Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series) (29 page)

She lost consciousness again and then came back. Time went by. She wasn’t sure how long. It could have been a few seconds, or a few minutes, or a few hours.

When she was finally able to open her eyes, she still couldn’t lift her head. She saw mostly blackened ground, and just above that a crisscross of bolted iron bars and wire mesh, and
through the cage to another cage that contained one of the white swans she had seen on Biltmore’s lagoon a few nights before.

‘Serafina!’ the voice called again.

The sound was coming from the other side of the swan.

She slowly managed to lift her head.

It broke her heart to see a brown-skinned boy with long, shaggy dark hair in the cage there. He looked so small and weak in the cage that she almost didn’t recognise him, but his brown
eyes were looking back at her, his spirit fierce and unbroken, like a caged feral cat.

‘Stay bold, Serafina!’ he said, his voice filled with ragged emotion.

‘Waysa . . .’ she tried to say, but she barely heard her own dry, croaking voice. As she tried to get up, her head bumped against iron bars that held her to the ground. The bearded
man had caged her to a grave in an iron mort safe like all the other animals.

Craning her neck and peering between the iron bars, she looked out of her cage. She could see the bearded man working in his camp a short distance away. Her body jolted with fear at the sight of
him, but the cage held her. She could not escape. The hissing, crackling fire glowed with flickering orange light, the sparks rising upward in a swirl and the haze of smoke drifting through the
crooked branches of the trees.

The man moved around the fire, slowly feeding it fuel as he tended the iron pot. Splinters of scattered images poured into her mind as she remembered everything she had seen: the owl, the staff,
the wolfhounds, the carriage, the horses, the rats, the coyotes. What did it all mean? The man dipped the Twisted Staff into the mixture over and over again, infusing it with its terrible
power.

‘What happened to you, Waysa?’ she whispered. ‘How did you get here?’

‘I had to save the cubs,’ he said, his voice grave. Serafina imagined that when the bearded man attacked, Waysa had turned to fight him rather than run from him, giving her mother
and the cubs the split second they needed to escape.

A fierce wave of emotion filled her muscles with a little bit of strength. She tried to turn her body.

The eyes of a wolf peered at her through the iron bars of one of the adjacent cages. It was her old companion that she’d seen on the mountain ridge. Despite his valiant efforts to lead his
pack to the safety of the highlands, they’d never made it out of the forest. As the wolf gazed at her from behind the bars, her heart sank. There was nothing she could do for him, nor he for
her.

She was both relieved and heartbroken that Braeden lay in the cage next to her, his body face down and outstretched beneath the iron bars of the mort safe. He looked like the corpse of a boy who
had crawled out of his grave but could get no further, trapped beneath the bars. His body looked utterly lifeless, his skin pale and clammy, but his eyes were open, staring out in bewilderment.

‘It’s me, Braeden,’ she whispered over to him, trying to bring him around. She was pretty sure he was alive, but the conjurer’s spell had hit him hard. ‘Wake up!
It’s me! It’s Serafina!’

But even as she tried to rouse him she wondered what they would do. What would come next? She was surrounded by caged animals. She
was
a caged animal. The bolted iron bars and the wire
mesh in between were far too strong for her to break through. She pushed and pulled against the cage. She kicked at it and rammed it with her shoulder. But it made no difference. She could not get
out.

S
erafina tried digging down into the ground, past the pine needles into the dirt. She dug until her fingers bled, but it was no use. The mort safe
went deep into the ground. If she dug down deep enough, she’d find nothing but rotted boards, bones and body.

The iron bars of the mort safes were close enough together to keep an adult human from getting through, but on many of the cages, including the one she was in, the bearded man had installed wire
mesh to make sure smaller animals could not fit between the iron bars and escape.

‘I’ve tried to get through the wire,’ Waysa said as she examined the mesh on her cage. He started kicking the wire mesh with all his strength. It barely moved, but as Serafina
saw the wire mesh flexing from the pressure of his kicks, she had an idea.

She pressed herself close up against the lower side of her cage. The wire mesh consisted of squares just big enough to fit several fingers through. She grabbed one strand of the mesh tightly in
her fingers and bent it. Then she bent it back. She bent it again. And then back again. Over and over again.

‘What are you doing?’ Waysa whispered.

Serafina did not answer – she just kept bending that one strand of wire back and forth, back and forth. Her fingers were getting raw and her muscles ached. But finally she felt the wire
heating up. She kept bending and bending as fast as she could. Then it snapped! She’d broken the strand!

She couldn’t help but smile when she saw the astonished look on Waysa’s face. She had just broken metal with her bare hands. She was
magic
.

She immediately started on the next wire, bending, bending, bending, until it snapped in her fingers. ‘Thank you, Pa!’ she whispered to herself as she moved on to the next wire.
Working on one strand at a time, she slowly peeled back an area of the wire mesh close to the ground where the space between the iron bars was largest. She tried to crawl through the hole, but it
was very tight. She couldn’t get through.

‘Get down, Serafina!’ Waysa whispered a warning.

Serafina froze where she was, clinging to the dirt like a frightened animal as she heard the
tick-tick-tick
ing sound and the raspy scream of the owl. It flew right over their heads as it
came into the camp. The man hurled the staff up into the sky. It blurred into a twig. The owl caught it in midair with its claws, then disappeared into the trees.

