Serafina and the Black Cloak. Robert Beatty

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СКАЧАТЬ scratching and clawing with her fingernails, but it didn’t matter. The man in the black cloak was far too strong. He pulled her into his chest, entangling her in his arms.

      The folds of the black cloak rose up around her, pulsing with grey smoke. The awful rotting odour made her gag. All she could hear was that loathsome rattling noise as the cloak slithered and twisted its way around her body. She felt like she was being crushed in the coil of a boa constrictor.

      ‘I’m not going to hurt you, child . . .’ came the hideous rasping voice again, as if the man wasn’t of his own mind but possessed by a demented, ravenous demon.

      The folds of the cloak cast a wretched pall over her, drenching her in a dripping, suffocating sickness. She felt her soul slipping away from her – not just slipping, but being yanked, being extracted. Death was so near that she could see its blackness with her own eyes and she could hear the screams of the children who had gone before her.

      ‘No! No! No!’ she screamed in defiance. She didn’t want to go. Hissing wildly, she reached up and clutched his face, clawing at his eyes. She kicked his chest with her feet. She bit him repeatedly, snapping like a snarling, rabid beast, and she tasted his blood in her mouth. The girl in the yellow dress had fought, but nothing like this. Finally, Serafina twisted out of his grip and spun to the ground. She landed on her feet and leapt away.

      She wanted to get back to her pa, but she couldn’t make it that far. She fled down the corridor and dashed into the main kitchen. There were a dozen places to hide. Should she slip behind the black cast-iron ovens? Or crawl up among the copper pots hanging from the ceiling rack? No. She knew she had to find a better place.

      She was back in her territory now, and she knew it well. She knew the darkness and she knew the light. She knew the left and the right. She had killed rats in every corner of this place, and there was no way she was going to let herself become one of those rats. She was the C.R.C. No trap or weapon or evil man was going to catch her. Like a wild creature, she ran and jumped and crawled.

      When she reached the linen storage room, with all its wooden shelves and stacks of folded white sheets and blankets, she scampered into a crumbling break in the wall, in the back corner beneath the lowest shelf. Even if the man did notice the hole, it would seem impossibly small for anyone to fit through. But she knew it provided a shortcut into the back of the laundry.

      She came out in the room where they hung and dried the fancy folks’ bedsheets. The moon had risen outside, and its light shone through the basement windows. Hundreds of flowing white sheets hung from the ceiling like ghosts, the silver moonlight casting them into an eerie glow. She slipped slowly between the hanging sheets, wondering if they would provide her the concealment she needed. But she thought better of it and kept going.

      For good or ill, she had an idea. She knew that Mr Vanderbilt prided himself on installing the most advanced equipment at Biltmore. Her pa had constructed special drying racks that rolled on metal ceiling tracks that tucked into narrow chambers where the sheets and clothes were dried with the radiant heat of well-sealed steam pipes. Determined to find the best possible hiding place, she made herself small and pressed herself through the narrow slot of one of the machines.

      When Serafina was born, there had been a number of things physically different about her. She had four toes on each foot rather than five, and although it was not noticeable just by looking at her, her collarbones were malformed such that they didn’t connect properly to her other bones. This allowed her to fit into some pretty tight spots. The opening in the machine was no more than a few inches wide, but as long as she could fit her head into something, she could push her whole body through. She wedged herself inside, into a dark little spot where she hoped the man in the black cloak wouldn’t find her.

      She tried to be quiet, she tried to be still, but she panted like a little animal. She was exhausted, breathless and frightened beyond her wits. She’d seen the girl in the yellow dress consumed by the shadow-filled folds and knew the man in the black cloak was coming for her next. Her only hope was that he couldn’t hear the deafening pound of her heartbeat.

      She heard him walking slowly down the hallway outside the kitchen. He’d lost her in the darkness, but he moved methodically from room to room, looking for her.

      She heard him in the main kitchen, opening the doors of the cast-iron ovens. If I’d hidden there, she thought, I’d be dead now.

      Then she heard him clanging through the copper pots, looking for her in the ceiling rack. If I’d hidden there, she thought, I’d be dead again.

      ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ he whispered, trying to coax her out.

      She listened and waited, trembling like a field mouse.

      Finally, the man in the black cloak made his way into the laundry room.

      Mice are timid and prone to panic-induced mistakes at key moments.

      She heard the man moving from place to place, rummaging beneath the sinks, opening and closing the cabinets.

      Just stay still, little mouse. Just stay still, she told herself. She wanted to break cover and flee so badly, but she knew that the dead mice were the dumb mice that panicked and ran. She told herself over and over again, Don’t be a dumb mouse. Don’t be a dumb mouse.

      Then he came into the drying area where she was and moved slowly through the room, running his hands over the ghostly sheets.

       If I’d hidden there . . .

      He was just a few feet away from her now, looking around the room. Even though he couldn’t see her, he seemed to sense that she was there.

      Serafina held her breath and stayed perfectly, perfectly, perfectly still.

      Serafina slowly opened her eyes.

      She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep or even where she was. She found herself crammed into a tight, dark space, her face pressed up against metal.

      She heard the sound of footsteps approaching. She stayed quiet and listened.

      It was a man in work boots, tools jangling. Feeling a burst of happiness, she wriggled her way out of the machine and into the morning sunlight pouring through the laundry windows.

      ‘Here I am, Pa!’ she cried, her voice parched and weak.

      ‘I’ve been gnawin’ on leather lookin’ for you,’ her pa scolded. ‘You weren’t in your bed this mornin’.’

      She ran forward and hugged him, pressing herself into his chest. He was a large and hardened man with thick arms and rough, calloused hands. His tools hung from his leather apron, and he smelled faintly of metal, oil and the leather straps that drove the workshop’s machines.

      In the distance, she heard the sounds of the staff arriving for the morning, the clanking of pots in the kitchen and the conversations of the workers. It was a glorious sound to her ears. The danger of the night was gone. She had survived!

      Wrapped in her father’s arms, she felt safe and at home. He was more accustomed to mallets and rivets than a kind word, but СКАЧАТЬ