The Death of Yorik Mortwell

Ravenbys. First Thomas, then his father. There must be a reason for that.” As he said it, he remembered the words of the topiary hare: Is not the fate of one bound to the fate of all?

The Princess snorted. “You would think that. Humans think everything involves them.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Don’t you realize you are dealing with an ancient evil far more powerful than a few humans? Not to mention you, a stubborn little ghost-boy, not even one year old!”

Yorik turned away. “At least I’m trying.”

The Princess’s voice turned to icicles and venom. “Beware, ghost. I can banish you from my glade. You can spend your days among the Yglhfm if you like. You know very well I—”

“—can’t leave the glade because of beastly Father,” finished Yorik. “I know.” He turned to her. The Princess’s leafy twig was sparking as though it were angry too. He pointed. “What if you let me use that? I could take it with me and use its power against them.”

The Princess shook her head. “Can’t. It doesn’t have any power except the little I put into it. And it’s part of me. It can’t leave either.”

“Right,” said Yorik. “Just like Thomas can’t leave his father.”

The Princess sighed. Her glowing face looked weary, as Yorik had never seen it before.

“You know, ghost-boy,” she said, “you see so many things, you think you see everything. But you don’t. There are things you fail to see that are right in front of you, and you shouldn’t even need ghost eyes to see them.”

“Like what?” ventured Yorik cautiously.

“Like your little murderer friend. Do you think he’s staying with his father because he’s stupid? Do you think he doesn’t fear the Yglhfm?”

“Why, then? Why would he stay?”

The Princess sank slowly into the grass, her gossamer dress billowing. Her glow dimmed. “Perhaps,” she said quietly, “it was something he did. Something terrible. And he feels responsible for everything bad that has happened since. He won’t leave his father because he doesn’t believe he deserves to be fixed. And so he stays there, among the Yglhfm, in the dark.”

“My murder,” said Yorik. “He feels responsible for my murder. But I’ve forgiven him for that.”

“I mean something really, really bad,” said the Princess distantly. “An unforgivable sin.”

“Your Highness, I—” Yorik stopped. The Princess was not listening, nor was she looking at him. She was sitting in the grass with downcast eyes, her face shadowed, her fingers fidgeting with her leafy twig.

Her voice was so quiet now that Yorik could hardly hear her. “Sometimes you do something,” she whispered. “Something so awful you can never atone for the crime. Even if you want more than anything to help someone you love … there is nothing you can do.”

Yorik understood now that the Princess was no longer talking about Thomas.

He looked up at the stars, thinking. These nights, the sky above most of the Estate was covered with writhing flame-blue clouds. Only here, above the aviary glade, could the stars still be seen. He watched them blink and shimmer.

He looked back at the girl sitting in the grass, her head with its laurel crown cast down, her glittering hair spilling around her. “What could you …” He hesitated. “What could someone have done, for their sin to be unforgivable?”

The Princess’s glow vanished. The aviary glade grew dark.

Then the Princess drifted up from where she sat, rising through the cherry boughs.

Yorik climbed swiftly, following her. In his ghost form, he could climb forever and never fall. At the very top of the tree he found her sitting as before, now on the very tip of the highest branch. Yorik crouched near her, balancing on a branch no wider than his finger.

The Princess raised her arm and pointed with her leafy twig. The twig moved along the sky, across the length of the bright Milky Way, the river of stars. The white Way glowed ever brighter as the twig traced its path.

“A girl was once given charge of a river,” came the Princess’s hushed voice, soft and sad. “A bright, clear, shining river.”

As Yorik watched, the leafy twig twisted. In the river there appeared swift black shapes, dipping and rushing in the flow, free and happy in their swimming.

“What are those?” he asked.

“They are dolphins,” said the Princess. “They asked the girl to come and play with them, and swim in the waters.”

“Did she?”

“At first,” she said. “The girl would come to the river’s edge each morning and call to them, and they would come to her and she would swim with them, up and down the river’s length, from its source in mountain springs to its end, where sea winds blew over salt waters.”

Yorik watched the white Way glitter and gleam. It filled with more of the dark swimmers, and the stars around them seemed to dance.

The Princess went on. “All was well, in the beginning. But in time, the girl grew bored. She became angry with her father for giving her only this river, when she thought she deserved so much more. And so she left it behind, and went to other places she thought more worthy of her. She ignored the shining river.”

The stars that had seemed to dance slowed and then stopped. The happy swimming of the dark shapes changed too, becoming frantic and crowded. Something was terribly wrong, and despite himself,

Yorik felt afraid. He almost did not want the Princess to continue. At last he spoke. “Go on.”

“A long time passed,” whispered the Princess. “Then one day, the girl remembered her river. And she returned.”

She twitched her twig in a sudden slash, and the bright, clear river darkened. The swimmers disappeared.

“She had been gone for many years. In her absence, the river had become black and poisonous. When she saw what had happened, she raced to the river’s edge and called to the dolphins as she always had … but this time they did not answer. They were all long dead. There were none of them left.”

Yorik felt as though his heart would break. “Princess …,” he said.

The girl moved her twig, and the night sky became itself again. She sank back through the boughs, Yorik following. He knelt next to her as she huddled on the ground.

“Now you know,” she said, her voice breaking. “Now you know why Father banished me to this glade, and why I may never leave.”

“But, Princess,” said Yorik. “Look at all you have done. Your glade is so beautiful, and you’ve sheltered Erde here, and you protected the birds, and you fixed me when I was broken, and—”

The Princess’s voice was harsh and ruthless. “It doesn’t matter. They’re dead, all dead forever, and it’s my fault. It is an unforgivable sin. I deserved to be punished. Father was right.”

“Princess …,” said Yorik. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” screamed the Princess. Bolts of lightning shot from her twig, and Yorik was hurled backward. The pheasants, disturbed from their roosts, flew muttering down from their trees.

The Princess sat with her face in her lap, crying brokenly. Beyond was the grassy cradle where Erde lay helpless and dying.

The Princess had done something terrible, and so had Thomas. Yorik remembered the flickering image the Princess had shown him, of the Dark Ones whispering to Thomas in the glade before he threw the rocks— he’ll find out what you did.

He’ll find out what you did. Whatever Thomas had done, it had happened before Yorik’s murder.

Yorik had to find out what it was.

Chapter Twelve