Morcant looked over his shoulder and gauged the sun’s position. It was quite late. He’d have to hurry or the mourners would arrive. One firm rule of this business Daz had drilled into him was his role: he was to be invisible. His work was to be the work of quiet magic when no eyes were upon him. No one wanted to see a gravedigger, least of all when they mourned a great loss. Morcant could understand that, and he worked to follow Daz’s rules.

  He hopped down into the grave and tugged at the casket. It slid easily down into his grasp. His position was awkward, however. He put the coffin down between his legs, but there was no room for his boots to fit on either side. Cursing, he struggled in the hole. Dirt sifted down from the walls as he tried to climb out. He put his boot down upon the lid, and strained to pull himself up by his arms.

  He’d almost managed the feat, when a terrible sound met his ears. A cracking sound. He looked down in horror. He’d cracked the lid of the casket. Cursing wildly, he scrambled out of the hole. He laid down upon the dirt and grasses and stuck his head down into the hole to examine the damage. The crack didn’t look that bad. With the sun shining above, a person would have to come right to the edge and peer down closely to notice it. How likely was that?

  Morcant felt a wave of relief, until he noticed something. A wisp of gold. It came out of the crack in the lid. What was that?

  He felt sick when he realized what he was seeing. It was hair. The occupant’s hair. That color…it wasn’t natural. It shone—like spun gold.

  Suddenly, Morcant knew who it was he buried in a hurry this day. This was an elf maid, one of the ones Brand had brought back from the Fae lands. She had died in childbirth and lost her child as well. The time was right, he’d heard many of the elf girls were pregnant now and some of those pregnancies had gone—oddly.

  Morcant thought of Tegan. She was with child, and quickening fast. Faster than what anyone would call normal, that was for certain. Already, he could see the roundness of her midsection, even if others hadn’t noticed yet. He wondered what might be inside her. So lovely she was, but with his bastard child in her guts. How could something unpleasant come from such a thing of sweet beauty? What might his child be?

  He’d not really thought of this before. He’d heard legends and rumors, naturally. But when he was with his elf girl, he could not think of her as anything other than an exquisitely formed human girl. He knew she was something else, but oftentimes he believed what his eyes saw rather than whatever whispers came from the back of his mind. He saw what he wanted to see. Not a creature from another strange world, but a pretty maid who would naturally birth perfect children for him.

  His eyes traveled to the second casket. There lay the answer.

  Morcant looked all around the hilltop. There was no sign of the mourners yet, nor of Daz. Distantly, he could hear the tink-tink-tink of the old man’s chisel striking stone. There were no other people in the cemetery. Even the birds were hushed and still in the final warmth of the day.

  His eyes went back to the tiny casket lying in the green, waving grasses. He swallowed, and he remembered his oath to Daz. He’d promised many things, and one had been not to disturb the Dead unnecessarily.

  Morcant walked to the casket and his shadow fell over it. He knelt down, and opened it. The hasp flipped up effortlessly. The hinges did not creak, as they were freshly oiled. The lid came open, and inside he saw a bundle wrapped in a stained woolen blanket of faded blue. He hesitated, and almost closed the lid again.

  But he had to know the truth. He spread open the blanket, revealing the small face inside. A hideous sight filled his eyes and his mind.

  A moan escaped his lips, and he reached to close the lid again, sorry he’d ever thought to open it. He could not close it, however, he could only run his eyes over the pathetic, vile thing in the casket. Fur, sharp teeth—staring eyes that were those of a human child. The last thing he fixated upon was the strangling cord wound around its neck. They had killed it, he knew in an instant.

  He slammed the lid closed and fumbled until he had the hasp closed. The memory of what he’d seen haunted his mind. He could not escape it. He dragged the tiny coffin to the edge of the small grave he dug for it and cast it in. The thin wood shattered and the blue blanket could clearly be seen inside. Worse, he could see the dead, glinting eyes staring up at him. They were filled with madness. He wondered: How could something be born mad?

