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.
Chapter Fifteen
Yorik 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.”