The Serafina Series

Serafina looked at the face of the lady in the green dress, and then she looked at the face of the lady in the mauve hat. She knew her momma was long dead, or at the very least long gone, but all her life, whenever she saw a woman, she checked to see if the woman looked like her. She studied the faces of the children too, wondering if there was a chance that any of them could be her brothers and sisters. When she was little, she used to tell herself a story that maybe she had come home one day to the house, muddy from her hunting, and her mother had taken her downstairs and stuck her in the belt-driven washing machine, and then gone back upstairs and accidentally forgot about her, just spinning and spinning away down there. But when Serafina looked around at the women and the children in the Entrance Hall and saw their blond hair and their blue eyes, their black hair and their brown eyes, she knew that none of them were her kin. Her pa never talked about what her momma looked like, but Serafina searched for her in every face she saw.

Serafina had come upstairs with a purpose, but now that she was here, the thought of actually trying to talk to any of these fancy people put a rock in her stomach. She swallowed and inched forward a little, but the lump in her throat was so huge she wasn’t even sure she could get a word out. She wanted to tell them what she’d seen, but it suddenly seemed so foolish. They were all happy and carefree, like so many larks on a sunny day. She didn’t understand. The girl was obviously one of these people, so why weren’t they looking for her? It was like it had never happened, like she had imagined the whole thing. What was she going to say to them? Excuse me, everyone . . . I’m pretty sure I saw a horrible black-cloaked man make a little girl vanish into thin air. Has anyone seen her? They’d lock her up like a cuckoo bird.

As a tall gentleman in a black suit coat walked by, she realised that one of these men might actually be the Man in the Black Cloak. With his shadowed face and glowing eyes, there was no doubt that the attacker had been some sort of spectre, but she had sunk her teeth into him and tasted real blood, and he needed a lantern to see just like all the other people she’d followed over the years, which meant he was of this world too. She scanned the men in the crowd, keeping her breathing as steady as she could. Was it possible that he was here at this very moment?

Mrs Edith Vanderbilt, the mistress of the house, walked into the room wearing a striking velvet dress and a wide-brimmed hat. Serafina couldn’t take her eyes off the mesmerising movement of the hat’s feathers. A refined and attractive woman, Mrs Vanderbilt had a pale complexion and a full head of dark hair, and she seemed at ease in her role as hostess as she moved through the room.

‘While we wait for the servants to bring up our horses,’ she said happily to her guests, ‘I would like to invite everyone to join me in the Tapestry Gallery for a little bit of musical entertainment.’

A pleasant murmur passed through the crowd. Delighted by the idea of a diversion, the ladies and gentlemen streamed into the gallery, an elegantly decorated room with its exquisitely hand-painted ceiling, intricate musical instruments and delicate antique wall tapestries. Serafina loved to climb the tapestries at night and run her fingernails down through the soft fabric.

‘I’m sure that most of you already know Mr Montgomery Thorne,’ Mrs Vanderbilt said with a gentle sweep of her arm towards a gentleman. ‘He has graciously offered to play for us today.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Vanderbilt,’ Mr Thorne said as he stepped forward with a smile. ‘This whole outing is such a wonderful idea, and I must say you’re a most radiant hostess on this lovely morning.’

‘You’re too kind, sir,’ Mrs Vanderbilt said with a smile.

To Serafina, who’d been listening to Biltmore’s visitors her entire life, he didn’t sound like he came from the mountains of North Carolina, or from New York like the Vanderbilts. He spoke with the accent of a Southern gentleman, maybe from Georgia or South Carolina. She crept forward to get a better look at him. He wore a white satin cravat round his neck, a brocade waistcoat and pale grey gloves, all of which she thought went nicely with his silvery-black hair and perfectly trimmed sideburns.

He picked up a finely made violin and its bow from the table where it had been lying.

‘Since when do you play the violin, Thorne?’ called one of the gentlemen from New York in a friendly tone.

‘Oh, I’ve been practising here and there, Mr Bendel,’ said Mr Thorne as he lifted the instrument to his chin.

‘When? On the carriage ride here?’ Mr Bendel retorted, and everyone laughed.

Serafina almost felt sorry for Mr Thorne. It was clear from their playful banter that Mr Bendel and Mr Thorne were companions, but it was equally clear that Mr Bendel had serious doubts as to whether his friend could actually play.

