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

crypt in a grief-struck ceremony. Over the three months that followed, Yorik explored every corner of the Estate, listening and watching. He explored the Manor too. He was careful to avoid Dark Ones. But once, early on, he was nearly caught.
    It was an evening when Yorik had been investigating the bluebell patch on the Manor’s hanging terrace. Pushing through the flowers, Yorik felt a sudden, strange trembling, hardly perceptible at first. As the feeling grew, he found himself convincedthat this was all useless, that he was too weak to fight the
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, that he was only a mere ghost who fled from bells and candles.
    The trembling became a flutter, and then a surge of panic that nearly overwhelmed him.
    He had felt this surge before, he remembered—outside the mews, when he had confronted Dark Doris. He jerked his head up and spotted black voids gliding through the bluebells, coming closer.
    “No,” he said through his teeth. “You can’t take me this way. Hatch!” he shouted. “Hatch!”—and then the hound was there, leaping onto the terrace and growling, and the voids fled.
    After that, Yorik and Hatch always explored the Manor grounds together.
    But Hatch could not enter the Manor itself. They tried once, when a door was left propped open. But a footman found Hatch in the hall and drove him away with curses and kicks.
    Hatch whimpered when Yorik insisted on entering the Manor without him.
    “I must, Hatch,” Yorik said soothingly, stroking the hound’s spirit ears. “I’ll be careful.”
    Yorik always found the hound pacing nervously outside when he returned from within.
    Inside the Manor, Yorik found that despite the hard work of the Kennelmaster and the hounds, more of the Dark Ones were somehow slipping through. Yorik learned to avoid bedrooms, where Dark Ones gathered at night, muttering into the ears of sleepers as though whispering into their dreams. And, despite his curiosity, he was forced to stay away from the grand sleeping chambers of Lord Ravenby, where the largest clusters of Dark Ones were found. He could only assume they were whispering into the dreams of the Lord of the Estate too, but in far greater numbers.
    Yet he could not stay away from these chambers entirely, for it was there, more and more often, that he found Susan. She seemed to have graduated in the hierarchy of the Estate’s servants, for now it was she who brought Lord Ravenby’s tea at odd hours.
    One night Yorik watched as she was stopped in the hallway by Lord Ravenby’s doctor, who had two Dark Ones on his shoulders.
    “Here, girl,” ordered the doctor crisply, snappinghis fingers. Susan came obediently, and the doctor placed a vial on the tea tray. “This is sleep medicine, for your master’s insomnia. Put two drops in his tea, just before it’s served.” The doctor hurried away.
    Susan watched him leave, then put two drops in a plant instead. The next day, the plant was dead. After that, Susan threw away anything the doctor gave her for Lord Ravenby.
    Soon Lord Ravenby was calling for her at all hours. Yorik noticed the older servants watching her, shooting resentful looks. They often had Dark Ones on their shoulders. Accidents began to happen, such as a servant spilling hot water on her, scalding her.
    And the Dark Ones began to pay more attention to Susan too.
    One night as she was bringing tea, she was turned away by the butler. “But I was told Lord Ravenby is asking for me,” she protested. Nevertheless, she was forced to surrender the tray. As she left, Yorik noticed two Dark Ones following her. Yorik followed too, anxiously, keeping a safe distance.
    Strangely, Susan did not return to the maids’ quarters, but went up a back staircase instead. Soon she came to a storage closet, in which there was a ladder. Up the ladder she went, pushing open a trapdoor at the top. The Dark Ones were behind her. Yorik waited, then climbed after, fading up through the trapdoor. He found himself in a long, narrow, deserted