“We destroyed it,” Braeden told her excitedly.
Serafina looked over at the statue of the angel and saw the molten remnants of the Black Cloak lying in a pile on the ground below the angel’s sword. The tight spider weave and binding spells of the cloak’s fabric had disintegrated into a hot, smoldering heap as it released the energy within it. The smoky effluent drifted across the angel’s glade and the graveyard beyond. They had pierced the cloak on the angel’s sword, just as she had done months before when she freed Clara Brahms and the other victims trapped inside the cloak. Even though she knew she should have been expecting it, it took Serafina several seconds to comprehend that destroying the cloak had broken its spell, reunited her three splintered parts, and freed her from its dark imprisonment.
“When we destroyed the cloak, we thought we would find you lying on the ground, like when you freed Clara and the other children,” Braeden said. “But we didn’t.”
“The damaged cloak had torn you apart,” Rowena said. “When the spell broke, your freed spirit fled to your human body in the grave.”
“And the essence of your panther body was pulled in as well,” Waysa said. “It wasn’t until I heard you digging that I realized what happened and told the others.”
“We all started digging as fast as we could!” Braeden said.
Serafina was amazed. Their plan hadn’t worked exactly the way they had expected, but it did work.
She looked at Braeden. She could see the exhilaration and relief sparkling in his eyes, a large smile on his face.
“I can’t believe it!” he said. “You made it! After all this time, you’re truly here! You’re alive!” He moved toward her and embraced her, so pleased that he lifted her off her feet and swung her around.
She laughed in joy at his enthusiasm. It felt amazingly good to wrap her arms around him and hug him, to finally embrace him, to truly feel her friend’s warm, living body.
As she held on to him, she could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest, the movement of air through his lungs as he breathed, and the tremble in his hands as he held her. She could feel everything, and she knew he could feel her. This was the world, she thought, the true and living world, and she was in it. In the distance over Braeden’s shoulder, a blaze of falling stars streaked across the glistening darkness of the nighttime sky. Down in her soul she felt as infinite as the heavens upon which she gazed, filled with a deep gratitude just to be back with the people she loved.
“Thank you for not giving up on me, Braeden,” she said as she held him, unable to control the quiver of appreciation in her voice.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I knew that if we could find a way, you’d come back to us.”
As she slowly separated from Braeden, she looked at Waysa, who had shifted into human form. Waysa stood before her now, tall and grinning and happy.
“Welcome back,” he said, and they embraced. She felt the strength in her friend’s arms and the pride in his chest. She felt the warrior in him, the satisfaction of finally winning a battle against their enemy. And she felt the serenity in him, the happiness that they were finally back together. She and Waysa had shared so much together. They had run through the forest, slept behind waterfalls, and swam in mountain pools, but nothing compared to the joy of this moment.
She gazed at Braeden and Waysa and she smiled. Her two friends had waited for her, fought for her, did everything they could to make this night happen, and they had finally succeeded.
Finally, Serafina turned and looked at Rowena. The sorceress in her dark robes, with her hood and her long red hair coiled loosely around her shoulders, stood quietly nearby. She was watching them, her green eyes bright and alive, but flickering with an uncertain wariness.
“I’m not going to embrace you if that’s what you’re thinking, cat,” Rowena said.
Serafina smiled and nodded. “I know,” she said. “But thank you, Rowena. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You saved me.”
“I put you there,” Rowena said, reminding her. “And now I brought you back.”
Serafina wasn’t sure if she was saying that she had righted the wrong, or that they were even, or maybe something else, but either way, Serafina said, “I thank you for what you did tonight.”
As Serafina spoke with her friends, she couldn’t help but take in the world around her. She felt her two feet firmly on the ground, so simple, but so profound, to have weight, to have effect, to not be floating in the air or disintegrating into vapor, but to have substance, to have presence, to truly be in a place and in command of her body. She smelled the willow trees around the glade and heard the soft orchestra of buzzing insects. Gone was the feeling of being a droplet of water or a mote of dust. Gone was the feeling of being a gust of wind that might drift away at any moment. She was alive, truly alive. She was whole again, solid and firm, body and soul, and had never felt better in her life.
And as she stood there looking around her in amazement, she slowly began to realize there was something else, too, something new. When she tuned her ears just right, she could hear the gentle movement of the breeze in the boughs of the trees far above her. She could sense a drop of dew clinging to a leaf, feel it falling through the vibrating air, and hear it hit the ground and soak into the dusty soil. She could see the breath of the trees with her eyes and the rise of water to the clouds. Everything around her felt closer, finer, more acute.
The rising of the moon, the falling of the stars, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—she knew she’d come close to dying. She had walked in between. Her spirit had lingered in the world…but now she sensed that the world lingered in her. She felt the quiet rocks of the earth, the flow of distant rivers, and the drift of the clouds above—she could see and feel the spirit of the world all around her.
As she gazed from one point to the next, trying to understand her new senses and powers, she noticed a faint glint of moonlight on the ground over by the destroyed remnants of the Black Cloak. It was but a small reflection of light at first, but as she walked toward it, the glint became so bright that it was almost blinding to her.
She reached down beside the black pile of the ruined fabric and picked up the cloak’s silver clasp. It felt heavy in her hand. In the past, the clasp’s design had been a twisting weave of thorny vines. She’d even seen the little faces of children behind the vines. But tonight, the clasp was blank, without any design at all.
Serafina turned and walked back toward Braeden. He smiled at her, still elated with their success.
“You better hide this,” she said as she slipped the clasp into his hand.