Serafina watched in nervous silence as Mr Thorne prepared himself. Perhaps it was a new instrument to him and this was his first performance. She couldn’t even imagine playing such a thing herself. At long last, he set the bow gently across the strings, paused for a moment to collect himself, and then began to play.

Suddenly, the vaulted rooms of the great house filled with the loveliest music she had ever heard, elegant and flowing, like a river of sound. He was wonderful. Spellbound by the beauty of his playing, the ladies and gentlemen and even the servants stood quietly and listened with rapt attention, and they let their hearts soak in every measure of the music he made.

Serafina enjoyed the sound of his playing, but she also watched his dexterous fingers. They moved so fast over the strings that they reminded her of little running mice, and she wanted to pounce on them.

When Mr Thorne was done, everyone applauded and congratulated him, especially Mr Bendel, who laughed in disbelief. ‘You never cease to amaze me, Thorne. You shoot like a marksman, you speak fluent Russian and now you play the violin like Vivaldi! Tell us, man, is there anything you’re not good at?’

‘Well, I’m certainly not as skilled a horseback rider as you are, Mr Bendel,’ Mr Thorne said as he set his violin aside. ‘And I must say it has always been most vexing to me.’

‘Well, stop the presses!’ Mr Bendel called. ‘The man has a chink in his armour after all!’ Then he looked at Mrs Vanderbilt with a smile. ‘So, when exactly are we going horseback riding?’

The other guests laughed at the two gentlemen as they quipped back and forth, and Serafina smiled. She enjoyed watching the camaraderie of these people. She envied the way they spoke to one another and touched each other and shared their lives. It was so different from her own world of shadow and solitude. She watched a young woman tilt her head and smile as she reached out and put her hand on the arm of a young gentleman. Serafina tried imitating the gesture herself.

‘Are you lost?’ someone said behind her.

Startled, Serafina whirled round and started to hiss, but then she stopped herself short. A young boy stood in front of her. A large black Dobermann with sharply pointed ears sat at his side, staring intently at her.

The boy wore a fine tweed riding jacket, a buttoned vest, woollen jodhpurs and knee-high leather boots. He was a little sickly-looking, a little frail even, but he had watchful, sensitive brown eyes and a rather fetching tussle of wavy brown hair. He stood quietly, staring at her.

It took every ounce of her courage not to run. She didn’t know what to do. Did he think she was a vagrant who had wandered in? Or perhaps she looked like a dazed servant – maybe a chimney sweep or window-washing girl. Either way, she knew she was stuck. He’d caught her dead to rights exactly where she wasn’t supposed to be.

‘Are you lost?’ the boy asked again, but this time she heard what sounded strangely like kindness in his voice. ‘May I help you find your way?’ He wasn’t timid or shy, but he wasn’t overconfident or arrogant, either. And it surprised her that he didn’t seem angry at her for being there. There was a trace of curiosity in his tone.

‘I-I-I’m not lost,’ she stammered. ‘I was just –’

‘It’s all right,’ he said as he stepped towards her. ‘I still get lost sometimes, and I’ve lived here for two years.’

Serafina sucked in a breath. Suddenly, she realised that she was speaking face to face with the young master, Mr Vanderbilt’s nephew. She’d seen him many times before, standing at his bedroom window looking out at the mountains, or galloping his horse across the grounds or walking alone on the footpaths with his dog – she’d watched him for years, but she’d never been this close to him.

Most of what she knew about him she’d overheard from the gossiping servants, and when it came to the young master, they sure did prattle on. When he was ten years old, his family had died in a fire and he became an orphan. His uncle took him in. He became like a son to the Vanderbilts.

He was known as a loner. Some of the less charitable folks whispered that the young master preferred the company of his dog and his horse to most people. She’d overheard the men in the stables saying that he’d won many blue ribbons at equestrian events and was considered one of the most talented horseback riders around. The cooks, who prided themselves on preparing the most exquisite gourmet meals, complained that he always shared the food on his plate with his dog.

‘I’ve explored pretty much every room on the first, second and third floors,’ the young master said to her, ‘and the stables, of course, but the other parts of the house are like foreign lands to me.’

