“Braeden, whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t do it!” she told him.
But he climbed onto the windowsill, his hands and knees slipping on the rain-slick surface, and started to crawl out. He couldn’t maneuver his braced leg well enough by its own power, so he lifted it with his hands, then dragged himself over, and began climbing down the rope on the outside of the building.
This was an insanely dangerous thing to do for even an able-bodied person in dry weather, but the sickly, crooked-legged boy was climbing out the window in the middle of a rainstorm. There was a forty-foot drop to the stone terrace below. The fall was going to kill him.
“Be careful, Braeden!” Serafina shouted at him angrily, the storm whipping her hair as she leaned out. All of a sudden, a gust of wind lifted her off her feet, trying to sweep her away with the blowing rain. She felt herself rising upward, pieces of her spirit, her soul, whatever it was, tearing away and disappearing into the gale. All she could do was cling for dear life to the window jamb and try to stay whole.
As Braeden climbed down the outside of the building, she watched helplessly. If he lost his grip, she couldn’t save him! He’d fall and die.
Lightning flashed through the sky, then a roar of thunder cracked overhead.
Serafina clung to the window feeling like the universe itself was trying to pull apart what little was left of her, but she finally managed to climb down the side of the building and put her feet on the solid ground. Spirit or ghost or whatever she was, she squatted down and put her hands on the stone tile of the terrace, grateful for the plenum of the earth.
It was becoming clear that the universe was taking her back, that her spirit only had so much more time to roam the earth before it faded into the elements from whence all things came.
When Braeden made it safely to the ground on the Library Terrace beside her, he took a moment to catch his breath and wipe the rain out of his eyes.
“Where are you off to in the middle of the night?” she asked in the rain, still angry with him for endangering himself like that.
As if in reply, he gathered himself and headed into the storm. Tonight there was no party or music, just darkness and rain.
She followed him down the steps and through the garden. He couldn’t move quickly with his braced leg. He dragged it behind him, the metal scraping along the stone with each step, but he moved with determination and made pretty good time. It was clear that he knew where he wanted to go.
He followed the winding path of the shrub garden, past the golden-rain tree, then down the steps, through the archway and into the Walled Garden.
She didn’t know where he was going, but it felt good to be with him and a part of his adventure into the night, whatever it was. Despite her narrow escape on the windowsill, she was still clinging to the hope that she could figure out what had happened to Braeden since she’d been gone, how she could communicate with him, and somehow get back to him. But she felt a wrenching loneliness, too, a separation from him that tore at her gut. She couldn’t speak to him or help him. She couldn’t ask him what he was thinking. When she looked at his stark, grim face, it was filled with such desperation that it frightened her.
She followed him down the length of the central arbor and into the rose garden. He ducked into the small stone shed used by the master rosarian, Mr. Fetlan. The shed was filled with rakes, hoes, and other garden tools along with pots, trays, and wired wooden apple crates.
Braeden grabbed a lantern and a shovel and headed back out into the rain again. The boy was soaked to the bone, and she could see him trembling, but he pressed on regardless.
Through the garden he went, then down the path that led toward the pond. After passing the boathouse, it appeared he was going to cross the large redbrick bridge that arched over the eastern spur of the pond, but at the last moment, he diverted to the left and went into the woods.
“This is getting stranger and stranger,” she said. “Where are you going now?”
He followed the edge of the pond beneath the overhang of the trees until she heard the sound of rushing water. They had come to the stream that fed into the pond. But the water didn’t go straight in. A low brick structure had been built across the stream to block and control its flow. The structure was overgrown with several seasons of bushes, moss, and vines. It took her a moment to remember what it was.
Years before, when Biltmore House was built, her old friend Mr. Olmsted, the estate’s landscape architect, had decided that no estate was complete without a tranquil garden pond. He had told her that he had designed a similar pond in Central Park. She’d never been to New York City or anyplace outside the mountains. She couldn’t even imagine what flat ground looked like, how strange and disorienting it must be. But she remembered enjoying Mr. Olmsted’s stories of the great city’s park. There were no natural lakes on the Biltmore property, or anywhere else in these mountains, but years before, an old farmer had dammed the creek to make a mill pond, so Mr. Olmsted expanded it, redesigned it, and made it part of Mr. Vanderbilt’s garden.
Serafina remembered that her pa had brought her out to this very spot and showed her the inlet to the pond.
“It’s a gentle little creek,” her pa had explained, “but every time a storm comes in, it swells up bad and wants to dump muddy water, sticks, and debris into the pond. A farmer and a bunch of cows don’t pay no never mind about a muck-filled pond, but it would never do for an elegant gentleman like Mr. Vanderbilt, so Mr. Olmsted had an idea.”
As Serafina remembered her pa’s words, she couldn’t help but think about how happy and filled with life he’d been when he told her these stories.
“Mr. Olmsted had his workers build this brickwork structure across the creek to gather in the water and control how it flowed. You see, the water slips real smooth-like right into that big hole there. If the water’s clean, then it runs on toward the pond. But look down in the hole real close, Sera. You see that metal contraption in there? Mr. Olmsted asked me to rig up a steel basket and a sluice gate so that if there’s a big storm, and the creek water is all muddy and full of debris, then it won’t flow into the pond.”