Read Online The Death of Yorik Mortwell by Stephen Messer - Free Book Online Page A

haven’t, have you?”
    “No,” said Yorik, crestfallen. “Not yet. But I have learned something. The Dark Ones are focusedon the Ravenbys. First Thomas, then his father. There must be a reason for that.” As he said it, he remembered the words of the topiary hare:
Is not the fate of one bound to the fate of all?
    The Princess snorted. “You would think that. Humans think everything involves them.”
    “But—”
    “But nothing. Don’t you realize you are dealing with an ancient evil far more powerful than a few humans? Not to mention you, a stubborn little ghost-boy, not even one year old!”
    Yorik turned away. “At least I’m trying.”
    The Princess’s voice turned to icicles and venom. “Beware, ghost. I can banish you from my glade. You can spend your days among the
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if you like. You know very well I—”
    “—can’t leave the glade because of beastly Father,” finished Yorik. “I know.” He turned to her. The Princess’s leafy twig was sparking as though it were angry too. He pointed. “What if you let me use that? I could take it with me and use its power against them.”
    The Princess shook her head. “Can’t. It doesn’thave any power except the little I put into it. And it’s part of me. It can’t leave either.”
    “Right,” said Yorik. “Just like Thomas can’t leave his father.”
    The Princess sighed. Her glowing face looked weary, as Yorik had never seen it before.
    “You know, ghost-boy,” she said, “you see so many things, you think you see everything. But you don’t. There are things you fail to see that are right in front of you, and you shouldn’t even need ghost eyes to see them.”
    “Like what?” ventured Yorik cautiously.
    “Like your little murderer friend. Do you think he’s staying with his father because he’s stupid? Do you think he doesn’t fear the
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?”
    “Why, then? Why would he stay?”
    The Princess sank slowly into the grass, her gossamer dress billowing. Her glow dimmed. “Perhaps,” she said quietly, “it was something he did. Something terrible. And he feels responsible for everything bad that has happened since. He won’t leave his father because he doesn’t believe he deserves to be fixed. And sohe stays there, among the
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, in the dark.”
    “My murder,” said Yorik. “He feels responsible for my murder. But I’ve forgiven him for that.”
    “I mean something really, really bad,” said the Princess distantly. “An unforgivable sin.”
    “Your Highness, I—” Yorik stopped. The Princess was not listening, nor was she looking at him. She was sitting in the grass with downcast eyes, her face shadowed, her fingers fidgeting with her leafy twig.
    Her voice was so quiet now that Yorik could hardly hear her. “Sometimes you do something,” she whispered. “Something so awful you can never atone for the crime. Even if you want more than anything to help someone you love … there is nothing you can do.”
    Yorik understood now that the Princess was no longer talking about Thomas.
    He looked up at the stars, thinking. These nights, the sky above most of the Estate was covered with writhing flame-blue clouds. Only here, above the aviary glade, could the stars still be seen. He watched them blink and shimmer.
    He looked back at the girl sitting in the grass, her head with its laurel crown cast down, her glittering hair spilling around her. “What could you …” He hesitated. “What could someone have done, for their sin to be unforgivable?”
    The Princess’s glow vanished. The aviary glade grew dark.
    Then the Princess drifted up from where she sat, rising through the cherry boughs.
    Yorik climbed swiftly, following her. In his ghost form, he could climb forever and never fall. At the very top of the tree he found her sitting as before, now on the very tip of the highest branch. Yorik crouched near her, balancing on a branch no wider than his finger.
    The Princess raised her arm and pointed with her leafy