Serafina didn’t understand what was happening, but she was more determined than ever to get out. She pressed her face into the dirt and shoved her head into the hole. Buttressing her feet
against the other side of the mort safe, she used the strength of her legs and torso to push her head through the hole, scraping her ears so close that they tore and bled. She shifted her neck,
bent in her shoulder blade at her detached collar bone, and wriggled herself into the hole. Once she got some of her head, shoulder, and arm through, she reached out for something to grab on to,
but there was nothing to grab, nothing to pull on. She clawed at the earth, but she found no purchase. Now she was stuck, wedged in the hole. She could move neither back nor forward.

When she looked around for a branch or a rock or something to hold on to, she saw Braeden in the cage next to her working furiously to bend the strands of the wire mesh like she had.

‘Hold on, Serafina!’ Braeden whispered, but she knew it was no use. His body was larger than hers. Even if he got through the mesh, he couldn’t fit between the bars.

Nothing was working. Feeling the panic of entrapment, Serafina started gasping for air. Her heart pounded. She tried to keep her wits about her, but she breathed faster and faster. She looked
towards the fire in the distance. How much time did they have before the bearded man came for them?

Finally, Braeden managed to break a small hole through the wire mesh of his cage. Just as she’d suspected, he couldn’t fit his body through the narrow gap between the iron bars. But
he put his hand through the hole and stretched his arm out towards her. At first, Serafina didn’t understand what he was doing, but then she got it. She pressed herself up against the bars of
her cage and stretched her arm out towards him. She pushed and pushed, her fingers outstretched. Reaching across the space between the cages, their hands finally clamped together in the middle.
‘Gotcha!’ he said as he grabbed her hand. Then he pulled her towards him.

Now, with Braeden pulling on her arm and her pushing with her legs, she found the leverage she needed. She managed to wriggle herself all the way through the hole and crawled out on the other
side. She’d made it through! She had escaped!

She quickly crawled over to Braeden’s cage and tried to open the latch from the outside.

‘He’s coming!’ Waysa whispered frantically.

Serafina heard the thrashing sound of the bearded man’s footsteps heading in their direction.

She finally got Braeden’s cage open and pulled him out. ‘Go free the dogs!’ she whispered to him. Then she hurried over to Waysa’s cage and unlatched it.

The bearded man would be here in a matter of seconds.

As Waysa crawled free, Serafina glanced over. Gidean and Cedric were down on their haunches, excitedly looking at Braeden as he opened their cages. Serafina used the last moment to quickly
unlatch the wolf’s cage. Her young wolf friend looked at her with gratefulness in his eyes. Then she raced away, knowing that the bearded man was just steps behind her.

She and Braeden and the others fled the cages, ducking low beneath the limbs of the pines as they ran.

Behind her, she heard the snarling attack of the freed wolf as it leapt from its cage at the bearded man. She had no idea what would happen next, but at least the wolf had a fighting chance.

Serafina, Braeden, Waysa and the two dogs fled into the cover of the pines. Waysa led the way, often scouting ahead for danger. Serafina didn’t know how it was possible, but Gidean seemed
to have regained some of his old strength and speed. Cedric was a heavy dog, unused to running long distances, but he was determined to keep up. Serafina ran at Braeden’s side, making sure he
didn’t fall behind. They finally escaped the blackened pines and entered the oaks, but they did not slow down. Their fear pushed them onward. They ran for miles.

But partway back to Biltmore Braeden collapsed, too tired to continue. She let him rest for ten seconds, then pulled him back up onto his feet. ‘Get up, Braeden!’ she told him.
‘We’ve got to get home!’

They ran some more, but Braeden finally crumpled in exhaustion. Too tired to run any further, he did not give up or ask the others to slow down. He called Cedric over to him. ‘I need your
help, my friend,’ he said as he climbed onto the St Bernard’s back and held on.

‘Come on, Cedric! Come on, boy! Let’s go!’ Serafina called the dog, and together they ran. Coming from a long line of rescue dogs, Cedric seemed to understand exactly what they
wanted. He charged forward with new speed and purpose, carrying the young master along with him.

T
hey ran through the hickory and the hemlock, through the alder and the elm. They crossed thickets and meadows, streams and ravines, pushed by a
fear darker than they had ever known.

As the faint light of Biltmore House finally came into view near dawn, Serafina sensed that they had escaped the horror behind them. She slowed and looked over at Waysa. They breathed heavily as
they walked beside each other.

‘I have to go back to Biltmore,’ she said.

Waysa nodded. ‘I’ll go find your mother and the cubs and make sure they’re safe.’ Then he stopped her with his hand and looked at her with new ferocity in his eyes.
‘You were right. We can’t run from this fight. I will rejoin you later. Stay bold, Serafina.’

‘Stay bold, Waysa,’ she said in return as they quickly embraced, and then Waysa dived into the underbrush and disappeared.

Braeden watched her say goodbye to Waysa and then said, ‘I see you found the boy from the forest.’

‘He joined with my mother and the cubs. His name is Waysa.’

‘He reminds me of you,’ Braeden said, his voice weak and tired, but filled with a kindness that she did not expect.

‘Me too,’ she agreed.

‘Do you want to go with him?’ Braeden asked uncertainly. He looked towards the house in the distance. ‘The dogs and I can make it to Biltmore on our own from here.’