by Robin Jarvis
Grimditch’s eyes whirled in their sockets, and he sniffed and spied the trees around them.
“Before the dawn we will reach it,” he said, nodding wildly. “But me not go down to the dark grots, me not drink, me was lucky last time, me not go again—oh no! No—no—no—no—no …”
The bogle threw up his filthy, hairy hands and danced a demented jig, squealing at the memory.
“That’s enough!” Yoori snapped. “Be still. No one is asking you to join us, merely lead us there.”
Grimditch calmed down, but he still muttered into his tangled beard.
Yoori looked about them. Since leaving Moonfire Farm they had tramped many miles through the night-shrouded forest. Hardly saying a word to each other, they had shunned the pale, curious eyes that gleamed out at them from the dark. Yoori was tired and hungry, and he wondered how Gamaliel was managing to stay awake. The boy showed no signs of weariness; all that mattered to him was finding Kernella and Finnen, and Yoori’s respect for the lad inched a little higher.
For some while the pathless ground had been rising in a gradual slope beneath them, but now large hummocks and mounds were beginning to appear and slow their progress.
It was on the summit of one of these unnatural hillocks that Gamaliel had halted. Yoori viewed the way ahead. More grassy mounds bulged and swelled before them, and growing from each one was a single tree. He did not like the look of those strange bumps and wondered if there was another way around.
“These peculiar hills,” he said to Grimditch, “what are they?”
The barn bogle dropped to his knees and licked the ground.
“Why, they are royal graves,” he said in a reverent whisper. “Lords an’ ladies, kings, princes, an’ queens—all shoveled under the soil. Long years their bonnie bones have kipped ’neath sod an’ loam, an’ the thirsty trees have grown over them, reaching ever downward. How the roots must snake in an’ out the ribs by now! Weave, weave, makin’ baskets of the brittle cages, ever questin’, ever guzzlin’.”
Gamaliel grimaced. “We don’t have time for this,” he said. “Come on.”
“Hold a moment,” Yoori told him, drawing him back as the boy prepared to go trotting down the mound. “There’s something not right about this place. I feel as though it’s alive and hostile. I don’t like it. And can’t you smell that? It’s something more than rotting leaves.”
“I haven’t liked anywhere we’ve been since we crossed the Hagburn under that hedgehog skin,” Gamaliel answered grimly, “but this is the way we have to go.”
Yoori frowned. He looked at the misshapen trees that grew from the mounds, and his dread increased. This was an unquiet, restless spot. Even though he could see no eyes glinting back at him, he felt more observed and uneasy than ever before.
“Then let us be quick through this part of the forest,” he said briskly. “Lead on, you bogle.”
Grimditch went rolling down the hummock and scampered up the next. Gamaliel marveled at the number of graves and wondered just how many were interred here and how many centuries it had taken to create this somber place.
“Are they all from the Hollow Hill?” he asked Yoori.
Yoori drew his cape about him. “I do not know,” he said. “Once, so legends say, there were other hills, other petty kingdoms, but the lordly folk dwindled and were scattered. Many perished in the battle with the troll witches of old. Perhaps some of them are here.”
Gamaliel thought of the Silent Grove where the werlings gave their own dead to the venerable beech trees. That made much more sense than being put under the soil. He did not relish the thought of stepping over so many graves, but to go around them would take far too long.
So over the ancient burial mounds they climbed until Grimditch let loose a delighted squeal and went haring off to the left.
The werlings stared after him in puzzlement. Then they too saw. A little distance away, on top of one of the hillocks, there was a wink and a glimmer of gold.
Grimditch hastened up the hump, and his eyes grew large and round in his hairy face. Scattered between the roots of a twisted sycamore was a hoard of golden coins.
Gingerly he reached out his dirty hands and dragged his fingers through the coldly gleaming treasure. It clinked beautifully, and, emitting a piggy grunt, he buried his nose into the midst of these riches and piled the rest on top of his head.
He was still doing this when Gamaliel and Yoori caught up with him.
