“I’ll miss you more,” he said, gripping her tightly in his arms. I couldn’t help but notice the look of sadness that had come over his face.

“I better go,” Kayla told him, and I could sense that if she didn’t go now, she never would.

Isidor let go of her, and we all watched as she stepped out into the rain. Kayla pulled the collar of her coat up around her throat. She looked right, then back at us. “I can see the car waiting just outside the gates,” she said.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Isidor asked, hiding from view in the doorway.

Then, looking back one last time at him, Kayla said, “See you later, alligator.”

“In a while, crocodile,” Isidor whispered, closing the front door on his sister.

Chapter Seventeen

Kayla

My journey from Hallowed Manor to Ravenwood School took just over an hour. The driver had spoken little, offering the odd grunt in response to my attempts at conversation. In fact the man had seemed too busy chewing on the end of the cigarette he held between his teeth to say very much at all.

I sat and glanced through the rain-spattered windows as we reached the grounds of the school. The first thing I noticed was the huge search towers that Elizabeth Clarke had described and the razor wire that covered the tops of the walls. I could see that a bunch of hooded figures were watching from the towers as the driver drove the car through the gates and steered it up the winding drive to the school.

With the back of my hand, I rubbed away some of the condensation from my window. But however much I stared up at those hooded figures in their grey robes, I couldn’t see their faces. It kinda freaked me out, my stomach started to somersault. It was too late to go back now.

“What is this place?” I asked the driver, keen to make out that I knew nothing of the building that stretched before me.

“A school,” the driver said, the tip of his cigarette winking on and off as it dangled from the corner of his mouth.

I watched the blue-grey cigarette smoke squirt from his nostrils and said, “Do you think you could put that out? It smells disgusting.”

“Quit complaining,” the driver said, and sucked on the end of the cigarette as if in defiance.

“It’s bad for my health,” I told him.

“Yeah and so is a smack in the mouth, so keep it shut!” the driver replied.

Elizabeth hadn’t been kidding when she had described the school staff to us. Ignoring him, I turned and looked back through the car windows at the school, which loomed ahead. Elizabeth had been right in her description of it. It did look more like a prison than a school.

“Are you sure this is a school?” I asked the driver.

“I’m sure,” he coughed.

“It’s just that it doesn’t look like a school – it looks like some kinda mental institution.”

He stubbed out his cigarette in the already overflowing ashtray, and flashing a set of bright yellow teeth he said, “You’ll feel right at home then, won’t you girlie.”

“I thought my uncle had sent me to a place of education,” I said.

“Jee-sus!” the driver wheezed. “Don’t you ever quit your moaning? No wonder your parents topped themselves!”

I knew that Potter had told McCain that my make-believe parents had died in a boating accident, not that they had killed themselves. This jerk was just trying to be cruel. I looked at the driver and said, “My parents never killed themselves. They died in a boating accident. They drowned.”

“Blah! Blah! Blah!” he mocked. “You go on believing that, girlie. Whatever floats your boat!” Laughing, he looked at me and added, “Get-it? Whatever floatsyour boat!”

Just wanting to punch this whack-job straight in the face, I sat on my hands, turned away and looked up at the school. The car tyres crunched over gravel, and it sounded like the car were rolling over a carpet of broken bones. The driver swung the car round the last bend in the driveway and killed the engine in front of the school. Not wanting to spend another moment in the driver’s company, I snatched hold of my small case and fled the car. One of the hooded figures stood in the rain and beckoned me forward with a gnarled finger.

“This way!” the figure ordered. “Follow me.”

With my stomach churning as if my innards were being strangled, I started after the figure.

“Hey!” a voice called after me.

I spun around to see that the driver had wound down the passenger’s window of his car and was now leaning across both front seats. “Good luck, girlie!” he grinned. “You’re gonna need it!” Then the driver wound up the window, drowning out the sound of his obnoxious laughter, started the engine, and drove away down the drive.

With rain jabbing away at my face like broken fingernails, I watched the car until it had disappeared from view.

“Follow me!” the hoodie ordered, its voice sounding stern and old.

