The Grave Robber's Apprentice

by Allan Stratton

  “Your burial,” her mother repeated, blind with fear.

  “Mother, please, I need you to be calm,” Angela said firmly. Her mother gripped the bedsheets for comfort; the count placed a hand on her shoulder. “Your job, Mother, is to keep Nurse busy with the bridal baggage and to arrange bouquets for a banquet in the archduke’s honor. The flowers should also make a nice effect at my funeral.”

  Her mother shivered. Angela held her gaze. “When the arrangements are complete, go to your sitting room and watch for the archduke. The moment you see his carriage, run up the stairs. You’ll find me fallen. Hide the empty potion bottle in your bodice and raise the alarm.” She held her parents’ hands. “Let this be the performance of our lives.”

  Angela went to her theater to count down the final hours. The time between each tick and tock of the clock took forever. At last, just as she was tempted to leave the window to play with her puppets, she saw the telltale cloud of dust kicked up by the archduke’s horses as they swept out of the village for the castle.

  Her head swam. She gripped the ledge of the turret window. Concentrate, she told herself. She withdrew the potion from her pocket and lay down on the floor. After all, there was no point taking the potion standing. Who knew how her dress might end up? She struck the kind of death pose she’d seen in various great paintings.

  Her mother burst into the room and ran to her side.

  “Promise you’ll be there when I wake up,” Angela whispered. “Don’t leave me with the dead.”

  “Never fear.”

  Angela gave her mother a smile. “I love you.”

  Her mother cradled her. “And I love you.”

  Angela raised the potion to her lips and drank.

  Archduke Arnulf arrived to find a messenger racing to the village, and the castle in turmoil. Upstairs, he discovered the count and countess tearing at their wigs, the priest administering last rites, and his bride-to-be as cold and clammy as frogs in November.

  “Dead?” Arnulf erupted. “How dare she be dead?”

  “It was the sight of your carriage,” the countess wept. “Our little angel dropped dead of delight.”

  Arnulf held a mirror to Angela’s nose; no breath misted the glass. He blew into her eyes; not a hint of a blink. He listened for a heartbeat that never came. At last, he stood back and observed the artful positioning of the body. “At least she wasn’t clumsy.”

  “Let us bury her now while there’s luster in her cheeks,” the count moaned. “There’s a coffin in the family tomb that was made for me. May it house my darling.”

  “As you wish,” Arnulf said. “I haven’t time to waste on a dead girl. Yet give me the clothes she died in. I’d have them for my collection.”

  Within the hour, Angela was ready for burial in a plain white gown. She was placed on a gilt litter, scattered with violets and forget-me-nots, and carried by six footmen to the von Schwanenberg family crypt. It had been built centuries before in a small grove not far from the base of Castle Hill. Windowless and stern with stone walls a foot thick, the tomb gasped for air when its iron doors were thrown wide.

  The town had emptied at word of Angela’s death, villagers flooding to the estate to honor the Little Countess. Servants led them to the crypt, where they observed a prayerful silence, both out of respect for Angela and fear of the archduke, whose men lounged against some nearby trees.

  Among the mourners was a young man with a pale complexion ruddied by clay. He’d visited many graves in his short life, but this was the first time he’d cried.

  When the priest gave the final blessing, Angela’s father carried her body into the tomb. Mahogany caskets, eight shelves high, circled the spacious vault, feet to the middle, like petals on a daisy. Angela’s coffin was placed dead center.

  The count and countess adjusted their daughter’s curls on the lace pillow and placed her jewels and favorite things around her body: the locket with their portraits, the music box with the dancing ballerina, and the Angela Gabriela marionette. Then they sobbed into each other’s arms.

  Footmen moved forward to close the coffin. A dozen large carved rings ran along either side of the box and its lid. When the lid was lowered, the rings formed solid, parallel walls of interlocked teeth. Sturdy decorative poles, likewise of mahogany, slid through the ring holes and sealed the coffin shut.

  “When you’ve finished with the tears,” Arnulf said to the grieving parents, “pray accompany me to my carriage.”