  Morcant began shoveling then, filling both graves. He could not recall if these were his instructions now, and he did not care in any case. He wanted these two sad, horrible deaths put away into the earth and forgotten.

  He heard a voice as he shoveled and grunted. A voice that came from behind him. “Do you know what you have done here?”

  Morcant twisted around, almost stumbling and falling into the graves. His eyes were wide with guilt and fear. He fully expected Daz to be standing behind him, hands on hips and a scowl upon his features. He was about to be fired again, and this time the punishment was richly deserved.

  But it was not Daz. It was another. A hunched figure with a cowled face and a silver rod in his hand. The figure used the rod as a cane, walking closer with uncomfortable steps.

  “I’m sorry,” Morcant said. He thought perhaps this was an early mourner. “I slipped. I’ll fix the grave before the others come, have no fear.”

  “Sorry?” asked the other, coming a step closer. “Fear?” The head beneath the cowl shifted and Morcant heard a strange rattling, gargling sound emanated from it.

  “Do you laugh at me?” Morcant asked, bemused and annoyed.

  “I always laugh at fools. That is their purpose.”

  Morcant stood to his full height. Under different circumstances, he might have taken his shovel and given the oldster a good crack on the shoulder. He turned instead and went back to his shoveling.

  The voice came again to him, very close now. It was just over his shoulder. The words were mere whispers. “Takes a lot of guts to turn away from the likes of me,” said the old man. “I’ll give you that much, gravedigger.”

  “If you could please wait for the others, sir. Just go up the hill and wait there by the workshop, if you would.”

  “But you still haven’t answered my question,” the raspy voice said. “Do you know what you have done here?”

  “I’ve filled in the graves. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not good enough, gravedigger!”

  Morcant whirled to face his heckler, and the spade fell from his numb fingers. Forgotten, it tipped up and slid into the larger of the two graves.

  He faced the Black Jewel. Clasped by a claw of wrought silver at the end of a silver rod, it emanated darkness and icy cold. The hand holding the rod was a fan of finger bones. The oldster’s cowl had fallen back, revealing the horror within. The lich was plain to him now. Its skull was ancient, and its eye sockets were empty orbits of shadow that no light could penetrate.

  “I’ll answer my question for you,” said the lich. “You have forfeited your existence.”

  “Why?” bubbled Morcant. It was his last word among the Living.

  “You took an oath to care for the Dead, child, and you violated that oath. I am your master now. You will never offer insult to the Dead again.”

  Chapter Six

  The Boy with the Silver Hair

  A year passed and then two more came and went. Mari reflected as the fourth began that her marriage was a strange one. For one thing, her husband was not often home. Puck lived a second life apart from her, and sometimes that made her feel sad and alone despite Kaavi and Trev’s company. She stayed with Trev in the River Haven, as Puck assured her this was for the best. She never followed him into the Twilight Lands. Puck came and went with the seasons, spending most of spring and summer with the family, but often leaving during harvest and making only rare visits in the winter months. Trev was always there for her during these lonely times, with his big round eyes, solemn expression and long silver locks. Kaavi helped her educate him and made the house charming with a dozen small projects. Wildflowers now grew upon the roof in the warm seasons and humming birds were thick at every window in spring. Neighbors exclaimed, telling her the house was enchanting, but she noticed they rarely visited and spoke in hushed voices when she went to market.

  The hardest thing for her was the absence of any new children. It wasn’t for the lack of trying when Puck was home, she could assure anyone of that. But it just never seemed to happen. No new life was implanted in her womb, and the cheer and warmth of each spring was slightly deadened for her. Had she somehow become barren after giving birth to Trev? She did not know, and did not know who to ask.

