The Death of Yorik Mortwell

“Yes,” rolled the voice of the Princess.

What he saw were the hills. But they were not hills. They were something else. They came up crookedly, the hills. Not hills. Knees, and shoulders. Boulders jutted up like bones and teeth, and the valley of ice like a mouth.

“It’s Erde,” breathed Yorik. “I see her.”

“She is the soil of winter and summer,” chanted the Princess’s faraway voice. “She is the land and the bones beneath it.”

Everywhere he looked now, Yorik saw Erde. He felt overwhelmed by her size and majesty.

“She is the Oldest!” he exclaimed. “She is the one who asked the hare to speak with me.” He felt humbled that these great beings would ask him for anything.

“Yes,” snapped the Princess’s voice, and this time it was right next to him and as sharp and haughty as it had ever been. In an eyeblink, Yorik was back in the aviary glade, and the Princess was scowling at him, and Erde was huddled shivering in a tiny ball on the ground.

“Yes,” she said again. “And you can imagine how bad things have gotten if any of us are asking you for help.”

Yorik looked sadly at Erde. She was so small now. “What happened?”

“Yglhfm,” moaned Erde in a sad voice.

The Princess’s twig slashed the air. “At first there was only one of them. It was there when you saw the hunt for the red lion. Back then it was only an infinitesimal shadow, and utterly beneath notice. But recently it somehow opened the way for others, and their numbers have swelled. And now, great Erde, poor Erde, is almost gone.”

Yorik and the Princess looked grievously at little, huddled Erde.

“I’ll stop them,” vowed Yorik.

“And how do you plan to do that, little ghost-boy?” laughed the Princess. “However will you do that?”

Chapter Nine

Lord Ravenby laid his last child to rest in the Family crypt in a grief-struck ceremony. Over the three months that followed, Yorik explored every corner of the Estate, listening and watching. He explored the Manor too. He was careful to avoid Dark Ones. But once, early on, he was nearly caught.

It was an evening when Yorik had been investigating the bluebell patch on the Manor’s hanging terrace. Pushing through the flowers, Yorik felt a sudden, strange trembling, hardly perceptible at first. As the feeling grew, he found himself convinced that this was all useless, that he was too weak to fight the Yglhfm, that he was only a mere ghost who fled from bells and candles.

The trembling became a flutter, and then a surge of panic that nearly overwhelmed him.

He had felt this surge before, he remembered—outside the mews, when he had confronted Dark Doris. He jerked his head up and spotted black voids gliding through the bluebells, coming closer.

“No,” he said through his teeth. “You can’t take me this way. Hatch!” he shouted. “Hatch!”—and then the hound was there, leaping onto the terrace and growling, and the voids fled.

After that, Yorik and Hatch always explored the Manor grounds together.

But Hatch could not enter the Manor itself. They tried once, when a door was left propped open. But a footman found Hatch in the hall and drove him away with curses and kicks.

Hatch whimpered when Yorik insisted on entering the Manor without him.

“I must, Hatch,” Yorik said soothingly, stroking the hound’s spirit ears. “I’ll be careful.”

Yorik always found the hound pacing nervously outside when he returned from within.

Inside the Manor, Yorik found that despite the hard work of the Kennelmaster and the hounds, more of the Dark Ones were somehow slipping through. Yorik learned to avoid bedrooms, where Dark Ones gathered at night, muttering into the ears of sleepers as though whispering into their dreams. And, despite his curiosity, he was forced to stay away from the grand sleeping chambers of Lord Ravenby, where the largest clusters of Dark Ones were found. He could only assume they were whispering into the dreams of the Lord of the Estate too, but in far greater numbers.

Yet he could not stay away from these chambers entirely, for it was there, more and more often, that he found Susan. She seemed to have graduated in the hierarchy of the Estate’s servants, for now it was she who brought Lord Ravenby’s tea at odd hours.

One night Yorik watched as she was stopped in the hallway by Lord Ravenby’s doctor, who had two Dark Ones on his shoulders.

“Here, girl,” ordered the doctor crisply, snapping his fingers. Susan came obediently, and the doctor placed a vial on the tea tray. “This is sleep medicine, for your master’s insomnia. Put two drops in his tea, just before it’s served.” The doctor hurried away.

Susan watched him leave, then put two drops in a plant instead. The next day, the plant was dead. After that, Susan threw away anything the doctor gave her for Lord Ravenby.

Soon Lord Ravenby was calling for her at all hours. Yorik noticed the older servants watching her, shooting resentful looks. They often had Dark Ones on their shoulders. Accidents began to happen, such as a servant spilling hot water on her, scalding her.

And the Dark Ones began to pay more attention to Susan too.

One night as she was bringing tea, she was turned away by the butler. “But I was told Lord Ravenby is asking for me,” she protested. Nevertheless, she was forced to surrender the tray. As she left, Yorik noticed two Dark Ones following her. Yorik followed too, anxiously, keeping a safe distance.

Strangely, Susan did not return to the maids’ quarters, but went up a back staircase instead. Soon she came to a storage closet, in which there was a ladder. Up the ladder she went, pushing open a trapdoor at the top. The Dark Ones were behind her. Yorik waited, then climbed after, fading up through the trapdoor. He found himself in a long, narrow, deserted attic, surrounded by thousands of things for which the household had no immediate need— stacks of beds, wardrobes, and mirrors stretched in all directions.

He heard a scraping sound and found Susan reaching into a space beneath a floorboard. From there she removed Eleanor—the corncob doll Yorik had made for her years before. She stroked the worn yarn of Eleanor’s hair and gazed out a garret window into the night.

Yorik crouched, hidden in a wardrobe, watching.

The two Dark Ones crept near Susan. You are all alone in the world, girl.

Susan began humming softly.

You should have stopped him from killing your brother. Your brother’s death is your fault.

With gentle fingers, Susan combed Eleanor’s hair.

Yorik stood, putting a hand in his pocket. A few of Erde’s mud-balls were there, made by her for his protection.

You are only a weak little girl. Your master is going to turn you out into the snow.

Yorik withdrew two mud-balls.

You should slip the poison into his drink! the dark voids hissed.

Yorik put one hand back to throw, then stopped as he saw his sister’s soft smile. She continued humming as she carefully straightened Eleanor’s homespun dress.

The Dark Ones bristled and pulsed. Then there were more, four more, fading in from the corners. Too many for Yorik’s mud-balls. They gabbled and cried, surrounding Susan and chanting horrible fears at her. He had seen them do the same thing with Thomas, to deadly effect.

And then Susan sang. In a clear, high voice, she sang, looking out into the night. Yorik knew the song—a lament their father had taught them, an old song in a dead language from across the sea.

The Dark Ones’ babbling taunts faded away. Slowly, silently, they disappeared back into the shadows.

Susan kissed Eleanor, laid her beneath the floorboard, and crept away.