  The count and countess did as they were told, expecting to receive private condolences. To their surprise, no sooner were they seated than the carriage began to move. It turned onto the public road. Angela’s parents froze before Arnulf like mice before a snake, but when the carriage entered the village, the count could hold his tongue no longer.

  “Where are we going?” he asked nervously.

  “Home,” Arnulf yawned, and peered out the window.

  The countess pictured Angela waking in her coffin. “But we must remain here. We have urgent business to attend to.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as . . . mourning,” the count stammered.

  “You’ll be able to mourn where you’re going,” the archduke said.

  “Where is that?”

  “The lunatic asylum.”

  “I don’t understand,” the countess gasped.

  “Oh, but I think you do.”

  They’d reached the far end of Potter’s Field. A skeletal creature in a dirty velvet shroud stood by the ditch, a flock of crows circling above his head. The carriage stopped. Arnulf opened the door.

  “Necromancer!” the count and countess exclaimed.

  “How delightful to be reacquainted with the parents of Angela Gabriela,” the Necromancer said. He entered the carriage. Angela’s gold coin glittered like a ghastly monocle in his left eye socket.

  “The girl appeared quite dead, Necromancer,” Arnulf said. “You brew a fine potion.”

  The Necromancer cast a sly smile. “The recipe’s been in my family for centuries.”

  Arnulf leaned forward. “The Necromancer stopped my carriage on the way to your castle and alerted me to your treachery. In reward, I’ve made him my lord high chancellor, with orders to use his power to ferret out the archduchy’s traitors.”

  The Necromancer grinned at the count and countess. “Imagine: I, whom you treated as a leper, have become the archduke’s highest in command. The gods are just.” He nodded to the archduke. “I shall miss my little root cellar. Yet I shall take consolation in your catacombs. Yea, and in sending my little gang of Weevils to every corner of the land.”

  The countess gripped her fan. “How did you know Angela wanted the potion to avoid her wedding?”

  The Necromancer splayed his bony fingers across his withered chest. “How could I not? When a bride-to-be wishes to feign death, what else can one think? They say I have no heart. But I can read one.”

  The count swallowed hard. “Archduke, our Angela wakes at midnight. Please, spare her. Return to the castle at once.”

  “What for?” Arnulf asked. “If the walls were less thick, we might have enjoyed a picnic in the grove, serenaded by her melody of terror. As it is, the crypt will mute her screams to silence.”

  “But she’ll be buried alive!”

  “That’s the general idea, yes.”

  The countess convulsed in wails as the count lunged for the archduke. Arnulf subdued him with the flick of an iron finger. “What fun to imagine your Angela waking in her coffin. She tries to stretch. Oh dear, a little cramped? She tries to breathe. Oh my, a little stuffy? But one thing she can surely do is scream. Scream and scream for her mother and father—who will never come.”

  Chapter 13

  The Dead Awaken

  The sun went down. The hour grew late. The potion was wearing off. A faint pulse warmed Angela’s flesh. Her pupils flickered beneath her eyelids. She was having a dream. A very bad dream.

  She was a puppet in a play, and all of h
er scenes were being changed by Archduke Arnulf. “What are my lines? What do I say now?”

  The other puppets stared at her. “Aren’t you the girl who knows everything?”

  She tried to run from the stage, but kept falling, her legs tangled up in her strings. The more she struggled, the more tangled she became. The lights went out. She was tossed into a storage box.

  A voice came out of the dark. “Perhaps your puppet plays aren’t so silly after all.” It was Georgina von Hoffen-Toffen, smelling of stale milk and buzzing with flies.

  Angela was puzzled. “You’re dead.”

  “Oh yes, quite dead,” Georgina agreed. “Soon you will be too. We shall be sisters.”

  That’s when Angela realized she was having a nightmare.

  “It’s a pity you were murdered by the archduke,” she told Georgina. “I truly wish I hadn’t laughed. But all the same, if you don’t mind, I’m going to wake up now.”