The bogle glared up at them at once. “Not yours!” he snapped. “Grimditch found it, Grimditch keeps. Oh, the fine fancies me can buy. Me very own barn with no gnawing nibblers to keep me awake. Oh, a milk cow and pusskins, lots of pusskins to purr and pet.”
“Put it down,” Yoori said firmly. “This isn’t yours to take.”
Grimditch spluttered and gaped around them. “Not mine?” he cried. “But no one wants the pretty coins. Here they lie, cast aside for any to find and filch.”
“Leave them,” Yoori said again, this time even more sternly.
The barn bogle pulled a desolate expression and looked as though he were about to cry, then he held out two fistfuls of coins.
“Take!” he urged. “A gift for being so kind to Grimditch and not wormicating into vipers and biting him all over.”
Gamaliel stared at the treasure without much interest. It was certainly bright and shiny, but werlings had no use for money.
“We’re not touching that,” Yoori said. “And you’ve pawed it quite long enough, so put it back where you found it or we’ll chew your thumbs off.”
The bogle sniveled, and the coins dripped from his fingers. Then he gave a shriek and went racing down the mound and up the next.
An even greater pile of gold was heaped on there.
Yoori gazed at the other hillocks. To his astonishment he saw that they were all now covered in treasure, even the ones they had already clambered over. Every green hump was littered with gold, and here and there, within the glittering metal, jewels were sparkling.
“How did it get there?” Gamaliel breathed. “Where’s it come from so suddenly? It’s magic, that’s what it is.”
“Tomb wealth,” Yoori murmured. “The graves are displaying their riches, everything that was buried with the dead. This is a haunted place, and evil is stirring. We must get after that bogle before he does something we will all regret, then we must leave here as fast as we can.”
Grimditch had scurried up the neighboring mound where a deformed and twisted ash tree grew. With chattering delight, he dived into the hoard, smothering himself in the treasure and ferreting for shining trinkets.
Gurgling excitedly, he snatched up a golden bracelet set with green stones and twirled it around a grubby finger while, with his other hand, he adorned himself with a glittering necklace.
“How pretty me am,” he trilled, jumping up and down and around and around. “Grimditch’s sparklers and glitteries—oh how beautimaking them is! Like a lord, a jewel-dripping lord. Look at me, all a-twinkling!”
He was so overjoyed and reveling in his royal finery that he took no notice of the werlings when they came hurrying up to him.
“Take them off!” Yoori yelled fiercely.
But the bogle did not hear him. He had already seen what was on the next mound and, shouting triumphantly, dropped everything in his greedy grasp and went tearing across to it.
Gamaliel looked at Yoori in exasperation. “How do we stop him?” he asked. “He’s forgotten we’re even here. Unless you really do wergle into a snake, I don’t think he’ll even pause to catch his breath until he’s rummaged and poked about every mound.”
“I’ll do more than bite him,” Yoori said sternly. “I’ll burn his beard off! The longer we linger, the greater the danger.”
Gamaliel stared at the ground. The jewelry was certainly beautiful. A small brooch caught his eye, and a faint smile began to spread across his plump face.
Yoori hurried down the burial mound and ran after Grimditch.
“High King Grimditch!” he crowed for all the trees to hear as he marched along the length of the grave. “A barn with gildy rafters and ruby windows me will have. Milk cows a-clangelly with silver bells, and me will plait the tails with silken ribbons. Every worm-tailed nibbler to be banished and pusskins will guard the battlements.”
“You look ridiculous!” Yoori snapped as he reached him. “And barns don’t have battlements!”
The bogle brushed him aside as he strode by. “With a moat of fire all ’round and no candle sprite to fear, not no more, not never.”
Yoori leaped in front of him and shook the creature by his ragged clothing.
“Don’t be a fool!” he cried. “This isn’t yours to keep. It’s faerie gold, and each piece has a curse upon it. Put it back! You can’t take anything from this place. Surely even a barn bogle knows that!”
Grimditch wasn’t listening. He gazed about him and grinned stupidly at the bright islands of treasure that surrounded them.
“Swords an’ spears an’ shields lie over there,” he sang softly. “Crusted with gems an’ look—see the armor, burnished bright as the sun on Farmer’s cornfield. Yonder there’s pretend beasts done all in gleamy metal, an’ there me can see a dish as wide as open arms, an’ jugs an’ bottles big as Grimditch’s noggin and bigger.”