As the boy spoke, she could tell he was trying to be polite, but his eyes kept studying her. It was nerve-racking. After all those years she’d been hiding, it felt so strange to have someone actually looking at her. It made her stomach twist, but at the same time her skin tingled all over. She knew she must look completely ridiculous standing before him in the remnants of her pa’s old work shirt, and he must have noticed her hands were dirty and there were smudges all over her face. Her hair was as wild as a banshee’s, and there was no hiding its streaked colour. How could he help but stare?

She reckoned he knew most of the guests and servants, and she could see him trying to figure out who she was. How out of place she must seem to him! She had two arms and legs like everyone else, but with her sharp cheekbones and her golden eyes she knew she didn’t look like a normal girl. No matter how much she ate, she couldn’t put any weight on the feral leanness of her body. She wasn’t sure if she looked more like a skinny little shoat to the Vanderbilt boy or like a savage little weasel, but neither of those animals belonged in the house.

There was a part of her – maybe the smart part – that wanted to turn tail and run, but she thought that maybe the young master might be the perfect person to tell about the girl in the yellow dress. The silky-laced adults with all their high-falutin airs wouldn’t pay a smudge-faced girl any mind. But maybe he would.

‘I’m Braeden,’ he said.

‘I’m Serafina,’ she blurted out before she could help herself. You fool! Why did you give him your name? It was bad enough that she’d allowed herself to be seen, but now he had a name to go with her face. Her father was going to kill her!

‘It’s good to meet you, Serafina,’ he said, bowing, as if she deserved the same respect as a proper lady. ‘This is my friend Gidean,’ he said, introducing her to his dog, who continued to sit and study her malevolently with steady black eyes.

‘Hello,’ she managed to say, but she didn’t appreciate the way the dog stared at her like it was only his master’s command that kept him from chomping on her with his gleaming white teeth.

Gathering her courage, she looked at Braeden Vanderbilt nervously. ‘Master Braeden, I came up here to tell you something that I saw . . .’

‘Really? What’d you see?’ he asked, full of curiosity.

‘There was a girl, a pretty blonde girl in a yellow dress, down in the basement last night, and I saw a man in a –’

As the coterie of ladies and gentlemen began to flow out of the Tapestry Gallery and move towards the main doors, the handsome Mr Thorne broke away and approached Braeden, interrupting her.

‘Are you coming, young master Vanderbilt?’ he asked encouragingly in his Southern accent. ‘Our horses are ready, and I’m anxious to see your latest riding skills. Perhaps we can ride together.’

Braeden’s face lit up with a smile. ‘Yes, sir, Mr Thorne,’ he called. ‘I’d like that very much.’

As soon as Mr Thorne rejoined the others, the young master’s eyes immediately returned to Serafina. ‘Excuse me, you were telling me what you saw . . .’

At that moment, Mr Boseman, the estate superintendent and her pa’s boss, came stomping up the stairs. He’d always been a scowling-faced curmudgeon, and today was no exception. ‘You there, who are you?’ he demanded, clutching Serafina’s arm so hard that she winced. ‘What’s your name, girl?’

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, a sudden commotion rose up in the main hall. A dishevelled, overweight, middle-aged woman still wearing her nightclothes came rushing down the Grand Staircase from the third floor. She crashed into the crowd in a flurry of hysterical panic.

‘It’s Mrs Brahms,’ Mr Boseman said, turning towards the disturbance.

‘Has anyone seen my Clara?’ Mrs Brahms cried frantically, reaching out and grabbing the people around her. ‘Please help me – she’s gone missing! I can’t find her anywhere!’

Mrs Vanderbilt moved forward and took the woman’s hands in an attempt to calm her. ‘It’s a very large house, Mrs Brahms. I’m sure Clara is just off exploring.’

Worried discussion spread through the crowd. All the ladies and gentlemen of the riding party began talking to one another in confusion, wondering what was happening.

Miss Clara Brahms, Serafina thought. That’s the girl in the yellow dress.

The whole time, Mr Boseman kept his hand clamped on her arm.

She wanted to leap forward and tell everyone what she’d seen, but then what would happen? Where did you come from? they’d demand. What were you doing in the basement in the middle of the night? There’d be all sorts of questions she couldn’t answer.

