Free Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series) by Robert Beatty Page A

Serafina could smell
from a country mile away. The room’s cream-coloured walls were cluttered with scraps of Essie’s sketches of flowers and autumn leaves. Serafina knew that she should be doing her job,
creeping through the shadows, and spying on Biltmore’s guests, or at least worrying about the interrogation that was minutes away, but she could not resist the temptation of seeing a little
bit of Biltmore up close in a way she never had before.
    In the centre of one of the room’s walls was mounted a single Edison lightbulb. Serafina’s pa had told her with a swell of his chest that Mr V. was friends with Mr Thomas Edison and
liked using all the latest scientific advancements.
    Seeing all this amazed Serafina. Essie had her own lightbulb! Serafina knew from her pa that many of the mountain folk of western North Carolina were living in clapboard shacks and log cabins
without electricity, central heating or indoor plumbing. Many of them had never even
seen
a lightbulb, let alone had one for their own particular use. But Essie had made herself a cosy
little den up here on the fourth floor, like a tiny mouse nesting up in the attic, where no one would ever find her.
    A window set into the room’s roof-slanted wall provided something that Serafina, a denizen of the basement, seldom beheld from this height: a mesmerising westward view across the Blue
Ridge Mountains. The clear sight of Mount Pisgah rising in the distance above the other peaks caught her eye. A few nights after she and Braeden had defeated the Man in the Black Cloak, they had
snuck up onto the rooftop to celebrate their victory. She remembered sitting under the stars with him, looking across the mountains, as Braeden explained how that peak was more than nineteen miles
away, but it was still on the estate. He had marvelled at how it took a day to get there on horseback, following twisting, rocky trails through the mountains, but a hawk soaring on the wind could
simply tilt its wing and be there in a moment.
    Smiling, Serafina turned and looked around Essie’s room as Essie watched her with interest. ‘I ain’t got it too bad, do I, miss?’
    ‘Not too bad at all,’ Serafina agreed. ‘I like it here.’
    Essie pulled a nicely made beige day dress off one of the hooks on the wall. ‘It’s my Sunday best,’ she said, handing it over to Serafina. ‘It ain’t nothing fancy
compared to what the ladies wear, but –’
    ‘Thank you, Essie,’ Serafina said, gently taking it from her. ‘It’s perfect.’
    Essie kept talking as she turned round so Serafina could change.
    ‘I’m a chambermaid now, but I’m fixed on being a lady’s maid someday,’ Essie said. ‘Maybe serve the lady guests when they come, or even Mrs Vanderbilt
herself. Do you know Mrs V.?’
    ‘Yes,’ Serafina said as she pulled off her burlap dress. Goose bumps rose up on her bare legs and arms, half chill and half nervousness. It felt so odd to be undressing when there
was someone else in the room.
    ‘I thought you must know her, you being you and all,’ Essie continued.
    The fact was that Serafina had become very fond of Mrs Vanderbilt over the last few weeks and had enjoyed their talks together, but she hadn’t seen her around the house in several
days.
    ‘My friend’s been a-goin’ to the girls’ school Mrs V. set up, learning how to do her numbers and weave fabric on the loom,’ Essie said. ‘Mrs V. wants all the
girls to get some sort of education so that they can fend for themselves if they have to.’
    ‘I think she’s very kind,’ Serafina said as she tried to figure out how to get into the dress. It seemed to have a bewildering array of buttons and drawstrings and other
complications.
    ‘Kind as kind can be,’ Essie continued. ‘Did you hear about the dairy boy? Two weeks ago, a dairyman and his eldest son got awful puny, real bad sick, liketa died, so Mrs V.
went on over to their cabin with a basket of food to help the family get