It was hard to take it all in, but they had finally defeated Uriah, the old man of the forest, the conjurer, the bearded man, the sorcerer, the wielder of the Twisted Staff, the creator of the Black Cloak, the enemy who could not be killed.
And through all of this, Serafina thought about her pa working on his machines, and Essie bustling from room to room, and Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt and the coming baby, and all the daytime folk at Biltmore. She thought about the wolves, and the crows, and the other animals of the forest, and she thought: We’re finally safe now.
Serafina carefully gathered the Black Cloak up from the floor of the Banquet Hall. The cloak writhed and twisted in her hands.
There are other paths to follow…the cloak hissed as it tried to coil up her arms, as if it knew what she was planning to do with it. It wasn’t the prisoner within speaking to her, but the cloak itself.
Serafina wanted to drop it, get away from it, but she knew she couldn’t. She held the cloak tighter and looked at Braeden. “Get the trowel and mortar.”
As Braeden grabbed the equipment, she noticed that the design on the Black Cloak’s silver clasp was no longer blank, but entwined with thorny, binding vines twisting around the shadows of a single face.
She and Braeden headed outside with the cloak on their own. They wanted as few people as possible to know where they were going to put it.
They made their way through the darkened gardens and down toward the pond.
With me on your shoulders, you’d have strength beyond imagining…you could fly…you could live in ways that you never dreamed of…the cloak hissed.
She could feel the pull of the cloak on her mind, an aching desire to give in to its hissing pleas. She wanted to put it on, to wear it, to use it. By sucking in human souls, the cloak provided the wearer the ultimate power, but she knew she must resist it.
“Here it is,” Braeden said as they came to the inlet of the pond.
She and Braeden crawled through the metal chute and into the flume.
Together, we could be all-knowing, Serafina…
“Don’t you dare use my name!” Serafina snarled. She gripped the cloak in her tightly balled fists, refusing to listen.
Braeden carried the lantern, shovel, and tools as they followed the narrow brick tunnel beneath the pond. There was no water running through the tunnel, but it was dripping wet with the sludge of the black algae that coated the walls.
Think about what you’ve enslaved, the cloak rasped. It’s all in your hands now…
Clenching the cloak tighter, Serafina led the way, delving deeper and deeper into the tunnel, until they reached its lowest and darkest point.
“This is the spot,” Braeden said.
“Hurry,” Serafina said.
Just put me on, and all of Uriah’s power will be yours, Serafina…the cloak whispered.
Serafina tried not to imagine the knowledge and power she’d attain, but she could feel her hands shaking as she held the writhing thing. She wanted so bad to put the cloak on her shoulders.
“Braeden, please hurry!” she cried.
Braeden quickly pried up the bricks with the shovel, then got down on his knees and pulled the bricks away with his hands. There was already a shallow hole where he had stored the Black Cloak before, but Serafina said, “Dig it deeper.”
Braeden grabbed the shovel and went to work, digging down into the gravel another two feet.
Together, we shall know a thousand spells…the cloak hissed.
“Deeper,” Serafina said.
Together, we shall never die…
“Deeper!” Serafina told Braeden.
Braeden’s hands began to bleed with blisters from the oak handle of the shovel, but he did not argue or complain. He could see Serafina’s shaking body, and the anguish tearing through her face, and he kept digging.
“How far?” he asked, but he did not stop.
“Six feet,” Serafina said. “Six feet under.”
When Braeden had finally finished digging, Serafina crawled down in and shoved the Black Cloak into the bottom of the hole. She pushed the folds of the material as deep as she could make them go, then pressed them down with the palms of her hands. The cloak hissed and rattled like a snake fighting against her.
“Bury it!” Serafina snapped harshly at Braeden, her voice sounding disturbingly like to the cloak itself.
“Bury it, Braeden, bury it…” she hissed, the voice of the cloak coming through her.
His eyes wide with fear, Braeden hurried to push the loose gravel into the hole, handfuls at first, then using the shovel. The dirt began to fill the grave. As Serafina held the cloak down, it felt like she was drowning it. She could feel the sensation of the dirt pressing more and more around her.
“You’ve got to get out of there, Serafina!” Braeden shouted.
Just put me on…the cloak hissed.
“Keep shoveling!” she screamed, holding the cloak down beneath the dirt as it writhed in her hands. “Bury it!”
Finally, when the dirt was all around her, and the cloak was buried, she clambered out. Braeden heaved her up to him.
She and Braeden filled in the rest of the dirt, packed it down, and stamped on it with their feet until it was hard.
Then, back down on their hands and knees, they used the trowel to spread a thick layer of mortar over the dirt.
“More,” Serafina urged. “As thick as we can make it.”
When the mortar was finally down, they pushed the bricks into place. The gray mortar oozed up into the thin spaces between the bricks as they laid them.
Brick by brick, they closed the Black Cloak in.
Brick by brick, they silenced the raspy voice.
And brick by brick they buried their enemy below.
When they were finally done and the mortar had hardened, Serafina stared suspiciously at the brick floor, half expecting to see the insidious black fabric squeezing up through the mortared cracks like little creeping fingers, its voice hissing for her to put it on.
But there was no sound or movement.
They had buried the Black Cloak and Uriah once and for all.
Here the Black Cloak and its prisoner would remain beneath the pond, buried in an unmarked grave and bricked in, seething in the darkness below the darkness.
The following day, as Serafina walked through the forested highlands that overlooked Biltmore, she saw a figure moving slowly through the trees. It took her several seconds to realize that it was Rowena coming toward her.
The sorceress was wearing the dark robes and hood of her ancient kindred, and she was carrying a long laurel staff. She wore a twisting bronze-and-silver torc around her neck, and her red hair was tied into a thick braid that fell down into the folds of her hood.
Rowena stopped a few feet in front of Serafina. As the sorceress gazed at her, her green eyes glistened in the sunlight that came down through the forest leaves.
“Have you hidden it?” Rowena asked her.
“We have,” Serafina replied, nodding.
“Good,” Rowena said, relieved.
The sorceress looked down at the ground for a moment as if collecting her thoughts, then she lifted her eyes and looked at Serafina once more. “Then this is where our paths finally part.”
Serafina hesitated, not sure what to say to the girl who had been her enemy and her friend.