  Angela scrunched her nose and thought wake-up thoughts like she always did to get herself out of bad dreams. But when she blinked herself awake, she found herself in a place like her nightmare: a cramped, suffocating box without sound or light. Except this place was worse. This place was real.

  Where could I be? she wondered. Oh no! My plan. I’m sealed in a coffin. Locked in a vault with the dead.

  Angela banged frantically against the lid. It didn’t budge.

  She took a deep breath. Another. Another. All would be well. Her parents would arrive; they’d save her.

  But time passed. They didn’t arrive. More time passed. Still nothing. Cold sweat drenched her body. Something had gone wrong. Her parents weren’t coming. Not now. Not ever.

  The air was going bad. Soon it would be gone and she would drift into a sleep from which there would be no waking.

  Angela clawed at the lid. “Help! Somebody, help! I can’t die like this! No!”

  Angela had always hated stories with bad endings. So, as she heard the ghostly voice of Georgina calling her to unconsciousness, she summoned her courage. “I planned a comedy,” she announced to the darkness. “That means a happy ending. Do you hear me? A happy ending! I insist on it!”

  Chapter 14

  The Initiation

  Hans returned home from the funeral. All day and into the early night, he’d wandered aimlessly with his grief. Now all he wanted was to close his eyes and make the world go away. His father wouldn’t let him.

  “Tonight’s your third and final chance to join the Grand Society of Grave Robbers,” Knobbe said, lugging the tools of their trade from the cave.

  “What?”

  “You must rob the von Schwanenberg family crypt. That Little Countess will have treasure galore. Her parents spared nothing in their grief.”

  Hans slumped by the fire pit. “Please, Papa, no.”

  Knobbe whapped him with a burlap bag. “It’s as easy a job as ever there was. I built a tunnel into the tomb years ago to relieve the count’s ancestors of their pretties. The entrance is hidden with rocks and brambles, but a five-minute dig will clear it. Then it’s a short crawl to a fortune.”

  “Can’t we give the dead a night’s peace?”

  “Not on your life! The archduke’s soldiers are plundering the castle as we speak. Come morning, they’ll turn their thievery to the tomb. By the time they’ve picked it clean, there’ll be nothing left for honest souls like us.”

  Hans buried his head in his hands. “I can’t rob Angela’s grave! I can’t.”

  Knobbe scratched his butt. “Who are you to call the Little Countess by name?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Are you in love with a dead girl?” Knobbe laughed.

  Hans’ cheeks burned. “She was my friend.”

  “Oh, to be sure,” Knobbe mocked. “A fine friend. Her a countess and you a grave robber’s apprentice.”

  Hans grabbed a rock and leaped to his feet. Knobbe jumped back. Hans stared at the rock in shock. He threw it away and burst into tears.

  Knobbe peered in puzzlement at his son. He had no idea why the lad was crying, or why he felt his own heart melt. Was he having a spell? Or maybe gas? To his horror, Knobbe suddenly realized that what he was feeling was feelings. Well, feelings weren’t going to rob him of a fortune.

  He gave Hans’ shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t know about love,” he muttered gruffly. “But your Angela’s gone. Them tears won’t bring her back, neither. Even so, you can save her precious burial things. If you don’t, they’ll be looted and dirtied, by the archduke’s soldiers. Is that what you want?”

  Hans shook his head. His father was right. Angela’s keepsakes must be protected. He’d return them when the soldiers were gone. He wiped his eyes. “Let’s go.”

  Angela was dimly aware of a distant thudding, thumping, whumping sound. “They’re coming for me,” she murmured from the land between life and death.

  “They’ve come too late,” Georgina replied, batting flies from her curdled ringlets.

  Angela heard someone wriggling under the ground beneath the tomb. The sound of a heavy tile being pushed up and shoved along the floor. The sound of someone grunting into the crypt.

  “They’re coming for me . . . coming for . . .” Her voice drifted into another world, a world in which she cried silently, Here! I’m in here.

  Hans emerged with his lantern in the far corner of the vault. He had to work quickly: Arnulf’s soldiers could arrive at any moment. Hans squeezed between two rows of coffins and wriggled to the center of the room.

