“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
Yorik found Thomas hiding in the corridor outside his father’s study, where the Matron, with two Dark Ones on her shoulders, was confronting Susan.
“Girl, what are you doing with that?” the Matron snarled, pointing at the supper tray Susan carried. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I made Lord Ravenby eat something,” retorted Susan. “He is ill, and no one else has brought him any food.”
The Matron laughed. “Do as you like. But you shouldn’t stay here, you know. You should flee the Estate with the others. Wicked ways are afoot.”
“No,” said Susan. “Someone must care for Lord Ravenby, whatever else might happen.”
The Matron’s lip curled as her Dark Ones whispered. For a moment she leaned over Susan. Then she pushed past the girl and stomped away.
Yorik slipped into the shadows behind Thomas.
“Thomas,” he said, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
Thomas turned, startled. “Yrk!”
Susan hurried away toward the kitchens, the supper dishes clattering on the tray.
Thomas started after her. “Szz.”
“No,” said Yorik. “Thomas, listen. I spent weeks watching out for Susan too, just as you did before you died.”
Thomas stopped and looked at Yorik.
“Yes, I saw you,” said Yorik. “I’d been told you were going to murder her. But I realized that was a lie.”
“Blb!”
“I followed her everywhere,” said Yorik. “The Dark Ones told her terrible things. They told her Lord Ravenby was going to turn her out into the snow, and she should slip poison into his drink.”
“Glg,” burbled Thomas angrily.
Yorik shook his head. “None of it worked. She is strong, like your father. Maybe even stronger.”
“Fa—” croaked Thomas, lurching toward the study.
“Wait,” said Yorik, grasping his arm. “Thomas, there is only one way to help them now. We have to find a way to defeat the Dark Ones. I believe you know something more about them.” He gave Thomas a searching look. “I need to know what happened.”
“N—!” said Thomas, shaking.
“You must tell me!” ordered Yorik sharply. “Little time remains.”
Thomas shrank away.
Yorik paused, thinking of the Princess’s terrible shame. “I know it’s hard,” he said, more gently now, releasing Thomas. “But you must tell me, for your father. And for my sister too.”
Thomas nodded. His broken neck turned the nod into an odd bow. And then, his face grim, he shuffled forward, leading Yorik along halls and down narrow stairways, into the depths of the Manor.
Down, deep down, below the servants’ quarters, below the wine cellars to the cold rooms where meat was stored. Down, to unlit passages where old things lay hidden under layers of dust, to deep levels of the subterranean Manor basements where no one had set foot for years. Or so Yorik thought at first. But as the dust thickened, Yorik discerned a trail of footprints. Here in the still air of these rooms, the footprints were undisturbed.
In a dank passage at the dead end of the deepest basement was an antiquated iron door, rusted and ajar. Beside it in the churned-up dust were tools—scattered mallets, pry bars, and expired torches. Someone had recently pried open the door.
As Yorik puzzled over this, he heard sounds: hammering, the groans of protesting iron—and a boy crying. The sounds came from directly in front of him. Dead echoes, he realized. Echoes of what had happened here, not long ago.
Behind the door was a stone wall. On it was an inscription too old to read. Some of the stones had been smashed away, and behind them a narrow passage veered deeper down.
Yorik looked at Thomas. He could only imagine how this must have seemed to a living boy—the depths, the cold darkness, the utter silence—as he worked long, dark hours to open these sealed paths.
They moved through the stone wall and walked along the passage, followed by the dead echoes of whispers and tears and crackling torches. Soon they passed windows in the walls. The windows had bits of shattered colored glass in them.
“I saw this building before,” said Yorik. “Ten thousand years ago.” He told Erde’s story to Thomas as they went.
Thomas, nodding, pulled Yorik farther down the passage. In an alcove, Thomas pointed to a leonine skeleton with snapped and shattered bones.
“Yes,” said Yorik. “The red lion.”
Nearby were shovels, and fresh earth piled around a sloping pit. At the bottom of the pit, the rocky mouth of a cave appeared. As they descended, Yorik noticed a track where someone had slid down. There was blood too, as he imagined hands unaccustomed to labor might have bled from the punishing work of smashing and digging in the dark bowels of the earth.
At last they emerged from the cave into an immense, vaulted cavern. Yorik gasped. “A mammoth graveyard!”
Filling the cavern were the massive skeletons of creatures so large they could only have been mammoths. Yorik had heard legends of such things—mammoths burying, and mourning, their dead. This graveyard was ancient, the bones brittle. In some places the skeletons were piled atop each other, and some had fallen apart into mounds so high that their tips nearly reached the ceiling.
“Yorik, dear Yorik,” sang a girl in a hollow voice.
Yorik turned. Atop a mammoth spine sat a girl in a tattered dress, her bedraggled hair falling over her face.
“Doris,” he said. “It’s really you.”
Doris brushed her hair aside. She was gaunt and pale, her cheeks were sunken, and her eyes were empty pits. “Yes, dear Yorik,” she rasped. “But not for long.”