The Death of Yorik Mortwell (12 page)

It’s part of me. It can’t leave either
.

He ran toward the topiary, his arm burning, electric shocks rattling his teeth. Finally the pain became unbearable, and he screamed as he dropped the leafy twig on the wooded path.

Beastly Father
.

The twig danced on the ground, spitting sparks.

Yorik gaped at the space where his right hand had been. His ghostly forearm faded away into nothing. His wrist and hand were gone.

A rumbling tremor passed through the earth beneath him.

In the forest, something moved.

First he saw vines snaking from the forest onto the path and curling around themselves to form
a chair. No, Yorik realized as the shape grew—a throne.

In the dirt at the foot of the throne, shoots appeared. Quickly they grew into tiny seedlings, then saplings. The trunks twisted into angles and put out branches, and ivy sprang up and threaded around them, forming ropy sinews of muscle around the sapling bones, until a man was sitting on the throne. Two lilies blossomed on his face, and they opened, the petals like eyelashes. And then the light from Pale Moon Luna changed, and suddenly Yorik could see each mote of dust in the air around him, the dirt and smoke from the fire suspended in the glow.

He fell to his knees before beastly Father. Warm currents of light flowed through Yorik. He opened his mouth but found he could not speak. His tongue felt paralyzed.

Beastly Father leaned forward on his throne. His lily eyes cast their filaments down at the spinning, sparking twig. He reached forth with a woody hand. As he did, the leafy twig stopped dancing and flew to him. He held the twig before his face, and as he did so, a terrible expression of limitless anger passed over his sylvan features.

Yorik thought of the Princess, sobbing over Erde in the glade. He found his tongue. “Please, sir,” he began. “Your daughter is so very sorry. She—”

The woody fingers twitched, and the leafy twig burst into flame, burning down to a cinder and disintegrating. Beastly Father’s face darkened.

Yorik stood, holding out his only hand in supplication. “Sir,” he said, struggling to find the words he needed. “Your Majesty … I know your daughter’s mistake was terrible. But she has changed. When I met her she was so … rude.…” He hesitated. “Well … she still is. But she has become the guardian of Erde, the Oldest of this land … and she has protected her so fiercely against the most evil …”

Yorik faltered. Beastly Father was ignoring him, his lily eyes scanning the forest.

Yorik quivered. The air around him throbbed with beastly Father’s fury. But he thought of dwindling Erde and dead Hatch, the sobbing Princess and the burning hare—everyone who had tried to fight the
Yglhfm
and failed.

Steeling himself, Yorik stepped forward and grasped the arm of the ivy throne. “Your Majesty!” he shouted. “You must listen to me!”

“YOU!” a voice bellowed.

Yorik whirled. Lord Ravenby was tottering down the path, his shadow-children trying to pull him back. His mammoth rifle was leveled at Yorik.

No
, Yorik realized. At beastly Father.

“They told me,” babbled Lord Ravenby. “They told me you would bring destruction to my Estate … the dark voices told me.…”

He fired.

The recoil blasted Lord Ravenby onto his back. Yorik heard a wet smacking sound, and turned to see a jagged hole the size of a pumpkin punched in beastly Father’s chest.

Beastly Father did not seem the least concerned. But Lord Ravenby had succeeded in capturing his attention. Yorik watched as the lily filaments flickered between Lord Ravenby and his shadow-children, who were bent over their father, their hands fluttering over him desperately. At this sight, beastly Father’s face seemed to soften.

He reached out his sapling arm and gestured, and the frantic look in Lord Ravenby’s eyes passed away, replaced by quiet and peace. Lord Ravenby closed his eyes and slept.

Yorik seized the moment. “Your Majesty,” he said. “I pray for grace for your daughter. Look toward her aviary glade and see all that she has done.”

Beastly Father did not look to the glade. He looked at Yorik, his lilies wide and smoldering, the filaments aglow. For an instant they stared each other full in the face.

And then Yorik saw something high in the night sky above beastly Father. At first he thought it was Dark Moon Lilith, but it was moving, and growing larger by the moment.

“Your Majesty, get up!” he cried, scrabbling at the ivy throne, not daring to touch him. But beastly Father did not get up; he only gazed at Yorik, who flung himself away from the throne and ran as the vast
Yglhfm
thundered down from the sky. He turned to see the
Yglhfm
strike beastly Father with the force of a falling star.

Beastly Father shattered into nothing, saplings
splintered into fragments, vines crushed to pulp. The
Yglhfm
towered high above, and though its formless face and shapeless mouth had no human features, Yorik had the impression that in its own way it was gloating in victory.

Y
orik sped back toward the aviary glade, preparing to jump. But the blockade was now taller than the trees, and he could not leap over it. Reaching into his pocket for Erde’s final mud-ball, he reared back and threw, and where the mud struck the Dark Ones, there was a rippling dilation. A tunnel formed, and Yorik dove through it. The tunnel closed behind him. The mud-ball was gone. Now he was trapped in the glade too.

The Princess manifested before him, radiating white-hot fury.

Yorik spoke fast, before he could be disintegrated or imprisoned in an acorn or subjected to any of the other horrible punishments the Princess had invented.

“I saw bea—I saw your father.”

The Princess dropped her hands, which, twigless, had been raised in threatening claws. The fury on her face drained into shock. “You what?”

“I saw your father. I talked to him.”

The Princess seized his remaining hand. “What did he say? Did he talk about me?”