  Angela’s casket was in front of him, resting on a dais. Hans set down his lantern and wrestled the heavy poles through the row of interlocking rings on each side. A mighty push and the lid slid sideways, crashing to the floor.

  Hans took the bag off his shoulder and filled it with Angela’s treasures. He never looked at her face. If he did, he knew he’d run and fail her. But when his work was done, he leaned against the coffin and gazed down. “Forgive me. If I hadn’t been a coward, I wouldn’t have let the Necromancer chase me away. He’s the reason you’re dead, isn’t he? I’m the reason you’re dead.”

  Hans noticed something peculiar. Angela’s hands were faced palms up on either side of her head. He took them to lay them properly.

  Without warning, the corpse grabbed him, opened its eyes, and sat up.

  Hans screamed.

  Angela screamed, too. She let go of Hans, who fell to the floor, and gulped for air. “So you came for me at last! Thank heaven! Did my parents send you? What kept you so long?”

  “I—I—I—you—you—you—” Hans scuttled backward.

  “What’s the matter?” Angela demanded.

  “You’re dead!”

  For the first time, Angela noticed his terror. “If you thought I was dead, what are you doing here?” The answer was obvious. “My jewels!” she exclaimed, pointing at the trail of gems that led to the burlap sack at his side. “You came to rob my grave! Just wait till my parents find out!”

  “It’s not what you think!”

  “Don’t tell me what I think!” Angela roared, and stormed out of her coffin.

  Hans ran between the burial shelves, hopped down into the tunnel and crawled away as fast as he could.

  Angela scooped the jewels into the abandoned sack, grabbed the lantern, and followed in hot pursuit. But when she emerged into the moonlight, she saw him yattering wildly to a monk with a shovel. Angela didn’t know what they were saying, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to stick around to find out.

  “Alive?” Knobbe exploded. “What do you mean, the Little Countess is alive?”

  Hans pointed at Angela, vanishing into the night. “That’s what I mean.”

  Knobbe’s knees knocked. “After her, boy! Take my shovel! Give her a whack on the head.”

  “What?”

  “Put her back in that tomb!”

  “You want me to kill Angela?”

  “She’s seen you, boy! She knows your name! It’s her or
us. Finish her off, or we swing at the end of a rope!”

  “No!”

  Knobbe’s eyes bulged. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean I can’t. I won’t. She’s Angela.”

  “This is no time for feelings, boy.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “How dare you defy me?” Knobbe railed. “After all the honors I’ve given you! You shame the Grand Society of Grave Robbers!”

  “What Grand Society?” Hans shouted, the words bubbling faster than his thoughts. “Who else belongs? Where do you meet?” He saw the flicker in his father’s eyes. “There is no Grand Society, is there? It’s only you. It’s only ever been you.”

  “You calling me a liar?” Knobbe threatened.

  “It’s what you are,” Hans cried, hurt and anger pounding in his head. “The Grand Society of Grave Robbers. Ha! You made it up to seem important. So I’d grow up to be your slave.”

  Knobbe howled and punched the handle of his shovel into Hans’ stomach. Hans dropped to the ground. “It’s your fault the girl must die,” Knobbe said. “You’re the one what let her see you. Her parents are taken. Her servants have fled. The job will be easy. Do it, now, or I will!”

  Chapter 15

  The Haunted Castle

  Angela sprinted up the hill to the castle. Where were her parents? Why hadn’t they come? She paused at the gate. Maybe the archduke was still inside. Maybe that’s why they were delayed. Her eyes searched for his carriage. It was gone. So were the sentries. The castle doors were wide open.

  Something was wrong. Angela blew out Hans’ lantern, set it down, and crept inside. The place was ransacked. Draperies were ripped from the windows, furniture broken, tapestries stripped from the walls. What had happened to her parents? She raced up the main staircase to find them.

  “Halt! Who goes there?” Six drunken soldiers staggered into the hall from a side room. One held a silver candelabrum. They stood at the foot of the stairs and squinted up into the shadows.