That was until he heard someone shout.
“Stop!”
Though he could not be sure, Brenden thought it sounded like a woman’s voice. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps someone was undertaking a rescue attempt and hope raised within him. He tried to call out once more, but it was to no avail as his mouth was full of moist dirt. He gave up his efforts to shout to contact whoever was there and instead focused on trying to listen in as hard as he could to what was going on above him. He could make out that there was a conversation involving the voices of two people - one that was almost shrill, and the other deep and rumbling - but Brenden could not make out a single word of what they were saying; just that the high pitch remarks lasted much longer than those of the other voice, which only ever consisted of a couple of words at most. The conversation ended and despite what he had felt earlier on, Brenden silently pleaded that he would soon again hear the terrible sound of what he now realised was digging. But the digging did not continue.
Instead, after a short period of nothing, the earth above Brenden’s chest started to move and a hand burst through the ground before fumbling around and attempting to pull at his shirt. The hand retreated, unable to gain purchase, but whatever was happening was not over as waves of pressure then passed over the boy’s face and chest until he could feel the soil starting to give, enabling him to push his head up an extra inch, then another. A hand brushed against his brow and then wiped away the soil from his face. Slowly, Brenden opened his eyes and took in the sight of a large, sickly pale, milky-eyed man covered in black earth. Brenden looked beyond the man and saw that he was at the bottom of a large hole in the ground, at the top of which stood the striking figure of a dark-eyed, short woman framed by the orange purple glow of an overcast night’s sky.
“Poor thing,” she said in her slightly piercing, high-pitch voice. “The lid must have already caved in. No matter, no matter. Get him out of there Freddie.”
The boy attempted to aid Freddie as the man worked to extract the rest of Brenden’s body from the ground, but he found he had almost no strength to do so. Gently, Freddie pushed as much of the soil away from Brenden as he could and then grasped the boy from under his shoulders to pull him out. At first, the man attempted to stand the exhumed boy in the hole, but even this was beyond Brenden’s power. After a shrill remark from the still as yet unidentified woman, Freddie caught Brenden before lifting him up and out of the hole to lay him down on a bed of grass.
Free from the compression of his grave, Brenden felt as if he were weightless enough to float just a little above the ground, but in reality, he was still too weak to get up. He was, however, able to turn his head and finally take in the sight of the young woman, who was illuminated by two torches laying upon the floor, and who he considered to look so odd that it seemed to him that he must have just been saved by a couple returning from a fancy dress party. She had a large body of hair that had been curled back upon itself and upon which sat a wide-brimmed hat. She was also wearing an ankle-length, purple skirt and a white ruffle shirt.
“Now, Brenden. I know this must be a very strange and uncomfortable situation for you” said the woman, “but at least you are out of that hole. Please, let me introduce myself. My name is Ms Margaret Halford, but you can call me Ms Halford. I am here on behalf of the Tithonus School to ask whether you would be willing to gain instruction on how to, well, live now that you have found yourself in your present condition.”
Ms Halford waited several beats for Brenden to respond, but as he gave her nothing but widened eyes, she continued.
“Of course, you do not need to inform us of your decision straight away. We will first take you to the school and then you can see… What is wrong with you, boy!”
As Ms Halford had continued to speak, Brenden had started to try and lift his limp arms to his face and work his mouth so as to remove the soil that still prevented him from speaking, making him look as if he were a significant amount of distress. Ms Halford leant down and realised the problem straight away.
“Oh, how terrible! Freddie, get some water, will you. The boy’s stuffed up!”
***
“I think you will need a drink of this,” said Ms Halford after Freddie had cleaned out most of the soil from Brenden’s throat. Freddie came over to him with a metal flask and