“No,” said Yorik. “He didn’t talk at all. Listen, there is something I have to tell you. Your father did appear, on a throne of vines, and … and Lord Ravenby shot him. And then a giant Dark One crushed him. Your father is dead, Princess. I’m sorry.”

“A throne of vines, eh?” chuckled the Princess. “Oh, very good, Father.”

Yorik looked up at the clear night sky. Here in the quiet glade, he could almost pretend that the horrors outside weren’t real. “Princess,” he said quietly. “The
Yg—They
have nearly won. The last
few defenders of the Estate are dead or fleeing. And the Dark Ones have completely surrounded you.”

“Have they?” The Princess sniffed. “They must want my glade. Well, they can crouch there eternally if they like, they’ll never get it.”

“Is Erde—” Yorik hesitated, not wanting to say it.

Silently, the Princess led him to the grass cradle. There in the very bottom was a crumble of dirt, falling to pieces grain by grain as they watched.

“There was nothing I could do,” the Princess said in a sad, hushed voice. “Maybe I’m not all-powerful after all.”

“No,” replied Yorik. “But there is still something you can do. You can leave the glade and fight the Dark Ones. Before he … before he died, I think your father forgave you.”

“You
think
? Did he say so?”

“No,” said Yorik, “but the look on his face—”

“Oh, the
look
on his
face
,” said the Princess with a bitter laugh. “I’m afraid you don’t just zip around defying the gods, tra la la, you know. It leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.”

Yorik squeezed her hand. “Princess, you have to try. The way he watched Lord Ravenby’s children tending to him—”

“The who tending to what?” the Princess snapped, yanking her hand away. “Don’t grab me like that, it’s very rude.”

“I could just tell,” continued Yorik, irritated. Then he saw the Princess’s eyes filling with tears. “I know it’s difficult,” he said more gently. “But you have to leave now. It’s over. You’re forgiven.”

“You could really tell?” the Princess asked, her voice cracking, the tears flowing once more.

“Yes, I could,” said Yorik. “Because I forgave someone too.” He held out his one hand. “Come with me.”

“But … what if you’re wrong?” The Princess backed away. “You don’t know what he could do … you’re just a ghost, you can’t possibly know.…” Yorik could see she was genuinely terrified.

“Princess, you can burn me or shock me or whatever you like, but it’s time for you to leave the glade.” Gently, he reached for her hand.

The Princess did not burn him or shock him, but
she did punch him weakly in the chest. “No! You don’t understand! You can’t understand!” She sank to her knees in the grass, her silver glow dimming to nothing. In a whisper, she said, “What I did—it was unforgivable. I can’t be forgiven, ever.”

Yorik watched her curiously. There was something familiar in her voice—he looked into her gleaming eyes and saw terror there, true panic and fear.

Yorik burst out in a laugh.

The Princess’s head shot up. She looked at Yorik with pure poison. “Are you laughing at me?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Yorik, smiling. He knelt beside her. “I just realized something, Princess.”

“Well, out with it,” she ordered. “Stop being so mysterious. And get that smile off your face.”

Yorik composed himself. “Princess, we’ve been assuming all along that the Dark Ones couldn’t affect you—couldn’t harm you. They—”

“Of course they can’t!” interrupted the Princess, sitting up. “It’s quite rude to suggest! You’d better apol—”

Yorik broke in. “Princess, listen for once. We don’t have much time. Do you recall the memory you showed me, where the Dark Ones told Thomas to throw a rock?”

“That other ghost-boy,” said the Princess. “Of course I remember. Stop wasting time!”

Quickly, Yorik continued. He told her of the Dark Ones at the water garden, who told him he wasn’t needed, and of the terrible lies he’d heard them tell Thomas in his bedroom, and Susan in the attic, and Lord Ravenby in his study. “I’ve always wondered,” he said, “why they could influence Thomas and Lord Ravenby, and so many others in the Estate—but they couldn’t seduce me into falling when I was lying in the water garden, and they couldn’t make Susan poison Lord Ravenby. It’s because we didn’t believe their lies.”

“But what does this have to do with
me
?” the Princess fumed.

“It’s about the lies. They only have power over you if they are lies you were already telling yourself. The Dark Ones seduce us with our own darkest thoughts.”

“And …?”

“And that’s why they are surrounding the glade. They’re bringing all their power to bear, Princess, the same power I felt when they surrounded me outside the mews. They’re pushing their lies on you, encouraging you to believe your worst fear—that you are unforgivable.”

The Princess’s face bloomed like a lily. “My goodness. You are absolutely right. How embarrassing.” She jumped to her feet and snapped her fingers, and her silver glow returned in a burst that left Yorik blinking. From outside the glade he heard a furious roaring.

“That’s over with, then,” the Princess announced. “I feel terribly silly. That never would have happened, you know, if I’d been able to see out of—”

“I know, I know,” Yorik assured her. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes,” the Princess said. “I believe I am.”

“Then let’s go,” said Yorik, taking her hand. Together they walked out of the aviary glade.

The wall of Dark Ones had vanished. Yorik led the Princess toward the Wooded Walk. With small
gestures, the Princess extinguished the little fires burning here and there. A wild-eyed horse hobbled past, its foreleg broken. The Princess spoke a soothing word and the leg straightened, the horse cantering away. Then a dirigible crewman crashed from the bushes, firing his pistol at them. The Princess did not seem to notice, but Yorik watched as the bullets became honeybees and the crewman slumped to the ground, snoring.

In this way, they soon arrived at the path. The Princess released Yorik’s hand. “Where is he?” she said. “I’ve got to go to him, you know. He can’t come to me. It wouldn’t be proper.”