It still amazed her to think that Braeden had hid the damaged cloak from their enemies all that time, fearing its black, hissing power, but clinging to the hope that one day, somehow, someway, he would be able to bring her back into the world. And tonight was that night. He’d done it!
She moved toward him to embrace him again, but Rowena stepped between them.
“This is a sweet reunion and all, we’ll be sure to all have tea together sometime,” Rowena said in a biting tone. “But my father is going to sense the destruction of the cloak. He’s going to come, and when he does, he’ll be bent on a black vengeance like nothing you’ve ever seen, angry that the cat has escaped, but even angrier that I helped her do it.”
Serafina knew Rowena was right. She gazed around at her friends. “Whatever happens, the four of us are in this together now.”
As soon as she arrived at Biltmore, Serafina ran down to the workshop. She stopped to catch her breath just outside the door. Then she stepped slowly into the room and gazed upon her pa.
He was near his cot behind the supply racks, the cot he’d slept in for all the years she could remember. He was performing a simple task, straightening the blanket on his bed, but to her it seemed to be the most profound of actions.
Here was the man who had raised her, who had fed her and cared for her all her life, who had taught her all that he could teach her, who had guarded and protected her, and held her close every night.
She was so quiet, so still, standing there behind him, that for a moment, she almost wasn’t sure whether she was spirit or whole.
But then, with hot tears welling up in her eyes, she finally said, “I came home as soon as I could, Pa.”
Her pa froze in his movement. He did not turn or say a word.
For several seconds it was as if he had not heard her at all. Or perhaps he did not believe what he had heard.
But then he slowly turned his head to the side, as if waiting for the sound to come again. And then he turned his body and looked at her.
He gazed upon her with awe, like a believing man who has come face-to-face with a winged angel. At first, he was unable to speak, but finally, he smiled, and his face wrinkled, and he wiped tears from his eyes, and he said, “Now you come on over here and see your pa.”
She walked forward and collapsed into his arms, not just crying, but bawling.
“I’m sorry, Pa, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t get home, I tried and tried, but I couldn’t get home,” she wailed.
He pulled her against his barrel chest, wrapped his thick arms around her, and held her tight.
She pressed her head against his chest and she held him in her trembling arms. As she let herself fall into him, she pulled in a long, dreaming breath, her chest heaving with the exhilaration of being there with him at this moment. She felt the warmth of his embrace and heard the sigh of his breathing as he held her. It was a miracle. She could feel him, truly feel him, and he could feel her.
Around her, she smelled the cotton fabric of his shirt, and the grease he’d worked with that day, and the familiar musk of his body, all mixed with the smells of the workshop, the solid oak benches and the half-burned coal in the little stove where they cooked their meals and the gritty stone of the floor and the oiled metal of the hammers, wrenches, and other tools. She was alive. And she was finally, finally, finally back—back in the workshop, back in her pa’s arms. She was finally home.
In the time that followed, she took a long, warm bath, washed off the grave dirt and the bloodstains, and changed into a simple, clean dress. It felt as if she was living in the lap of luxury.
As they settled in for the night, it seemed like neither of them could quite believe that it was truly real. They kept looking at each other, touching each other, as if constantly wanting to make sure.
Her pa cooked an elaborate supper of chicken and dumplings with his favorite gravy, fried okra, and grits smothered with warm butter and cheese. She was so famished that she ate it all and wanted more. Whether it was drinking a glass full of cool, clear water or eating a meal with her pa, the simplest routines of her life had become the most glorious pleasures.
“You’re doin’ a good fine job on your supper there,” her pa said happily as she scraped down to the bottom of the metal plate.
“It just tastes so good,” she said, meaning it true, and it brought a smile to his face.
Over supper, her pa started talking, not with any particular purpose in mind, but just to talk, just to celebrate, like everything was all right again. He spun his usual tales of mending machines and solving the challenges of his day-to-day life. She had always loved his stories in which he was the humble hero fighting against impossible odds with wrench and hammer in hand, and she had never loved the stories more than on this night.
She wanted to tell him that she had seen the beautiful faerie lights he had strung in the garden on the night of the evening party, his shining beacon for her to follow home. And she wanted to tell him how proud she was of him the night she’d seen him smiling, dressed in his suit, in the glow of the glittering summer ball.
Later on, as they washed their dishes, her pa took on a more serious tone.
“I know ya might not be too keen on talkin’ about it just yet, Sera,” he said, “but what happened to you all this time?”
It was difficult to know how to answer his question in a way that he, or anyone, could understand, but she did the best she could.
She was pretty sure that her pa had an inkling that somehow her mother was a mountain lion, but she didn’t think he knew that she too walked on four feet when she wanted to. If he did suspect it, it was something he didn’t like to think about, like he didn’t like to think about haints and demons and other creatures of the night. To him, she was his daughter, a human being, a twelve-year-old little girl that he cherished more than anything in the world, and he didn’t like to think of her in any other way. And she was sure that it would come as quite a shock to him if he ever saw her as a crouched, snarling, clawing, leaping black panther. But she knew he had some idea of the strange and unusual things that happened in the dark of night, for he had warned her of them many times.
“You remember our old enemies…” Serafina began.
“The ones who captured the animals in the cages up in the pine forest a few months ago,” he said, and she nodded her head.
“They came back, Pa. They attacked me, and I was wounded somethin’ awful.”
As her pa listened, she could tell by the expression in his eyes that it was difficult for him to hear.