calf-high boots, woodsman jacket and fedora hat. Like most gentlemen, he often carried a stylish cane when he was out and about on formal occasions, but today he had equipped himself with his usual chestnut hiking stave with its spiked metal ferrule and leather wrist strap. Cedric, his huge white and brown St Bernard, walked loyally beside him. Over the last few weeks, she’d got to know Mr Vanderbilt better than she had before. There was much about the quiet man that was still a mystery to her, but she’d come to appreciate him, and hoped he felt the same about her. She was relieved to see him safe and out for what looked like an early-morning walk. This was surely a good sign that all was well at Biltmore.

But then she saw the man walking with him.

He wore a long tannish-brown coat over his light-grey gentleman’s suit, and carried a walking stick with a brass knob that glinted in the sun as he moved. He had an old face, a balding head and a thick grey beard. Serafina narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She immediately thought of the terrifying man she’d seen in the forest, with his silvery glinting eyes and his craggy face. They were disturbingly similar figures. But, as she watched, she decided that this wasn’t him.

The man walking with Mr Vanderbilt was older, slower in movement, more bent of frame. She could not see his face well enough to know who he was, but he seemed familiar. And she remembered that the man with the dogs had exited the carriage and sent it on towards Biltmore. Was this the second occupant of the carriage? Maybe it was one of the bearded man’s servants sent ahead to spy. Or was he a demon like the Man in the Black Cloak? She knew that someone had come to Biltmore during the night. She just needed to find out who it was.

She slipped behind a large black walnut tree and watched the two men. As they walked slowly into the forest, the stranger poked a hole in the ground with the tip of his cane. Then he took something out of his leather shoulder satchel, knelt down and seemed to bury it in the earth. Serafina thought that this was very peculiar behaviour.

The two men and the dog finally disappeared into the foliage, leaving Serafina with nothing but lingering doubt about who this stranger was and how he was connected to the man she’d seen the night before.

As she puzzled through what she’d seen, she continued up the slope towards the house. Her heart leapt when she saw Braeden by the stables saddling one of his horses.

Seeing her friend safe and sound, Serafina smiled and felt her muscles relaxing. She could see now that whoever or whatever had come to Biltmore in the carriage during the night hadn’t hurt her friend. But the first thing she was going to do was tell Braeden what had happened to her in the forest and warn him about what she’d seen.

Braeden was wearing his usual brown tweed hacking jacket and vest, with a white shirt and beige cravat. He moved around easily in his leather riding boots. His tussle of brown hair was blowing in the breeze a little bit. It did not surprise her to see Gidean, his Dobermann, at his side. Braeden seemed to make a lasting bond with whatever animal he met. He had befriended the unusual, pointed-eared black dog while travelling in Germany with his family a few years ago. After the tragic death of his family in a house fire, the boy and his dog had become inseparable. In some ways, Gidean was the last remaining member of Braeden’s family before he came to Biltmore to live with his uncle, and he had found few other friends.

Serafina knew that Braeden rode every day. He’d gallop across the fields like the wind, his horse running so fast that it was like they weren’t even in contact with the earth. It was good to see him here.

She broke from her cover and ran towards him, thinking that she’d pounce on him and knock him to the ground in fun. She was just about to shout, Hey, Braeden! when a second figure stepped out from behind the horse. Serafina dropped quickly into the tall grass.