“But none of it is real!” Yoori yelled. “It’s an enchantment to trap you. Look!”
Plucking up a coin, the werling elder flung it from the hillock. For a moment it flashed and spun through the gloom, and then it changed. The golden coin was gone, and in its place a dry brown leaf went twirling to the ground.
Grimditch gaped in bewilderment as the werling took up a great handful of treasure and threw it into the air. An instant later a shower of leaves rained down.
The bogle blinked and miserably dragged the crown from his head.
“Not fair,” he warbled, hurling it away in disgust. The glittering crown became a hoop of twisted twigs and went clattering against the bark of a great yew tree. “Cheating poor Grimditch! Filthy, lying lolly, dirty loot and bilking boodle!”
“I doubt if there is any real treasure left in these graves,” Yoori muttered. “The High Lady would have plundered them long ago in Her hunt for that casket, and any gold She found here She would have surely taken back to the Hollow Hill.”
He kicked at the coins on the mound and gave a snort. “This is just the burial mounds showing us what they once kept—taunting memories, nothing more. I said this was a haunted place. Strange things happen where the bones of elfin folk are interred. The graves are trying to trick and fool us, luring stray travelers farther in, off their road.”
“But Grimditch has been this way before,” the barn bogle objected. “There was no glitteries then, no crooked bawbees to tease him.”
The werling frowned. “Then why show it to us tonight?” he wondered.
The barn bogle gave a great huff. “Maybe skin swappers are better than poor Grimditch,” he sniffed. “Maybe royal graves wake only for rich travelers, not for the likes of starving bogles without purses an’ not even a brass button of me very own.”
“They do say that gold calls to gold,” Yoori answered. “But that can’t be it. We have no riches. There’s no treasure in our pockets, that’s for certain and definitely not a trace of faerie g—”
As he said it, the elder’s face grew pale and he turned slowly. “Gamaliel!” he choked. “Where is he?”
A terrified shriek was his answer.
ALL THIS TIME GAMALIEL TUMPIN had been staring spellbound at the brooch that lay upon the other mound. It was delicately wrought of golden wire in the shape of a leaping deer, with diamonds for its eyes.
“How lovely,” he breathed. “Mother would like that. Make her smile all day long it would.”
Stooping, the boy reached out to take it. The instant his fingers touched the cold metal, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.
Gamaliel did not notice. He took up the brooch and gazed at it admiringly. Perhaps it was too grand a gift for his mother; she would be too shy to wear it.
“I’ll give it to Finnen,” he said, so enamored of the brooch’s beauty that he forgot why they were there and that Finnen Lufkin had vanished in the pool while trying to rescue Kernella.
Behind him the grass of the mound was writhing. Then the turf started to lift and peel away, and fine, fibrous root tendrils came creeping from the exposed soil.
“No,” the young werling decided. “I’ll keep it myself.” And with a grunt of resolve he pinned the brooch to his jerkin and gave it an adoring pat.
At that very moment he felt a violent pain in his legs, and the boy cried out.
The pale tendrils had been stealthily spiraling up around his ankles and were now winding past his knees. As soon as he claimed the brooch for his own, they gripped him fiercely, pinching and squeezing, holding him fast.
Gamaliel could not move. The roots were as strong as ropes and tightened with every struggle.
“Help!” he shrieked. “Help me!”
Yoori Mattock was already running up the slope toward him, but the elder stumbled and fell as the ground juddered. Then in horror he saw the soil around Gamaliel sink and collapse, and the boy was yanked down into the earth.
Throwing himself forward, Yoori caught hold of his hand as the grave swallowed Gamaliel up to his chest.
“Mr. Mattock!” the boy cried. “Save me!”
“Hold on, lad!” Yoori shouted. But it was no use. The roots that held the boy captive were too strong, and down into the waiting soil they dragged him.
Gamaliel’s fingers were torn from the elder’s grip. A last powerful, wrenching pull hauled him below the ground. Despairing and afraid, he just had time to gulp a deep breath before the earth closed over his head. A moment later only his upraised, scrabbling hand was visible. Then it too was sucked down and was gone.
