Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series) (4 page)

She could feel the battle-pound of her heart slowing down, her breaths getting weaker, and her arms and legs getting heavier. If she was going to make it home, she had to go soon.

She didn’t want to just leave him out there fighting on his own. She wasn’t the leaving kind – or the forgetting kind, either.

She wanted to talk to him, find out his name and where he lived, or at least know he was safe. Who was he? Why was he in the forest in the middle of the night? And why was he willing to leap
into a pack of vicious dogs to defend her?

She whispered once more into the trees, ‘Are you out there?’

S
erafina knew she’d waited for the feral boy too long when she heard the two wolfhounds coming towards her from the north. They had found a
way up to the high ground.

She looked around her. She glanced up at a tree, wondering if she could climb high enough. Then she thought about scaling back down the cliff again to confuse them, but she knew she
couldn’t survive here all night on her own.
Get out of here!
the feral boy had told her.

Finally, she gathered herself up.

Whoever the boy was, she hoped he’d be all right.
Stay strong, my friend.

She ducked into a dense boscage of spruce and fir, the evergreens packed so tightly together that it was like swimming in an ocean of green foliage. As she pushed her way through the thicket,
she found her strength giving way to confusion. Her knees kept buckling beneath her, and she couldn’t focus on the terrain in front of her. She raised her hand to her head and realised that
she was bleeding badly from a tear in her scalp. The blood was dripping down her forehead and into her eyes.

She stumbled through the sea of trees, knowing there was no way to elude the dogs now. Spasms of pain radiated from the puncture wounds in her arms and legs. She had to wipe the blood out of her
eyes to see where she was going. The needled branches of the trees were so thick and high that she could no longer see the moon and stars. Her racing feet cracked sticks on the ground, making noise
that she wouldn’t normally make, but it didn’t matter now. She had to run like she’d never run before. But even as she ducked and darted between the trees, she kept hearing the
feral boy’s voice:
You can’t outrun these things for long!
She wanted to turn and fight them, but if they caught her here in the thicket of trees it’d be impossible to see
their attacks. They’d kill her for sure. She had to keep running.

Suddenly, the trees opened up and she nearly fell headlong over a cliff edge into a rocky crash of whitewater rapids below. She pulled herself back from the edge with a gasp and grabbed onto the
branches of a tree.

Looking over the edge of the cliff, she could see there was no way to cross the river here. The cliff was too high, the rapids too dangerous.

There ain’t nothin’ but bad choices
, she thought. She knew she had to get to cover, but right now the cover she needed was to conceal her scent.

Pushing herself on, she ran along the cliff as it led down towards the river.

When she came to the stretch below the rapids, she tried to wade quickly across what looked like the safest and shallowest point. She’d never been in deep water before and didn’t
know how to swim. She pushed hard through the drag of the rushing, knee-deep water, desperate to reach the other side and escape the wolfhounds. The mountain river was so cold that her legs ached.
The current ran swift and strong. As she placed each step against the tearing force of the water, she felt the round, algae-covered rocks turning and slipping beneath her searching feet.

She reached the centre of the river. The water ripped round her thighs, making it more and more difficult to push against it. She was making headway. But just when she thought she was going to
make it across, she felt the current lifting her body away from the rocks beneath her feet. She lost her balance and crashed down into the icy-cold water. She flailed wildly, desperately kicking
her legs in search of footing, but the bottom of the river disappeared as the current swept her into deep water. Coughing and spitting, she thrashed and leapt and gasped frantically for air as the
river carried her downstream towards the next set of rapids.

The current sucked her into a rifling chute between two giant boulders, then shot her out the other side, tumbling end over end underwater through a dark green pool. As her head broke the
surface, she managed to steal another gasp of air before the river grabbed hold of her again, heaving her and yanking her through a spiral of rushing water. She found herself spinning, submerged in
a whirlpool so deep that she said goodbye to her pa. But then her body hit a jagged rock. She tried to cling to it, but the rushing flow immediately pulled her away again. She’d always
thought she was strong, but compared to the force of the river she was nothing more than a kitten tossed into the water. When the rapids finally spat her out into the calm water downstream, she
crawled from the river, wet and bedraggled, and collapsed onto the rocky shore, exhausted.

She had made it across.

Serafina knew that if the dogs followed her downstream and saw her across the river, then they would pursue her. She had to get up, had to keep running, but she couldn’t force her arms and
legs to move. She couldn’t even lift her head. The freezing-cold water and pounding force of the river had sapped all the remaining strength from her muscles. Her limbs were shaking. As she
lay on the watery stones at the edge of the river, the protection of Biltmore seemed impossibly far away, beyond her reach. Her body was so tired she could barely get a few
feet
, let alone
the miles she needed to go. The small puddles of water among the stones where she lay began to turn dark one by one. She felt so cold.

She wondered if the feral boy was lying mortally wounded in the forest back where she’d left him or still fighting the wolfhounds. Or maybe he had escaped them. She could hear his voice in
her mind.
Run!
he had shouted to her.
Run!
But she could not run. She could not move.