  It was the fifth autumn that she dreaded. When it came at last, Puck had left her again to perform whatever duties were expected of an elf prince. It was time for Trev to start his daily treks to the schoolhouse with the other local children. In the River Haven, the clan rules were quite strict concerning education. Every capable child was required to attend six full years of school, or as long as it took for them to read, write and do simple sums. Kaavi had taught him much of these things already, but he would have to go for several years just to prove himself. It was the law of the Haven.

  School had been something Mari had dreaded for years. She worried about what Trev’s schoolmates might say and how they might treat him. Many boys had lost fathers and uncles fighting the elves and they might not accept his differences. Her greatest fear revolved around Trev’s strange, silver hair. The hair was his sole characteristic that clearly and immediately marked him as half-elf.

  Puck had told her not to worry about it, but he’d been gone for weeks now, and she couldn’t stop fretting. In the end, she decided to cut the boy’s locks. She did it the night before he was to begin school, when Kaavi wasn’t around to stop her. His hair had never been a problem before and she thought it was quite lovely to look at—but she couldn’t bear the thought of other children bullying her son. She took a pair of long, sharp shears and cut the locks all the way around his head. She did a poor job of it, but Trev did not complain. Only a single tear showed on his cheek to make her feel dark-hearted.

  “It’s better this way, Trev,” she told him. “I want to give the children a chance to get used to you. If you look just like they do on the first day, they’ll come to like you.”

  Trev had not objected. It was not his way to do so. In the morning, however, after he’d slept the night, Mari was shocked to see the hair had grown back. All of it had returned—as if she’d never cut it at all. It reached his shoulders again, just as it always had. And it was the same bright color he’d been born with.

  Kaavi saw him to the door. She touched his locks and ran her fingers through them. Mari’s face darkened. Had she performed some elf-trick? Had Kaavi thwarted her plan to make him seem more normal? If she could make flowers take root on a roof, perhaps she could cause hair to grow where it had been roughly shorn off.

  Mari fumed. She considered cutting it all each morning before he went to school, but the very idea of a daily haircut seemed absurd. Hands on her hips, she’d thought hard and finally sent him to the schoolhouse with a hat upon his head. The silvery locks were stuffed up inside.

  A week later she’d tried to cut it again, with the same results by morning. By this time she’d become distraught, and after she’d sent Trev off wearing his hat, she confronted Kaavi directly.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “With Trev’s hair. I want it cut short.”

  “Whatever for, dear?”

  “It doesn’t matter why I want what I want,” Mari said, becoming indignant. “I’m his mother, and I want you to stop fooling with it.”

  “And I’m his auntie,” Kaavi replied. She still smiled, but there was a narrow cast to her eyes.

  Mari drew herself up and put her hands on her hips. “Kaavi, I want to thank you deeply for all you’ve done for me and Trev. I do appreciate it, really I do.”

  “Are you asking me to leave?”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you sought a husband again?” Mari asked her. “It’s been so long. You need a son of your own.”

  Kaavi’s face fell at these words and she looked at the floor. Mari knew pity for her then. The girl had come to think of Trev as her own, and both women knew the danger in it.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Kaavi said.

  “There are any number of boys in Riverton who’ve been pining away for you for years. But you have never allowed any of them to court you.”

  Kaavi laughed. “If I had, I would never have been able to help you with Trev.”

  “I know you’ve sacrificed much,” Mari said. “And I truly thank you. You will always be welcome here should you need solace.”

  “Solace?” laughed Kaavi. “What elf would ever need such a thing?”

  Kaavi walked outside at that very moment, without closing the door behind her. The two women did not even hug.

  Mari stood in the doorway and watched her sister-in-law walk toward the woods. She felt as if she stood in a dream. Kaavi went as she’d come, without a single possession other than her scandalous clothing and graceful self.

  “Make sure to come back and say goodbye to Trev!” Mari called after her.

  Kaavi laughed again. “He’s an elf, he’ll understand.”

  Mari shook her head. She told herself that one could hardly marry an elf and bear his child and then expect to lead a completely normal life.

