Brenden had had questions about how it could be that Ms Halford could have given him the blood she had revived him with if it was the case that they did not kill. However, he was not in the mood to ask as he was far too distracted by the notion that if he were to go home he could harm or even kill his mother. Ms Halford could have been lying of course, but how was Brenden to know. Soon enough, he had come to the decision that he would go to the school.
Freddie turned the mini-bus off the motorway and after a brief drive along a minor road, they trundled up to a large, ornate and crumbling gateway that led on to a densely forested lane. Freddie slowed the vehicle down to a crawl as the way ahead was lit only by the headlights of the car.
“We’ll be there very soon,” said Ms Halford. “I’ll just have to pop into the school for a moment first and then I’ll come and get you as soon as I can.”
Brenden gave the faintest of nods and then returned his focus to the darkness outside. Light became visible through the trees and as the mini-bus continued on more seemed to appear until there seemed to be a minor constellation of bright misshapen stars hanging low in the sky. When the forest ended, the scale of the enormous building became apparent to Brenden as he could see perhaps a hundred lights stretched across the blackness. Near the centre of them all was a well-lit porch and it was here where Freddie brought the mini-bus to a stop.
***
Brenden had been left to wait alone on a battered old green leather couch just outside the office of the deputy head of the school. Brenden was not sure what to expect from the deputy - who Ms Halford had said would see him just as soon as she could find him - and despite feeling worn out by the strange turn in what still seemed to be his life, he harboured a nervous excitement about what lay ahead of him. Though he did not even think about whether he wanted to be accepted by the school or not, he was concerned that the institution would turn him away meaning he would have to leave without any idea about where he would go, what he would do or how he would fend for himself. He was sure of one thing, though, he would not return home. The warning Ms Halford had given him about this had scared Brenden and convinced him that it would be too dangerous to go back. The problem was, apart from his mother’s, he had nowhere else to go.
As his thoughts turned to home, he wished that he still had his phone to see what his mother was up to; what she had said about what had happened to him; whether she was okay. But he had no idea where his phone was and he certainly did not expect to find any sort of internet connection on anything in the ancient building he had found himself in. Indeed, as far as he had noticed up to that point, he had not seen a single screen and the place was illuminated with nothing but the mellow light of pearl bulbs. In fact, it seemed to him that the modern era had hardly penetrated the walls of the school at all.
To reinforce this very idea, a slightly lost-looking man with a shock of white hair - and dressed in a battered brown suit that seemed to have been in near continuous use since it was put together in the 1970s - appeared at Brenden’s side.
“Are you Brenden?”
Brenden nodded his head but avoided the man’s gaze, fixing his eyes on the untied laces of the man’s shoes instead.
“Good, good. Please, come into my office.”
In Brenden’s eyes, the space he entered was hardly an office. It was more of a large storage cupboard into which someone had squeezed a tired looking chipboard desk and two chairs. There was not even a window in the tiny space, all the light being provided by the single uncovered bulb that was hanging from the ceiling. Indeed, the only ornament that broke the otherwise spartan nature of the room was what looked to Brenden to be a black vase with a couple of orange-brown figures upon it, one with wings, the other some sort of musical instrument. The deputy swept a pile of cardboard folders onto a floor already coated with a layer of papers and books and signalled for Brenden to sit. The man then squeezed himself through the tiny space that separated his desk from the wall before collapsing into his chair.
“Right then, Brenden. I guess we better get to it. I’ve brought you here for a couple of reasons. First things first, welcome to Tithonus. Next, perhaps it would be profitable to lay out a few things about this old place. I suppose it’s not too important to mention that while the building you’re in is much older, the
