Serafina and the Black Cloak. Robert Beatty

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      The girl sounded like she was just a little younger than her, and Serafina wanted to help her, but she couldn’t find the courage. She pressed herself against the wall, certain that she would be heard or seen. Her legs trembled, feeling as if they would crumble beneath her. She couldn’t see what happened next, but suddenly the girl let out a bloodcurdling scream. The piercing sound caused Serafina to jump, and she had to stifle her own scream. Then she heard a struggle as the girl tore away from the man and fled down the corridor.

      Run, girl! Run! Serafina thought.

      The man’s steps faded into the distance as he went after her. Serafina could tell that he wasn’t running full-out but moving steadily, relentlessly, like he knew the girl couldn’t escape him. Serafina’s pa had told her that’s how the red wolves chase down and kill deer in the mountains – with dogged stamina rather than bursts of speed.

      Serafina didn’t know what to do. Should she hide in a dark corner and hope he didn’t find her? Should she flee with the terror-stricken rats and spiders while she had the chance? She wanted to run back to her father, but what about the child? The girl was so helpless, so slow and weak and frightened, and, more than anything, she needed a friend to help her fight. Serafina wanted to be that friend; she wanted to help her, but she couldn’t bring herself to move in that direction.

      Then she heard the girl scream again. That dirty, rotten rat’s gonna kill her, Serafina thought. He’s gonna kill her.

      With a burst of anger and courage, she raced towards the sound. Her legs felt like explosions of speed. Her mind blazed with fear and exhilaration. She turned corner after corner. But when she came to the mossy stone stairway that led down into the deepest bowels of the sub-basement, she stopped, gasping for breath, and shook her head. It was a cold, wet, slimy, horrible place that she had always done her best to avoid – especially in the winter. She’d heard stories that they stored dead bodies in the sub-basement in the winter, when the ground was too frozen to dig a grave. Why in the world had the girl gone down there ?

      Serafina made her way haltingly down the wet, sticky stairs, lifting and shaking off her foot after each slimy step she took. When at last she reached the bottom, she followed a long, slanting corridor where the ceiling dripped with brown sludge. The whole dank, disgusting place gave her the jitters something fierce, but she kept going.

      You’ve got to help her, she told herself again. You can’t turn back.

      She wound her way through a labyrinth of twisting tunnels. She turned right, then left, then left, then right until she lost track of how far she’d gone. Then she heard the sound of fighting and shouting just round the corner ahead of her. She was very close.

      She hesitated, frightened, her heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst. Her body shook all over. She didn’t want to go another step, but friends had to help friends. She didn’t know much about life, but she did know that, knew that for sure, and she wasn’t going to run away like a scared-out-of-her-wits squirrel just when somebody needed her most. Trembling all over, she steadied herself the best she could, sucked in a deep breath and pushed herself round the corner.

      A broken lantern lay tipped on the stone floor, its glass shattered but the flame still burning. In its halo of faltering light, a girl in a yellow dress struggled for her life. A tall man in a black cloak and hood, his hands stained with blood, grabbed the girl by the wrists.

      The girl tried to pull away. ‘No! Let me go!’ she screamed.

      ‘Quiet down,’ the man told her, his voice seething in a dark, unworldly tone. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, child . . .’ he said for the second time.

      The girl had curly blonde hair and pale white skin. She fought to escape, but the man in the black cloak pulled her towards him. He tangled her in his arms. She flailed and struck him in the face with her tiny fists.

      ‘Just stay still, and it will all be over,’ he said, pulling her towards him.

      Serafina suddenly realised that she’d made a dreadful mistake. This was far more than she could handle. She knew that she should help the girl, but she was so scared that her feet stuck to the floor. She couldn’t even breathe, let alone fight.

      Help her! Serafina’s mind screamed at her. Help her! Attack the rat! Attack the rat!

      She finally plucked up her courage and charged forward, but just at that moment, the man’s black satin cloak floated upward as if possessed by a smoky spirit. The girl screamed. The folds of the cloak slithered around her like the tentacles of a hungry serpent. The cloak seemed to move of its own accord, wrapping, twisting, accompanied by a disturbing rattling noise, like the hissing threats of a hundred rattlesnakes. Serafina saw the girl’s horrified face looking at her from within the folds of the enveloping cloak, the girl’s pleading blue eyes wide with fear. Help me! Help me! Then the folds closed over her, the scream went silent and the girl disappeared, leaving nothing but the blackness of the cloak.

      Serafina gasped in shock. One moment the girl was struggling to get free, and the next she had vanished into thin air. The cloak had consumed her. Overwhelmed with confusion, grief and fear, Serafina just stood there in stunned bewilderment.

      For several seconds, the man seemed to vibrate violently, and a ghoulish aura glowed around him in a dark, shimmering haze. A horribly foul smell of rotting guts invaded Serafina’s nostrils, forcing her head to jerk back. She wrinkled her nose and squinched her mouth and tried not to breathe it in.

      She must have made some sort of involuntary gagging noise, for the man in the black cloak suddenly turned and looked at her, seeing her for the first time. It felt like a giant claw gripped her around her chest. The folds of the man’s hood shrouded his face, but she could see that his eyes blazed with an unnatural light.

      She stood frozen, utterly terrified.

      The man whispered in a raspy voice. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, child . . .’

      Hearing those eerie words jolted Serafina into action. She had just seen what those words led to.

       Not this time, rat!

      With a burst of new energy, she turned and ran.

      She tore through the labyrinth of criss-crossing tunnels, running and running, certain that she was leaving him far in the distance. But, when she glanced over her shoulder, the hooded man was flying through the air right behind her, levitated by the power of the billowing black cloak, his bloody hands reaching towards her.

      Serafina tried to run faster, but just as she came to the bottom of the stairs that led up to the main level of the basement, the man in the black cloak grabbed her. One hand clamped her shoulder. The other locked on to her neck. She turned and hissed like a snared animal. She whirled and clawed in a wild circle and broke herself free.

      She bounded up the stairs three at a time, but he followed right behind her. He reached out and yanked her head back by her hair. She screamed in pain.

      ‘Time to give up now, little child,’ he said calmly, even as the tightening of his fist slowly tore strands of her hair from her head.

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