The Death of Yorik Mortwell Read Free

Erde, dirt dribbling. “ ’s right.”
    “Well then,” said the Princess, seeming disappointed. She dropped the acorn. “I suppose you’ve got to haunt him a bit. But I command you to report back to me.”
    Yorik considered for a moment. “May I ask a question, Your Highness?”
    Erde snickered muddily.
    The Princess fastened her gaze somewhere above Yorik’s head and assumed an imperious air. “There is no need. I already know your question. You wish to know why a being as mighty as I needs a ghost to spy for me!”
    “Well, no—” began Yorik.
    The Princess stamped her foot. “It’s because of beastly Father! He has trapped me in this glade to punish me! I can’t do any magic outside of it. If I leave its confines I’ll be in terrible trouble. If I hadn’t found Erde hiding here, I’d be all alone, not that I would mind. Anyway, this is why your tragic death is perfectly wonderful! I now have a servant ghost-boy who can leave the glade to do my bidding.” She waved her twig gleefully, and flowers sprang up all around in full bloom, despite its being November. “There,” she said. “I have answered your question.”
    Actually, she had not. Yorik hesitated. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I want to haunt my former human masters, but I don’t know how.”
    The Princess shrugged. “You’re the ghost,” she said. “Why are you asking me?”
    “I’ve only been a ghost for a few minutes,” Yorik replied. “I don’t know what to do.”
    The Princess sighed heavily. “You know. Do ghosty things. Stagger around and moan. Make accusations. Humans are very weak creatures and are easily frightened. You’ll hardly have to do anything at all.”
    Yorik had even more questions now. But he didn’t dare ask them. The Princess looked impatient, and Yorik had learned that a servant who questioned his betters would soon regret it.
    Instead, he looked at Erde, who was sprawled in the dirt. She was using one of her skinny fingers—almost a claw, really—to draw intricate patterns in the earth. “Are you a servant too?” he asked.
    Erde stopped drawing and looked up at Yorik, a fathomless expression on her dirty brown face.
    “Of course she’s not my servant!” snapped the Princess. “Don’t be stupid! That’s enough questions. Now, you haunt!”

Chapter Three
    S usan
.
    Though Yorik looked forward to haunting, his first thought was for his sister. As Pale Moon Luna rushed up from the east, he hurried along the deserted paths of the Estate to the cold one-room cabin. But he found the door hanging open, and inside only cobwebs and dust, shuttered windows, and moldy smells. Susan, and everything of the lives they had lived there, had vanished.
    With a frozen rage, Yorik swept back through the Wooded Walk, then onto the riding lane, thenover the Tropical Tell to the front gates of Ravenby Manor. He stood looking at the tall iron spikes and the ornate
R
, as tall as he. He had never been allowed this close to the Manor, and from here its chimneys, gables, and steeples hulked more ominously than ever. Pale Moon Luna slid behind, transforming the house into black silhouette. High up and far behind the Manor, Lord Ravenby’s moored dirigible, the
Indomitable
, drifted like a thundercloud, its landing lights gleaming dimly through low clouds.
    Those low clouds floated over the Manor, and where they caught on the points of the steeples, they sent out wispy tendrils like whirlpools across the roofs, lit by moonlight. Sometimes those wisps seemed to form fleeting faces before dissipating into the night. Yorik was transfixed. The Manor was dark, but here and there lamps flickered watchfully from windows.
    Yorik reached for the padlocked gates.
I am a ghost
.
    As he hoped, his ghostly hand pushed through an iron bar as though it were only a stream of water. The rest of him followed, and he stood on the gravel driveof the Manor grounds for the first time in his life.
    He strode between the weeping white spruce that