“Mistress Doris,” Yorik breathed. He automatically bowed.
Mistress Doris had been dead for years, but she had been older than Yorik when she’d died, so now they were nearly the same age. She wore one of her beautiful dresses, and had an expensive hat and perfect shoes. She patted the bench beside her and giggled. “Dear Yorik, I’m not your mistress any longer. Sit beside me.”
Yorik sat awkwardly on the stone bench. “I was sorry when you died,” he said haltingly.
It was true. Mistress Doris had not been a friend exactly. But she had been the terror of the Ravenby family, and part of being the terror of the Ravenbys involved consorting with children like Yorik and Susan. She stole things from the Manor and distributed them to servants, who dutifully returned them. She broke things; she escaped at night; she fought the other noble children who came to visit. And then curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she had gone to look at plague victims, and caught the plague herself, and died.
“Well.” Doris smiled. “I’m not sorry you died. Now we can have terrific fun together.”
“I can’t have fun,” explained Yorik. “I have to protect Susan. She’s working in the Manor kitchens, and—”
Mistress Doris waved her hand. “Yes, you need to protect her from my horrid brother, don’t you? He murdered you, and no doubt he will gladly murder your sister too.”
Yorik gaped. “I don’t think—” He was not sure what to say. He didn’t think Master Thomas would deliberately murder Susan. Would he?
“Yes,” said Mistress Doris. “To keep your murder a secret, he might do anything. He is a horrible, bad, evil little boy. He must be punished.” She giggled. “Now we shall punish him. But first we must get past those demons that guard the Manor. Do you know how to do that, Yorik?”
“Y-yes,” said Yorik, hesitant. “I think I do, now.”
“Mmm,” sighed Doris happily. “Then you can get me past them as well, can’t you?”
Yorik was silent for a long time. He looked at Doris, who smiled beatifically.
“The hare said—” he began.
“The hare lies,” Mistress Doris interrupted. “It is a demon, and so are those two creatures in the aviary glade. They must be punished along with Thomas. Now you must take me past those guardians.”
“I don’t think I should do that,” Yorik said.
Doris’s smile vanished. “Those demons are keeping you from your sister. And just look what they did to me.”
She showed her ankle. In the ghostly skin, Yorik could see two throbbing bite marks, glowing angry green.
“The hounds are guarding the Manor from the Dark Ones,” said Yorik.
Doris bared her teeth. “You don’t have a choice, boy. I order you to take me past the demons.”
Boy? Doris had never spoken to him that way before. “I don’t serve Family any longer,” he replied.
Mistress Doris’s face went white. “You are a servant and always will be. You will get me past those demons and we will finish my naughty brother.”
“No,” said Yorik, confused. Doris and Thomas had fought incessantly, he remembered. But Doris would not have hurt her brother.
Doris inched closer. “You know what happened last time you disobeyed a Family command.” Yorik watched her eyes cloud over and then swirl away into empty voids of deepest dark.
“Yes,” he said, staring straight into the voids. “But I don’t think you’re really Family.”
Mistress Doris scrambled up to Yorik until her furious white face was only inches from his. “Yesss,” she hissed. “I’m Missstresss Dorisss.”
“No, you’re not,” he said clearly. “I can see things as they are now. And you’re not really Doris.”
“Ifff I’m not Fffamily,” she whispered, “then what am I?”
Yorik remembered seeing that emptiness before, in the darkness of the water garden and the trees beyond the topiaries. He looked at the glowing bite marks on Doris’s ankle. “You’re a Dark One,” he said.
The thing gave a harsh chuckle. Not ONE, it rasped. MANY.
Mistress Doris’s face became dry and hollow. The skin smeared and faded. And just before the image of the girl disappeared, those black void eyes cleared and became a girl’s again, and a tiny, distant voice, the voice of Mistress Doris, pleaded, “Yorik—help me!”
Then she was gone.
In her place sat several things, or not-things, presences that were there and not there. There were more than he had sensed before—perhaps five. They were each a little blob of midnight, plump like large pears. He saw that there were a few more up in the trees, squatting on branches. They did not seem to have eyes or any other features, but Yorik sensed that all of them were looking at him, and in that look he sensed a vast, terrifying hunger.
Revenge, they chorused. Two Dark Ones dropped from a tree and slid closer to Yorik.
“No,” said Yorik, leaping up.
The two stopped. Revenge, they said in their rasping whine. Revenge on the one who killed you. Revenge on his family.
“No!” said Yorik firmly, shaking his head. “No revenge.”
Then we will take you, they chorused. We will take you like we took the girl. Like we are taking her brother. They slid toward Yorik, and despite his desire to show courage, he stepped backward. An unfamiliar panic seized him, a wild fright as he imagined the Dark Ones consuming him, and Susan’s death at the hands of the evil Master Thomas.
The two nothings sprang toward his shoulders.
Then there was a terrific whoosh, and two objects flew past Yorik. They caught the nothings in midspring with a tremendous thump. Yorik thought it sounded like someone had punched a ball of dough. The objects sped onward, taking the Dark Ones with them.
Suddenly the vast hunger was no longer focused on him, but on something behind him.
There in the path crouched the tiny sticklike figure of Erde. As Yorik watched, she reached her little clawlike hands into her mouth. They emerged with two dripping mud-balls. With a snapping twist of her body, she threw the mud-balls, and two more Dark Ones went flying from the bench with a magnificent thump.
Instantly the Dark Ones abandoned Yorik and clustered around Erde. More appeared in the trees above her. He could sense waves of ravenous hunger washing from them to her, far stronger than their craving for him. And Yorik could sense something else. He could sense their triumph.
Erde twisted and whirled, but there was no escape. She curled down and made two more mud-balls and threw them, but there were too many of the hungry voids. They pressed close to her, dropping from the trees, growing larger as they neared, as though opening their voids to devour her.
With a rushing leap, Yorik jumped over the cluster. He landed in the tiny gap between them and Erde and reached for her. He felt her long fingers wrap twice around his fist, clenching so tightly it hurt. He looked into her eyes and saw sheer and abject terror staring back from their deep brownness.
He lifted Erde into his arms and ran. The girl weighed almost nothing, and the world flashed by—carriage path, riding lane, forest, fishponds, shooting range, and then the aviary glade.
The Princess was there, in an orb of throbbing light. Her face was streaked with tears. When Yorik knelt and placed Erde on the ground, the Princess instantly gathered her into that glowing, silver, loving light.
Yorik turned. The protective light illuminated everything. There were no Dark Ones to be seen.