Yoori stared in disbelief at the bare earth as the turf slowly folded back in place.
“No!” he raged, thumping the ground in fury. “I will not let you do this. Bring him back! Bring him back!”
Overhead, the branches of the ash tree that grew from the grave rattled together in mockery.
Grimditch came shambling fearfully up behind. “Him champed and guzzled!” he yammered. “Nowheres is safe, not water, not good firm sod. Oh, unhappy, wretchly world!”
Yoori rose to his feet, glaring at the mound with hatred in his eyes.
“I couldn’t save Lufkin and Kernella,” he reproached himself bitterly, “but this one—this one I won’t surrender.”
The branches scraped together all the more, but the werling elder gave a defiant laugh in answer.
“You were warned!” he snarled.
Tearing open his wergle pouch, he took out a clump of fur and suddenly a gray-haired rabbit was burrowing its way into the mound, furiously hurling the soil in every direction.
Astounded to witness the wergling, and hugely delighted that Yoori hadn’t turned into a venomous snake, Grimditch hopped on one leg and cheered him on.
“Clever little shifters!” he called. “Dig deep. Go, fetch him back!”
Leaping and jiggling, the bogle saw the rabbit’s tail disappear into the fresh tunnel and then he was alone—alone among the burial mounds.
Grimditch ceased his dancing and became still and silent.
“Be quick,” he whimpered. “Don’t leave Grimditch here on his toddsome.”
The darkness seemed deeper and more sinister than before. A chill breeze sighed between the graves, and the gleam of the faerie gold grew dim. Dead leaves blew across the mounds, and the illusion of the treasure was lost.
Grimditch hugged himself and mumbled forlornly.
“Mayb
e little changers not come back. Maybe both now trapped and locked in royal grave, soil in ears and mouths and ripe for worm feasts. Oh, what is me to do? Slink back to barn and be glad of nibblers, that’s what! Back to barn and never show face in forest again! Poor little skin swappers.”
The werlings were the first proper companions that the barn bogle had known for many years, and even though they had forced him into leading them from Moonfire Farm, he had liked them.
“Grimditch’s friends,” he said in a voice cracked with sorrow. “Them were his little pals. They wouldn’t really have wormicated and bit him, no they wouldn’t—not they, not never.” And two tears rolled down his hairy face.
“Now him alone. Out in grooly forest. Must go back, must hide in straw and not peep out again.”
Wiping his eyes, the bogle waved sadly at the burrow entrance, then wheeled about to begin the journey home. But before he could take a single step, he heard fierce thumps and rumbles come echoing from the tunnel, and Yoori’s enraged voice boomed deep within the mound.
A resounding groan shuddered up the ash. The branches shivered and the leaves curled.
More oaths and curses thundered belowground. The ash shook once more as though in pain. Then a cloud of dirt and grave mold erupted from the burrow, swiftly followed by a ferocious rabbit, dragging Gamaliel after him.
The boy coughed and spluttered, spitting out soil as he took gasping breaths. Yoori picked splinters of chewed root from his rabbit teeth and shook the earth from his long ears.
Grimditch capered around them, then bared his bottom at both the ash tree and the burial mound. Waggling it insolently, he broke wind very loudly.
Frowning, Yoori pulled the boy away from the burrow.
“What … what happened … ?” Gamaliel cried.
“The grave tried to claim you, lad,” he told him.
“Me? Why me?”
“It’s what you carry ’round your neck!” the rabbit hissed.
Gamaliel clutched the wergle pouch. “You mean the key?” he asked in alarm. “How did it know? How could it?”
“Hush!” Yoori warned. “This is nothing to do with the High Lady. These burial mounds are thirsty for gold, that’s all they seek. They care nothing for Her ambitions. It was She who robbed them of their treasures. There is naught but dry bones and dust in there. Did you not sense that? All they want is to hoard precious metal and jewels again, to feel enchanted gold in their cold, barren soil once more. That’s what this evil place craves. And we’re not safe yet—not by a long way.”