by Chris Ward
‘And then I might find out what’s there.’
The Grand Lord laughed, a strange sound, like five people laughing all at once, though slightly out of time with each other.
‘And now, Benjamin, I wanted to offer you one of the few things I can. A little piece of closure.’
He turned, and hands covered with black gloves took an ancient telephone off of a shelf and placed it onto a table between them. The phone had no wires and half of the numbers in the dial had faded into nothing.
‘It’s a Western Electric 102 model, popular in the 1920s and ’30s,’ the Grand Lord said. ‘I found it one day, lying in the shallows of the river. In a former life I was an antiques dealer, you know. I do so love old telephones.’
He slipped off a glove, and a pale, translucent hand reached out to touch the telephone. It began to hum as the Grand Lord replaced his hand in the glove.
‘Call them,’ he said. ‘Call your family.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Know the number?’ The Grand Lord smiled. ‘It is not necessary. The magic of this place is … sometimes … enough.’
The humming phone that had no wire had a dial tone. Benjamin ran his fingers over the grooves in the dial but didn’t wind it. After a few seconds, a ringing tone came on the other end.
‘Hello?’
At the sound of his mother’s voice, Benjamin’s heart almost broke. He so wanted to talk to her, to tell her he was all right, but it would only upset her and get the phone hung up on him.
‘Is David there?’ he asked, slightly altering his voice to sound a little younger.
There was an audible sigh of contentment. ‘He came home yesterday. The doctors think everything will be fine.’
Benjamin closed his eyes for a moment, holding the phone against his chest until he was sure he could speak without breaking into tears.
‘Can I speak to him?’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘It’s … it’s Kyle.’
‘Oh, from school? Well, I’m not sure he’s up to talking to anyone just yet but … hang on a minute.’
There was a slight clunk as his mother put down the phone. Benjamin heard shuffling feet, then a kid’s voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘David?’
The voice became a whisper. ‘Who’s this? Bennie, is that you?’
‘It’s me! Are you all right?’
‘I woke up again a few days ago. Mummy said I went for a really long sleep and I didn’t want to wake up. I told her I met you in my dream and you helped protect me from this really bad man and that you’d be back soon, but she didn’t believe me. She told me to stop telling tales. Did that really happen, Bennie?’
Benjamin wiped a tear out of his eye. ‘It really happened, but adults won’t believe it, so it has to be a secret between just us.’
‘Are you coming back soon, Bennie?’
Benjamin swallowed down a lump in his throat. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘But why not?’
‘Because … that bad man I saved you from, I have to save other people from him, too.’ He glanced up at the Grand Lord, who had retreated to the window, and just at that moment, the Grand Lord looked back, his face strangely melancholic, as if in Benjamin’s attempt to soothe his brother, he had happened onto an unmistakable truth.
‘You’re a good brother, Bennie. I miss you.’
‘I miss you, too, David. I’ll always be thinking of you, wherever I am.’
‘Won’t I see you again?’
‘You’ll see me whenever you close your eyes. We’ll be having adventures together, only this time, you’ll be saving me.’
‘Thanks, Bennie. Oh, Mummy’s coming back, I’d better go. Do you want to speak to her?’
Benjamin closed his eyes, swallowing down a wave of sadness. ‘No … she’ll be tired. Take care, David. I love you.’
‘I love you, too, Bennie.’
Benjamin put the phone down before he started to choke up, and he stared at it for a long time before he felt able to speak again. The Grand Lord came to stand across from him, arms folded into his robes.
‘Did you find it? Your closure?’
Benjamin nodded. ‘Some. But I still have questions.’
‘Like what?’
‘My brother … he sent me here, didn’t he?’
Grand Lord Bastien nodded. ‘I believe he did. It is my theory that your brother is one of those who has links to both of our worlds. One like … myself.’
‘But you can’t return?’
The Grand Lord shook his head. ‘I don’t know how. Maybe it is true that I lie inert somewhere in another life, and that if I die here or there, I will become whole again, but I do not know. And—’ he smiled, ‘—I am reluctant to test my theory.’
‘I saw the Dark Man’s face. I saw—’
The Grand Lord closed his eyes as he nodded. ‘I know.’
‘He looked like me. Like an older me. How is that possible?’
The Grand Lord patted him on the shoulder. ‘I think for now that is a secret best kept between us. I, too, saw his face, and the likeness was … uncanny. We know little of the Dark Man, only that your coming stirred him in a way he hasn’t been stirred in decades. Perhaps time will tell, but from now on, we will be ready for him.’
Unable to shake the feeling that he was at the centre of a darker plot than he could have imagined, Benjamin just gave a short nod. ‘I don’t know that I’ll ever really understand everything I want to about this place,’ he said, ‘but in a strange way, I feel safe here in the school, perhaps far safer than I’ve ever felt.’