All of a sudden, Mr George Vanderbilt, the master of the house, walked into the centre of the crowd and raised his hands. ‘Everyone, may I please have your attention,’ he said. All the guests and servants immediately stopped talking and listened. ‘I’m sure you all agree that we need to delay our ride and search for Miss Brahms. Once we find her, we’ll resume the activities of the day.’

George Vanderbilt was a slender, dark-haired, intelligent-looking gentleman in his thirties with a thick black moustache and keen, dark, penetrating eyes. He was well known for his love of reading, but he was a fit and healthy-looking man too, who seemed far younger than his years. And Serafina wasn’t the only one who thought so. She had heard the servants in the kitchen joke that their master must have secretly discovered the Fountain of Youth. Mr Vanderbilt was a meticulous dresser, and as she admired his commanding presence, she couldn’t help but notice his clothes too. In particular, his shoes. Like the other gentlemen present, he wore a gentleman’s riding jacket, but instead of riding boots he wore expensive black patent-leather shoes. As he strode across the hard surface of the marble floor, his shoes made a familiar clicking sound . . . the same sound that she’d heard in the corridors of the basement the night before.

She looked at the other men’s shoes. Braeden, Mr Thorne, and Mr Bendel wore riding boots in preparation for their outing, but Mr Vanderbilt was wearing his dress shoes.

He approached the lost girl’s mother and consoled her. ‘We’re going to search this place from top to bottom, Mrs Brahms, and we’ll keep looking until we find her.’ He turned to the ladies and gentlemen and waved over the footmen and maidservants as well. ‘We’ll break up into five separate search parties,’ he explained. ‘We’ll search the entire house, all four floors and also the basement. If anyone finds anything suspicious, report it immediately.’

Mr Vanderbilt’s words struck fear into Serafina’s heart. They were going to search the basement! The basement! That meant the workshop! With a mighty twist of her body, she yanked herself out of Mr Boseman’s grip and darted away before he could stop her. She bounded headlong down the stairs into the basement. She had to warn her pa. The leftovers from last night’s dinner, the mattress she slept on . . . they had to hide it all.

Serafina rushed up to her father in the workshop and grabbed his arm. Trying to talk and catch her breath at the same time, she gasped, ‘Pa, there’s a girl missing just like I said, and Mr Vanderbilt’s searching the whole house!’ Her words tumbled out with a mixture of urgency and pride. As she hurriedly reminded him of what she’d seen the night before, she was sure that he’d see now that she wasn’t dreaming or making up stories.

‘They’re searchin’ the house?’ he asked, ignoring everything else. He turned and quickly gathered his cooking supplies and razor from the bench, then dragged her mattress into the hidden area he’d constructed behind the tool rack. There could be no evidence of their living there when the search party came through.

‘What about the girl I saw disappear?’ she asked in confusion. She couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t more interested in what she was telling him.

‘Children don’t just disappear, Sera,’ he said as he continued his efforts.

Her heart sank. He still didn’t believe her.

Her pa looked around the room one last time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, and then he looked at her. For a moment, she thought he was finally going to listen to what she was saying, but then he pointed at her hairbrush and snapped, ‘For God’s sake, girl, pick up your things!’

‘But what about the Man in the Black Cloak?’ she argued.

‘I don’t want you thinking about anything like that,’ he barked. ‘It was nothing but a nightmare. Now hush up.’

She flinched from the words. She couldn’t understand why he was being so mean. But she could hear the worry in his voice along with the anger, and in the distance she could hear the search party coming down the stairs. She knew it wasn’t just the threat of discovery that scared him. He hated any talk of the supernatural or any sort of dark and fiendish forces out in the world that he couldn’t fix with his wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers.

‘But it’s real!’ she demanded. ‘The girl’s actually gone, Pa. I’m telling the truth!’

‘A little girl’s got herself lost, that’s it, and they’re lookin’ for her, so they’ll find her, wherever she is. Get your wits about you. People don’t just vanish. She’s gotta be someplace.’

She stood in the centre of the room. ‘I think we should both go out there right now and tell them everything I saw,’ she declared boldly.

‘No, Sera,’ he said. ‘They’ll spit nails if they find me livin’ down here. They’ll fire me. Do you understand that? And God knows what they’ll make of you. They don’t even know you’re alive, and we’re gonna keep it that way. I’m talkin’ to you dead straight now, girl. You hear me?’

The sound of the search party could be heard down the corridor, and it was coming their way.