  * * *

  Trev had nearly a league to walk through the Haven Wood to school. There were spots along the way he liked to visit each day. These were private places, which he explored alone. His favorite was a tiny graveyard. Broken sticks marked most of the graves, but there were small, carven boulders here as well. Reportedly, a battle with the goblins had taken place here long ago and Haven militia men had been laid to rest where they died. More recently, it had served as a spot where children buried dead pets.

  The graveyard was not deep among the trees, it was no glade or grassy dell. Instead, it was heavily overgrown with feathery ferns and ragwort. The graves themselves were all hidden beneath these growths. The lush greenery attracted Trev and made him feel at home.

  The boy did not stop here to commune with the Dead, but rather to commune with the natural world. For him, it seemed that the Haven was not as lush as it should be. Many spots were positively barren. But not this place. It was a green tangle of leaves, vines and stony, forgotten graves. He was not sure quite why he felt so at home here, in a spot shunned by most children, but he did. With the simplicity of a child, he followed his instincts. In the morning he paused here and let dew drops falling from the trees above to wet his face. In the afternoons when he walked home and paused, he crouched below the ferns, delighting in the cool feathery touch of their fronds.

  Trev crawled among the ferns one late afternoon when he noticed something odd. The birds, who forever kept him company with their cheerful songs, fell silent. Unlike a human boy, he did not stand and look about for the cause. He did not gaze into the trees to see if the birds were still there, or had perhaps flown off in a flock. Instead, he crouched and listened.

  After a time, he heard something. The rustle of footsteps. They were not stealthy, but neither were they direct and purposeful. It was as if someone wandered nearby aimlessly, slowly, shuffling about. A scent soon came to his twitching nose as well. A musty smell of age and dust.

  Still, Trevor did not move. Only his eyes shifted from where he sat under a large fern. Through the fronds, in the late afternoon gloom of the Haven Wood, he saw a figure moving about.

  The figure appeared to be a cowled old man who leaned upon a silver cane. Trev knew where each of the graves were in his hideaway. The old man walked between them, almost without aim. At each spot where a carven rock marked a grave, he bent and touched the stone with thin fingers.

  “What are you doing?” asked Trev suddenly. He still did not move, but instead stared watchfully.

  The other did not lurch with guilt, but he did straighten. Slowly, the cowled head turned in his direction. Trev saw ice cold eyes swimming in pits of shadow beneath the cowl, and he knew in that instant he faced one of the Dead. He’d never met one before, but they’d been described to him by his Aunt Kaavi.

  The dead-thing came a step closer. Trev’s haunches gathered beneath him, ready to bolt like a rabbit from the ferns. Something in the other’s burning gaze kept him from moving, however.

  “I plant seedlings,” said the dead-thing. “What dares to speak with me?”

  “You are a dead-thing. You haunt my place. You must answer my questions first.”

  At that, the dead-thing halted its advance and made a raspy chuckle. “Such arrogance and assumption!” it exclaimed. “I sense youth! Dare you believe this is your place, not mine? I am a thousand times your age, stripling. Perhaps more than that.”

  This answer disturbed Trev. He’d learned from Kaavi that as the younger of two who have just met and the interloper, he would have to answer the dead-thing’s questions first.

  “Why do you want to know what I am?” asked Trev.

  “It would not be polite to dine upon a stranger,” said the dead-thing.

  Trev’s heart pounded and he swallowed with a throat that had gone dry. He had calculated he could outrun this shambling creature, as it had not moved quickly up til now. Could it be faster or more able than it looked? For the first time, he feared for his life.

  “Good!” said the dead-thing. “I scent fear now. It is a perfume the Living ever wears to attract me.”

  “I am Trev. You can’t eat me, dead-thing. I’m the son of Puck—the grandson of Oberon, King of the elves.”

  “King of the elves, is it?” the dead-thing asked. “Such nonsense. Your grandfather does not know his place, any more than you do.” It shuffled forward with purpose.