A wave of black calm passed through her, inviting her to simply shut her eyes and let everything go. A cloud of sickening colours veiled her eyes. She could feel herself passing out. How easy it
would be to simply drift away. But a fierceness boiled in her heart.
Get up!
she told herself.
Run! Get home!
She struggled to rouse herself, to get onto her feet, to at least raise
her head.

She opened her eyes and squinted through the blood. The terrain on this side of the river was low and gentle, dotted with ferns and birch trees, so different from the rocky cliffs that she had
left behind on the other side. She saw a light coming towards her in the darkness. At first she thought it must be a twinkling star, for the sky was clear, but it wasn’t one light. It was
many lights.

She felt her chest trying helplessly to suck in air in anticipation of an attack, but even in the haze of her fear she hoped that it might be a torch or lantern, her pa coming in search of her
like he had once before.

But then she saw that the lights weren’t the flickering flames of a lantern, but the scintillating dance of living creatures floating in the air and coming towards her down the river.

Are they fireflies?
she wondered as they came closer.

But these were much larger and bright green in colour, their wings slowly flashing white and green, white and green, as they flew, like the wings of luminescent butterflies.

But they’re not butterflies, either
, she thought with a smile.
They’re luna moths.

It was an entire eclipse of moths, each one pale green in colour and glowing in the moonlight, hundreds of them flying together down the length of the river, their long tails streaming behind
their silent, gently fluttering wings.

She had found her first luna moth in Biltmore’s gardens one midsummer’s night when she was a little girl. She remembered the moth’s almost magical glow in the starlit darkness
as she held it in her open hand, its wings moving gently up and down. But it was strange to see so many of them travelling together. Was she imagining this? Was this how death came? A distant
memory from the midnights of her past?

But, as she watched the luna moths flying over the water, it struck her again that they weren’t just hovering. They were travelling down the length of the stream, as if they would follow
this river to the one that it flowed into, and then onward to the next river, and the next, through the mountains, and all the way to the sea. They were leaving this place. Just like the birds.

She heard the wolfhounds barking and howling to each other on the cliff on the other side of the river. They were coming.

As the last of the luna moths disappeared, she tried to push herself up onto her weakened arms, but she didn’t have the strength. She tried to get her legs underneath her, but she
couldn’t.

But she’d seen the luna moths for a reason. She was sure of it.

She looked around for a place to take cover and noticed a grove of birch trees just a few feet away. As she tried to figure out how she was going to reach the trees, she saw a pair of eyes
glinting in the darkness.

The eyes were keeping their distance, studying her.

Serafina held the eyes in her gaze and breathed as steadily as she could.

At first, she thought she had misjudged the position of the wolfhounds, that they had already crossed the river and were now surrounding her. But these weren’t the searing black eyes of
the wolfhounds. The eyes were golden brown.

A flood of relief flowed into her.

She knew who it must be.

‘I need your help,’ she whispered.

But what emerged from the forest jolted her with a shock of fear. A mountain lion she had never seen before came straight at her. He was a young lion, with dark fur, but he looked strong,
unafraid and hungry. He was not at all the creature she was expecting.

Serafina tried to get up to defend herself, but it was no use. The beast could easily kill her.

Then, even as she tried to figure out how she was going to fight this unknown lion, a second lion emerged from the trees.

She breathed a sigh of relief. It was a lioness, full-grown and full of power; a lioness she knew well.

When her mother was in her lion form, she was more beautiful than ever, with a thick tan coat, huge paws and the muscles of many hunts. Her striking face and golden eyes glowed with
intelligence.

‘I’m so glad it’s you, Momma,’ Serafina said, surprised by the tearful desperation in her own voice.

But in that moment, before Serafina could make out any sort of answer in her mother’s eyes, the lioness suddenly turned her head and looked across the river.

Then Serafina heard it too. The wolfhounds were upon them. And it wasn’t just two any more. The five were united again, growling and barking and snarling. They would be here in
seconds.

S
erafina’s mother moved quickly towards her and flattened herself beside her. Serafina didn’t understand what she was doing. Then the
darker lion came and nudged Serafina’s body with his head. At first, she thought the lions were trying to rub against her and disguise her scent with theirs, but then she realised their true
intention.

Serafina climbed onto her mother’s back, clutching her neck and shoulders. With the lioness carrying her and the dark lion close at her side, the three of them moved into the trees, slowly
at first, and then more quickly. Serafina felt her mother’s fur against her face, and the force of her mother’s lungs, and the power of her muscles. The lioness began to move more
swiftly through the forest. Soon they were running.

It was the most incredible feeling, streaming through the night at high speed, propelled by the undulating rhythm of the lioness’s bounding stride, so strong and quiet and fast, the dark
lion running beside her. Serafina had dreamed of running like this many times, but she had never moved this fast in her entire life. What amazed her was how smooth it was, how agile her
mother’s movements, how quickly she could change direction and speed, with both grace and power at her command.