Serafina and the Twisted Staff. Robert Beatty

moving out there, nothing making a sound. How had they moved away from her so quickly? Was the boy all right? Did he get away? Or was he hurt?

      She’d never laid eyes on the boy before, never seen anything like him, the way he moved and fought. He had brownish skin, a lithe, muscled body, and long, shaggy, dark brown hair, but it was his speed and his ferocity that had struck her most. She reckoned he must be one of the local mountain folk, like her pa, who were well known for being tough as nails and twice as sharp, but the boy had fought as hard as a rabid bobcat. There was something almost feral about him, like he’d lived in these woods all his life.

      She stood and scanned the terrain behind her – flat, rocky ground and a thicket of shrub-like vegetation leading down into a larger ravine. She was pretty sure she knew where she was and how to get home, but she turned and looked out over the cliff again. The feral boy had saved her life. How could she just leave him?

      The pain of the bites and scratches she’d suffered in the battle burned something fierce, like sharp, twisting barbed wire puncturing her flesh. Blood dripped down into her eyes from the wound to her head. She needed to get home.

      She stared out across the tops of the trees in the direction she had last seen the boy. She waited and listened, thinking she’d hear signs of battle or maybe see him looking up at her. Or, God forbid, she would see his bloody, torn body lying lifeless on the ground.

      Don’t fight, you fool! Climb! His words came ringing in her ears like he was still there. Run! he’d shouted.

      Should she flee like he’d told her to, or should she look for him like she wanted to?

      She hated making noise, making herself known to whatever lurked in the forest around her, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do: she cupped her hands round her mouth and whispered, ‘Hello! Can you hear me?’ over the tops of the trees.

      And then she waited.

      There was nothing but the crickets and frogs and the other sounds of the night forest.

      She could feel the battle-pound of her heart slowing down, her breaths getting weaker, and her arms and legs getting heavier. If she was going to make it home, she had to go soon.

      She didn’t want to just leave him out there fighting on his own. She wasn’t the leaving kind – or the forgetting kind, either.

      She wanted to talk to him, find out his name and where he lived, or at least know he was safe. Who was he? Why was he in the forest in the middle of the night? And why was he willing to leap into a pack of vicious dogs to defend her?

      She whispered once more into the trees, ‘Are you out there?’

      

      Serafina knew she’d waited for the feral boy too long when she heard the two wolfhounds coming towards her from the north. They had found a way up to the high ground.

      She looked around her. She glanced up at a tree, wondering if she could climb high enough. Then she thought about scaling back down the cliff again to confuse them, but she knew she couldn’t survive here all night on her own. Get out of here! the feral boy had told her.

      Finally, she gathered herself up.

      Whoever the boy was, she hoped he’d be all right. Stay strong, my friend.

      She ducked into a dense boscage of spruce and fir, the evergreens packed so tightly together that it was like swimming in an ocean of green foliage. As she pushed her way through the thicket, she found her strength giving way to confusion. Her knees kept buckling beneath her, and she couldn’t focus on the terrain in front of her. She raised her hand to her head and realised that she was bleeding badly from a tear in her scalp. The blood was dripping down her forehead and into her eyes.

      She stumbled through the sea of trees, knowing there was no way to elude the dogs now. Spasms of pain radiated from the puncture wounds in her arms and legs. She had to wipe the blood out of her eyes to see where she was going. The needled branches of the trees were so thick and high that she could no longer see the moon and stars. Her racing feet cracked sticks on the ground, making noise that she wouldn’t normally make, but it didn’t matter now. She had to run like she’d never run before. But even as she ducked and darted between the trees, she kept hearing the feral boy’s voice: You can’t outrun these things for long! She wanted to turn and fight them, but if they caught her here in the thicket of trees it’d be impossible to see their attacks. They’d kill her for sure. She had to keep running.

      Suddenly, the trees opened up and she nearly fell headlong over a cliff edge into a rocky crash of whitewater rapids below. She pulled herself back from the edge with a gasp and grabbed onto the branches of a tree.

      Looking over the edge of the cliff, she could see there was no way to cross the river here. The cliff was too high, the rapids too dangerous.

      There ain’t nothin’ but bad choices, she thought. She knew she had to get to cover, but right now the cover she needed was to conceal her scent.

      Pushing herself on, she ran along the cliff as it led down towards the river.

      When she came to the stretch below the rapids, she tried to wade quickly across what looked like the safest and shallowest point. She’d never been in deep water before and didn’t know how to swim. She pushed hard through the drag of the rushing, knee-deep water, desperate to reach the other side and escape the wolfhounds. The mountain river was so cold that her legs ached. The current ran swift and strong. As she placed each step against the tearing force of the water, she felt the round, algae-covered rocks turning and slipping beneath her searching feet.

      She reached the centre of the river. The water ripped round her thighs, making it more and more difficult to push against it. She was making headway. But just when she thought she was going to make it across, she felt the current lifting her body away from the rocks beneath her feet. She lost her balance and crashed down into the icy-cold water. She flailed wildly, desperately kicking her legs in search of footing, but the bottom of the river disappeared as the current swept her into deep water. Coughing and spitting, she thrashed and leapt and gasped frantically for air as the river carried her downstream towards the next set of rapids.

      The current sucked her into a rifling chute between two giant boulders, then shot her out the other side, tumbling end over end underwater through a dark green pool. As her head broke the surface, she managed to steal another gasp of air before the river grabbed hold of her again, heaving her and yanking her through a spiral of rushing water. She found herself spinning, submerged in a whirlpool so deep that she said goodbye to her pa. But then her body hit a jagged rock. She tried to cling to it, but the rushing flow immediately pulled her away again. She’d always thought she was strong, but compared to the force of the river she was nothing more than a kitten tossed into the water. When the rapids finally spat her out into the calm water downstream, she crawled from the river, wet and bedraggled, and collapsed onto the rocky shore, exhausted.

      She had made it across.

      Serafina knew that if the dogs followed her downstream and saw her across the river, then they would pursue her. She had to get up, had to keep running, but she couldn’t force her arms and legs to move. She couldn’t even lift her head. The freezing-cold water and pounding force of the river had sapped all the remaining strength from her muscles. Her limbs were shaking. As she lay on the watery stones at the edge of the river, the protection of Biltmore seemed impossibly far away, beyond her reach. Her body was so tired she could barely get a few feet, let alone the miles she needed to go. The small puddles of water among the stones where she lay began to turn dark one by one. She felt so cold.

      She wondered if the feral boy was lying mortally wounded in the forest back where she’d left him or still fighting the wolfhounds. Or maybe he had escaped them. She could hear his voice in her mind. Run! he had shouted to her. Run! But she could