Serafina and the Black Cloak (26 page)

“Shut up,” she told the cloak, her words spitting out of her like she was reprimanding an uppity rat she’d captured.

Imagine being able to do anything you wanted to do…

She gritted her teeth and snarled at it. “You’re dead! Now hush up!”

There’s nothing to fear…

Serafina felt the trembling agitation of pure fear growing deep within her. Every muscle in her body was telling her to flee, but she was too angry to go. She clenched her teeth. She wanted to
fight. She wanted to win.

Put me on…
the raspy voice came again.

She looked at the cloak. It was the cloak of power, the cloak of
knowing
. She felt an overwhelming desire to touch it. She wanted to hold it in her hands. She could feel it using its
power to draw her in, and she didn’t care. She wanted the power.

Imagine understanding and controlling everything around you…

She took a step toward the cloak.

Put me on…

She reached down and picked up the Black Cloak. The satin material reflected the sheen of the moonlight as she turned it over in her hands. Despite the running through the thickets, the flying
through the forest, and the battle with the mountain lion, the cloak wasn’t torn or dirtied in any way.

She examined the cloak carefully, looking for any sign or symbol of the power that it contained. As she moved the material through her hands, it didn’t feel like a normal piece of
clothing, but like a living, pulsing thing, like holding a giant snake.

Put me on…
the cloak said again in its low, raspy voice.

She looked at the cloak’s silver clasp, which was engraved with an intricate design: a tight bundle of twisting vines and thorns. When she held the clasp in the moonlight in just the right
way, she could see the image of tiny faces behind the thorns.

She didn’t know what it meant. It felt like she didn’t know what anything meant anymore. A black and terrible loneliness welled up inside her, an anguish stronger than anything she
had ever felt before. But what did the cloak do? How did it work? Did it really give its master the blessing of profound knowledge? Could it answer the questions that stormed through her mind?

You will become all-knowing, all-powerful…
the cloak whispered.

Her head spun in confusion. Cloudiness closed in on her mind. She was unable to control herself. Her fingers grasped, her arms moved, and she began pulling the cloak around her. Drawn in by its
powerful spell, she draped the Black Cloak over her back and shoulders just for a brief moment to see what would happen. She only wanted to 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…

A
s 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, touching her pleadingly with her grasping fingers. “I can’t find my mother! Can you help
me?”

“Pozhaluysta, skazhite gde moi otets?”
a girl with long, curly black hair said, pressing her face against Serafina’s.

“Please help me!” wailed a woman, only to be pushed out of the way by two more faces. The visages of terrified children and adults were crowded inside the cloak.

“The horses are trapped!” a boy shouted, pressing his face in among the others. “Watch out!”

Serafina screamed and ripped the hood from her head. She gazed around the empty glade, shaking and gasping for breath.

The souls of the dead people were imprisoned in the black folds of the cloak. This was the cloak’s power: to enslave people’s talents and hold their souls prisoner in a ghastly
cage.

Come, little creature…We shall be together…

She shook her head, trying desperately to resist the cloak’s powerful spell.

We shall control the world…

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth.

Everyone shall love us…

“No!” she shouted. “I won’t do it!”

She unclasped the cloak from her neck and tore it away. The act of ripping it from her body struck her such a blow that she fell onto her hands and knees, suddenly debilitated by extreme fatigue
and despair. But, filled with determination, she got back up onto her feet. She tried to hurl the cloak to the ground, but the slithering creature tangled itself in her arms and wouldn’t let
go. She couldn’t free herself from it.

Alone you are a weak little creature, but together we are strong…

“No!” she shouted.

She knew that she had to get rid of the cloak. She had to
destroy
it. As the cloak roiled and twisted like black snakes in her hands, she tried to tear the material in her fingers, but
they weren’t strong enough to rend it. The cloak, seething and hissing, wrapped around her arms and her legs, clinging to her.

A bloody hand reached up from the ground and gripped her ankle.

S
erafina screamed.

“Don’t hurt the cloak, you stupid child!” Thorne snarled. Wounded and crazed, he yanked her to the ground, knocked the wind out of her, and held her down. “If you destroy
it, then we’ll lose everything!”

She struggled to escape him, but he clenched her by the arms and she couldn’t get free.

“We’ll work together,” he rasped. “You with your abilities and me with mine. Don’t you see? We’re the same. We’re on the same side.”

Something was happening to him. Thorne’s face was gray and deteriorating, his skin flaking off around his cheeks and eyes. His hair had turned gray and wiry. His mouth dripped with
blood.

A wave of revulsion poured through her. She tried to kick him and bite his hands and pull herself free, but she couldn’t wrest herself from his grip.

He held her to the ground with all his weight, pushing the air painfully from her lungs. She could feel her ribs bending, starting to crack. Despite his wounds and his decomposing condition,
Thorne seemed to be getting stronger and stronger, driven by his greed for the cloak.

“I’ll never give in to you!” she snarled into his face. “Never!”

“Then you’re going to die, little mouser…”

Pressing her down, he crushed into her. She couldn’t breathe. Without air flowing through her lungs, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Even as she fought to get away, she felt
her life draining from her, her arms and legs falling limp, her mind clouding with the white light of death.

She thought there was supposed to be a sense of peace when death finally came. But she didn’t feel it. There was still too much to do in her life, still too many questions to answer, too
many mysteries to solve, and it was the mysteries, the unfinished business, the
want
, that kept her going. She didn’t want to die, especially not this way. But she could feel herself
drifting now, the life ebbing out of her, her soul slipping away.

But she kept seeing a vision of her pa in her mind. She could hear his voice.
Eat your grits, girl,
he demanded.

I’m not gonna eat my grits!
she shouted back at him.

Her pa gazed at her dying on the ground beneath her enemy’s weight and he shook his head.
The rat don’t kill the cat, girl,
he said.
That just ain’t right.

The rat don’t kill the cat,
she thought as she pulled her wayward soul back into her body with fierce determination.
The rat don’t kill the cat,
she thought again as
she felt a burst of new strength. She began to fight anew, pulling her arm free from her captor.

At that moment, a large black shape lunged out of the mist with a ferocious snarl and a flash of white teeth. At first she thought it must be some kind of black wolf. But it wasn’t a wolf.
It was a dog. A Doberman.

It was Gidean!

Gidean bit into Thorne’s side and pulled him to the ground, then plunged in for another attack, biting and snapping. Thorne grabbed his fallen dagger from the ground and slashed Gidean in
the side. Gidean yelped in pain and pulled back. Then the mountain lion charged out of her den and dove into the battle. She attacked Thorne with rapid swats of her clawed paws, her teeth snarling
and her ears pressed back against her head, as if she was mightily perturbed that he hadn’t stayed dead. Plunging back into the fight, the wounded Gidean chomped Thorne’s arm, forcing
him to drop the dagger, then tore into his shoulder and dragged him viciously across the ground, shaking him.