Yorik saw crisp winter sky above, and bare elm branches, and he could see where Dark Moon Lilith, forever invisible, blotted out a circle of stars. It was night.
Two startling faces leaned over, blocking his view.
The first face got Yorik’s attention immediately. It appeared to belong to a sort of girl—a sort of girl who was about three feet tall, and whose head was squat and round like a common toadstool cap. The rest of her was thin as a stick. Her hair was short, dark, and matted with dirt, and she had bulbous eyes that were entirely brown. They were light brown in the iris, and muddy brown in the pupil.
Then she opened her mouth, and Yorik, had he been alive, would have run away in terror. The girl-creature had three or four rows of teeth all jumbled together, but worst of all, her mouth seemed to be filled with mud.
“ ’s lookin’ at me,” the mouth said, and some clumps of mud fell out and onto Yorik. The voice was thick and mumbled, and the dark brown eyes glittered.
“Of course it is!” The other face sniffed. “What wouldn’t, with looks like yours?”
Yorik, with great effort, pulled his attention to that one.
This face definitely belonged to a girl—a more normal-looking girl, except that she was extraordinarily pretty, with silver curls. Yorik could see that the hair wasn’t silver-colored, but actual silver. He had seen silver once, many years ago, when Mistress Doris, haughty as her younger brother, Thomas, had shown Yorik a silver cup she had stolen from the Manor’s collection. But Doris was long dead of the plague.
The girl with silver curls seemed to be playing dress-up, as she wore a crown in her hair that was made of laurel branches all woven together. Her mouth was pinched into delighted disapproval, as though Yorik were both appalling and necessary.
The faces stared at him. He tried to get up. His arms and legs would not cooperate. He knew they must all be broken. He had clear memories of breaking them one by one as he plunged out of the elm. His shoulder too, and his neck. Nothing worked.
He tried to speak. That, at least, was functional, although his jaw also seemed jammed to one side somehow. “S-Susan,” he said thickly.
“Huh!” exclaimed the muddy girl. “Can talk!”
“Of course it can talk, Erde!” Though the pretty girl’s tone was rude as ever, it was clear she was getting happier by the second. Her whole face gleamed as she peered at Yorik’s broken body. In fact, it did actually gleam, Yorik noticed. It had a shining halo around it—no, not just her face. Her whole body, or as much of it as he could see, shone with silver light. Her dress of gossamer green flashed and sparked.
Yorik tried to turn his head, but his neck was stuck in the wrong position.
“ ’s no good,” grunted Erde, putting her face close to Yorik and sniffing. He wished he could recoil in terror. “ ’s broken.”
“No, it’s perfect!” said the haughty girl, delighted. She sounded like the sort of maniacal little noble girl who might visit the Estate, whose laughter would float from the open windows of the Manor but whose face Yorik would never see. “It’s a tragically dead boy! Just exactly what we need!”
“Why tragic?” moaned Erde. Erde was a girl’s name, but this did not sound like a girl at all. It sounded rumbling and old, like boulders grinding together.
The gleaming girl sighed. “It died before its time! You can tell from looking at it.”
“How?”
Light footsteps circled around Yorik. “These usually live seventy or eighty years.”
“Not long,” grumbled Erde.
“No, it isn’t. And this one looks about six.”
Twelve! thought Yorik, offended. But he didn’t dare contradict this noble-sounding girl.
“What’s a susan?” asked Erde.
“Probably a sister,” replied the silver girl.
“What’s a sister?”
“It means two humans with the same parent,” said the girl impatiently. “Stop asking questions.”
“We’re sisters,” rumbled Erde thoughtfully.
“No, we aren’t! That’s just a stupid human idea. You and I are completely different.” The girl’s eyes blazed with silver flares. “Especially you.”
Yorik worked his mouth again. “Wh-what h-h-happened?” Making words was difficult.
“Do not interrupt me when I’m speaking!” ordered the girl. She raised her arm, which was holding a slender twig with green leaves sprouting off. She waved this at Yorik in a threatening way.
“Tell him!” grunted Erde, waving her arms and hopping.
“Fine,” said the silver girl. She lowered the twig and bent close to Yorik. “What happened is that you’ve died, and it was a really horrible, nasty, tragic death too, by the look of things.”
Yorik wondered if he should apologize for that.
The girl looked him over. “You must have fallen from my elm. How many branches did you hit on the way down, anyway? Here, I’ll fix that.” She brought up the leafy twig and pointed.
Yorik felt the most curious sensation. Warmth spread through his limbs.
“Only my first season here,” continued the girl, waving her twig at Yorik, “and already I’ve found a dead human. You creatures have so little time to live, whatever are you diving out of trees for?”
Something in Yorik’s neck popped into place. He realized he could move his arms and legs.
“There!” declared the silver girl with a flourish. “Completely repaired.”
“Thank you,” Yorik said, sitting up.
“Don’t thank me,” said the girl. “You work for me now!”
Even in the dark night, Yorik could see everything perfectly. There were still remnants of the partridge snare scattered around, but they looked weeks old. He guessed, from the dry, snowy scent of the air and the stark, barren elm, that a month or so had passed, and it was now November.
And he was dead.
“I’m a ghost,” he said, amazed.
“And I am … I am …” The girl paused, seeming to think.
Yorik waited.
“The all-powerful Princess of the Aviary Glade!” she announced at last. “That’s what you can call me. And you are my servant. Your first order is to haunt the lands of your old human masters.”
“You mean the Ravenbys?” asked Yorik.
“Call them whatever you want,” the Princess said, swishing her twig. “You’re a ghost and you’ve got to haunt something. But while you’re at it, I require you to spy, with your ghosty eyes and ears. I want to know everything you see and hear.”
Yorik, who had been a servant his entire life, supposed that it was only natural he would be a servant in death as well. He looked at Erde.
“ ’m Erde,” groaned Erde, hopping. Clumps of dirt fell from her gaping mouth.
“She’s not your concern,” snapped the Princess. “You will serve me, or … or …” She looked about. She spied an acorn and snatched it up. “Or I’ll imprison you in this acorn forever!”
“You don’t have to make threats, Your Highness,” said Yorik humbly. “I’ll help.” He rose gradually to his feet, achingly stretching his creaky limbs.
The Princess looked suspicious. “You’ll help me? Just like that?”
“Of course I will. I want to haunt the Ravenbys. I want revenge!”
“You? Whatever do you want revenge for?”
“They killed me! Well, one of them did. He knocked me out of the elm with a rock.”
“Cor,” moaned 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!”