Clenching her teeth, she shook her head in frustration and stood before him. ‘Why, Pa? Why? Why can’t people see me?’ She didn’t have the courage to tell him that at least one Vanderbilt already had, and that he knew her name. ‘Just tell me, Pa, whatever it is. I’m twelve years old. I’m grown up. I deserve to know.’

‘Look, Sera,’ he said, ‘last night, somebody sabotaged the dynamo, did it some real damage that I’m not sure I can mend. If I don’t get it fixed by nightfall, there’s gonna be hell to pay from the boss, and rightly so. The lights, the elevators, the servant-call system – this whole place depends on the Edison machine.’

She tried to imagine someone sneaking into the electrical room and damaging the equipment. ‘But why would someone do that, Pa?’

The search party was making its way through the kitchens and would arrive in the workshop at any moment.

‘I ain’t got time to think about it,’ he said, moving towards her with his huge body. ‘I just gotta get it workin’, that’s all. Now do what I tell ya!’

He charged around the room and hid things with such roughness and loudness and violence that it frightened her. She crept behind the boiler and watched him. She knew that when he was like this she couldn’t get anywhere with him. He just wanted to be left alone to do his job and work on his machines. But it was gnawing at her, and the more she thought about it, the madder she got. She knew it wasn’t the right time to talk to him about everything she’d been thinking and feeling, but she didn’t care. She just blurted it out.

‘I’m sorry, Pa,’ she said. ‘I know you’re busy, but please just tell me why you don’t want anyone to see me.’ She stepped out from behind the boiler and faced him, her voice getting louder now. ‘Why have you been hiding me all these years?’ she demanded. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong with me. I want to know. Why are you ashamed of me?’

By the time she was done, she was practically screaming at him. Her voice was so loud and shrill that it actually echoed.

Her pa stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her. She knew she had finally reached down inside him and grabbed that armoured heart of his. She’d finally stirred him up. She felt a sudden impulse to take it all back and dart behind the boiler again to hide, but she didn’t. She stood before him and looked at him as steadily as she could, her eyes watering.

He stood very still over by the bench, his huge hands balled into fists. A visible wave of pain and despair seemed to pass through him all at once, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

‘I’m not ashamed of you,’ he said gruffly, his voice strangely hoarse. The searchers were now only one room away.

‘You are,’ she shot back. She was trembling in fear, but she wasn’t going to give up this time. She wanted to shake him. She wanted to shake him to the core. ‘You’re ashamed of me,’ she said again.

He turned away from her so that she couldn’t see his face, just the back of his head and huge, bulky body. Several seconds of silence went by. Then he shook his head like he was arguing with himself, or furious with her, or both – she wasn’t sure.

‘Just keep your mouth shut and follow me,’ he said as he turned and walked out of the room.

Scurrying after him, she caught up with him in the corridor. Her body felt queasy all over. She didn’t know where he was taking her or what was going to happen. She could barely suck in breaths as he led her down the narrow stone stairs to the sub-basement and into the electrical room with the iron dynamo and thick black wires that spidered up the walls. They had left the search party behind them, at least for a little while.

‘We’ll hole up in here,’ he said as he pulled the door shut with a heavy thud and locked them in. As he lit a lantern against the darkness, she’d never seen him look so serious, so grave and pale, and it frightened her.

‘What’s happening, Pa?’ she asked, her voice shaking.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Ya ain’t gonna like what I got to tell ya, but it might help ya understand.’

Serafina swallowed, sat on an old wooden spool of copper wire and prepared herself to listen. Her pa sat on the floor facing her, with his back against the wall. Staring down at the floor and deep in thought, he began to talk.

‘Years ago, I was workin’ as a mechanic in the train yard in Asheville,’ he said. ‘The foreman and his wife had just had their third baby boy and their home was full of joy, but while everyone else celebrated, I sat alone in a kind of self-made misery. I ain’t proud of it, the way I was soppin’ around that night, but things just weren’t workin’ out for me the way they were supposed to in a man’s life. I wanted to meet a good woman, build a house in town and have children of my own, but years had gone by and it hadn’t happened. I was a big man and not much to look at. I sweated all day on the engines, and those few times I encountered any womenfolk I could never find my words. I could talk about nuts and bolts till the mornin’ come, but not much else.’