The Grand Lord nodded. ‘That’s good. Now, you had better run along. Your friends will be waiting.’ As Benjamin reached the door, he added, ‘But remember, I am here to talk to you whenever you need. I might not have the answers, but I can certainly listen to the questions.’
‘Thank you,’ Benjamin said. He smiled briefly, and went out.
50
FRIENDS
Climbing class had nearly pulled their arms out of their sockets. Captain Roche had taken them to a particularly tough section of cliff known as the Comb-Over because of the way a hooked overhang protruded from an otherwise gentle slope. And while Benjamin, Miranda, and Wilhelm had all passed their climbing test with ease, they spent the whole walk back to the dorms massaging their shoulders.
And worse was to come—in the evening they had a catch-up class with Professor Loane, on the dead-boringly titled subject of Mythology and its Influences on Children’s Stories, because all three had flunked the final semester test. Wilhelm and Miranda had fallen asleep at the back of the class, while Benjamin, aware he had failed so spectacularly to study for the test that any attempt to put pen to paper would have been a crime against education, had spent most of the period balancing pencils on their heads.
Now, as Benjamin pulled off his climbing clothes and opened his bottom drawer to get his classroom uniform, he jumped in surprise. An orientation manual sat on top of his shirts, looking pristine and new. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.
On the front, it said: “To: Sebastien Aren. Welcome to Endinfinium, the School at the End of the World.”
He lifted the front cover, and inside was an inscription in ornate script that said:
Benjamin,
I heard that your copy got a little wet.
You may borrow mine indefinitely.
Yours,
Grand Lord Bastien
‘Wilhelm, look,’ he said, turning to hold up the book. ‘The Grand Lord gave me his handbook.’
Wilhelm poked about in a drawer on the other side of the room. ‘That’s nice,’ he said without looking up.
Benjamin flicked through a few pages that held descriptions of lessons and several pages of truncated school history, none of which came across as remotely true. Then there were menus and school rules. Everything, really, that a regular school handbook ought to have. He smiled and put it back into the drawer to read l
ater.
‘Are you guys ready?’
Miranda waited in the doorway. Benjamin stood up, but Wilhelm still poked about in his drawer, right arm almost swallowed up as he felt around for something at the back.
‘What are you doing? We’re going to be late! Haven’t you had enough of the Locker Room for one semester?’
Wilhelm grinned and beckoned them with his free hand. ‘Guys … we’re friends, aren’t we? Friends trust each other, don’t they? Friends help each other out, right?’
Miranda and Benjamin shared a glance. ‘Yeah,’ Miranda said. ‘Why?’
Wilhelm pulled a glass jar out of his drawer, where something white and frilly moved about inside, like an overlarge, albino butterfly.
‘What have you got in there?’
‘It’s a scatlock.’
Miranda cuffed him around the ears. ‘Where’d you get that from?’
‘I caught it outside.’
‘Why?’
He grinned again. ‘I thought we could prank Professor Loane. I need help, though. You two have to distract him, while I release it in his book bag. I can’t do this alone. Who’s with me?’
Miranda and Benjamin looked at each other, then both grinned.
‘Let’s go,’ Benjamin said.
‘All right!’
Wilhelm stood up. ‘I’ll brief you on the plan on the way over. And remember, when it comes flapping out in his face, we know nothing. Poker faces. Deal?’
‘Deal,’ Benjamin and Miranda said at the same time. Then, with Wilhelm taking the lead, the three of them headed off toward their destiny.
END
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
About the Author
Also by Chris Ward
Contact
Dedication
Epigraph
Epigraph
I. At the End of Everything
1. Greeting
2. Scatlocks
3. The Bridge
4. The Great Hall
5. Admissions
6. The Rubbish Creature
7. Captain Roche
8. Lunch
9. Wilhelm
10. The Dormitories
11. The Housemaster
12. Dinner
13. The Sin Keeper
14. Punishment
15. Threats
16. Setup
17. Trap
18. The Teachers’ Apartments
19. Memories
II. The Road into Dark Places
20. Edgar
21. Message
22. Time slips
23. Rising Army
24. Sanctions
25. Davey’s Absence
26. Between the Walls
27. Rescue Plans
28. Transportation
29. Hunters
30. Lawrence
31. The Baggers
32. Capsules
33. Edgar’s Stand
III. The Battle for the End of the World
34. Miranda’s Secret
35. The Wave
36. Fallenwood
37. Viewing Platform
38. The Lighthouse
39. Mutiny
40. Dressing Down
41. The Cavern
42. Plans
43. Stolen boat
44. Memories
45. Parting
46. Escape
47. Showdown
48. Rout
49. Meeting
50. Friends
Available for pre-order now
Contact