Braeden and Mr. Vanderbilt didn’t turn toward Serafina or react to her in any way. They seemed not to hear her or see her even though she was right in front of them.
“Braeden, it’s me!” Serafina said again more loudly as she stepped even closer to them. “Mr. Vanderbilt, it’s Serafina! Can you hear me?”
But neither of them responded. She couldn’t believe it. This was impossible.
“Braeden!” she shouted frantically. She was standing right in front of them and they couldn’t see her! What in the world was going on? Her body began to tremble with fear.
Preparing to return to his guests, Mr. Vanderbilt patted Braeden’s shoulder. “Stay here as long as you like,” he said gently. “But when you’re feeling up to it, think about coming back down to the party.”
“I will,” Braeden said. “It is beautiful. I can see the lights from here.”
“I think maybe Serafina’s pa was trying to light Biltmore up so brightly that she could find her way home,” Mr. Vanderbilt said, his voice filled with a warm and gentle melancholy.
Gidean, still lying twenty feet away, watched Mr. Vanderbilt walk back down toward the party, then looked glumly back at Braeden.
“Gidean, can you hear me, boy?” Serafina said to her old friend, but he didn’t look in her direction, and his long, pointed ears didn’t perk up. He just gazed at Braeden with sadness in his eyes.
How was all this possible? She was right in front of them, as plain as night.
Serafina studied Braeden, and then looked at herself. The rays of moonlight coming down through the vine-covered lattice above her shone onto her body, casting her in an eerie, dappled-white light.
Am I truly here? she wondered.
Or am I still buried underground in the coffin and just imagining that I crawled out?
Have I been cursed by a spell?
Or am I some sort of whispery ghost or haint or spirit?
She thought about how quickly she’d been able to dart away from the talon-clawed creature in the forest, how skillfully she’d escaped the sorcerer, how quietly she had slipped past all the guests at the party.
She brushed back tears as the emotion welled up inside her. What had happened to her?
Determined to make it stop, she stepped closer to Braeden.
“It’s me, Braeden. I’m back. It’s me,” she said again, her voice cracking.
But Braeden did not respond. He looked out across the moonlit forest and fields. His heart seemed forlorn, his mood dark. There was a tension in his face that she’d never seen before.
She lifted her hand and looked at it. She slowly turned it one way and then the other in the moonlight. It seemed normal in every way to her, and yet he could not see her. She had felt hungry earlier, but maybe it was because she had seen the food at the party. She had felt pain when she fell from the tree, but maybe that was what she thought she should be feeling. Was she just remembering how things felt?
Braeden breathed a long, heavy sigh, then began to move. He gripped the side of the bench, and with much effort, his arms shaking, he managed to get himself up onto his crooked legs. He stood lopsided, tilted over like his body had been broken. Clearly exhausted by the exertion of getting onto his feet, he rested there, leaning his shoulder against the column for a moment.
When he tried to take a few steps forward, it seemed at first as if he was going to be all right, but then he winced and his leg buckled beneath him. The metal brace tripped him up and he lurched off-balance. Serafina reflexively darted forward to catch him so that he didn’t fall, but he hit the ground anyway, grunting in pain as he crashed into the gravel.
Serafina stepped back in confusion. She was certain she had reached him in time, but she hadn’t been able to hold him up.
As Braeden struggled to get to his feet, she stepped forward again and grabbed his arm to lift him. At first she thought she was touching him. She had to be touching him, because she could see her hands were on him. But then she slowly realized that she could not actually feel him the way she should, the true warmth of his living body. She knew she should feel it. She could imagine feeling it. But this was more like a memory of feeling.
Her spirit was remembering the physical world the way an amputee lying in a hospital bed remembers his missing leg, feels the movement of it, suffers the pain of it, even though it’s gone.
She slowly reached out and tried to touch his shoulder, and then his bare hand. There was something there, something like a physical object, but she couldn’t feel the living warmth of it, and it was clear that he couldn’t feel her at all.
Up to this moment, she’d been interacting with the world based on her memory of her past life. But now she was like the amputee who sees with his own eyes that his leg is actually gone. It was becoming clear to her that she could no longer affect the physical world around her. It was as if the more she realized what was happening to her, the more she faded away.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to hold herself together, but it was no use. She pressed her hands to her face and squeezed her eyes shut, trying just to breathe. She began to cry in confusion and fear. A dizzying nausea swept through her stomach. It felt like she was going to pass out, but she had to hold on.
Braeden slowly dragged himself and his bad leg over to the terrace’s stone railing. He clung to the top of the railing for support as he looked out into the night. He seemed lost in thought, like he was remembering something. At first she thought he was gazing out at the trees and the bank of clouds rolling in across the night sky, but then she realized that he was looking in the direction from which she had come. He was looking specifically toward the graveyard and the angel’s glade.
“No, she’s not missing,” Braeden said as if his uncle was still there. “She’s dead and buried.”
Serafina stepped back in horror. She’s dead and buried, Braeden said.
Was Braeden the one who buried me?
Is it possible that I’m actually dead?
She knew she’d been buried, there was no denying that, but dead?
She didn’t feel dead.
And even in Braeden’s discouraged hopelessness she sensed something else, some other uncertainty in his eyes and tone of voice. He seemed to be waiting, frustrated, biding his time. Despite everything, despite the anguish and pain, there seemed to be a faint trace of hope in him.
After Mr. Vanderbilt went back down to the gardens to rejoin his wife and the guests at the evening party, Serafina wanted to stay with Braeden, just to keep him company if nothing else, but the longer she stayed there, the more upset he seemed to become. She could see it in the shaking restlessness of his hands and legs, in the pained expression of his face, and even the unsettled way he was breathing. The mere closeness of her presence seemed to sadden and disquiet him.