I gripped the handle of my case over my shoulder, turned on my heels and followed the hoodie into the school.

The school was very old. The building was constructed of cold slabs of grey stone and rock. The corridors the hooded figure led me through seemed never-ending. The walls towered high above me like some ancient cathedral. The sound of my shoes snapping off the cobbled walkways echoed all around me as the hoodie’s long robes made a whispering sound as they trailed behind him. Set into the walls were giant stained glass windows and they cast eerie shadows along the corridors.

The hooded figure led me to a small, wooded door. He pushed it open to reveal a dimly-lit room. On the floor was a cardboard box with the words Poor Box written along the side in red marker pen.

“Find yourself a suitable blazer then get to class,” the figure hissed, its grey robes swishing back along the floor as it made its way up the stone corridor.

Once it was gone, I bent down and rummaged through the Poor Box, my hands lost amongst second-hand ties, socks, jumpers, and blazers. The clothes smelt musty – like a tramp that had brushed up too close to me on the London Underground.

“This sucks, don’t you reckon?” came a voice from beside me.

I looked up to find a boy about my own age standing next to me. He was thin-looking, with a long face, a mop of black curls, and mischievous blue eyes.

“I guess,” I sighed and went back to rummaging through the box.

“You’re new here, ain’t ya?”

“Yep,” I said without looking up.

“Don’t worry,” the boy said. “This place takes some getting used to, but…”

“Who said I’m worried?” I asked, pulling a dusty-looking blazer from the box and holding it against me.

“You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost!” he smirked. “Either that or you ain’t feeling too well.”

I brushed the dust from the blazer, and said, “I’m fine, okay? So if you don’t mind, I’m trying…”

“Just look at this crap, will ya?” he groaned, cutting me dead. “How do they

expect anyone to wear this stuff?” he said, yanking a blazer from the box and putting it on. The sleeves dangled over his wrists and covered his hands. I slid my arms through the sleeves of the blazer I had chosen and they stopped halfway up my arm.

Then he looked at himself, then at me. “We look like a right pair of Muppets!”

“Swap?” I suggested.

“You kidding?” the boy grinned. “If they insist we wear this crap, then they’ll have to put up with us looking like a couple of dicks.”

“But we don’t look very smart,” I said.

“That’s the point,” he smiled, poking his fingers from beneath his sleeves.

“But…”

“I’m Brook. Sam Brook,” he said, thrusting his hand out towards me.

“Kayla Hunt,” I replied, shaking Sam’s hand.

“What year you been put in?” Sam asked, kicking the box over and walking away up the corridor.

“Sorry?” I asked, watching the second-hand clothes spill out of the box like a pile of entangled guts.

“How old are ya?” Sam shouted over his shoulder.

“Sixteen!”

“Nice one. You’ll be in the same classes as me!” he smiled back at me, and his piercing blue eyes seemed to sparkle with delight. “C’mon, you don’t want to be late for Brother Michael’s lesson!” And with another wicked grin, Sam mooched away and up the corridor.

I straightened my thick auburn hair and said, “To be honest, I do feel kinda nervous.”

“I knew it,” Sam smiled at me.

“How? Is it that obvious?”

“You look as if you’re gonna shit yourself!’ Sam laughed.

“Thanks!”

“I’m just taking the piss!” Sam grinned and slapped me on the back. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to being at Ravenwood.”

I knew that my time at the school was short, and I needed to find out as much information about it and the staff as possible. So not wanting to waste any time, I said, “The teachers here seem weird – kinda strange.”

“The Ravenwood Greys, that’s what we call ‘em,” Sam said, his voice dropping to just above a whisper.

I thought of the teacher who had met me outside of the school and the grey robes and hood that it had worn, and the name seemed to fit. Wanting to know more about these Ravenwood Greys, I said, “You’re not reassuring me, Sam. Are they really bad?”

“The old lot of teachers we had – they were pretty safe. But one morning we all tipped up for lessons as normal, and they’d all gone – vanished!” Sam told me.

“What do you mean, vanished?” I asked, thinking of Emily Clarke.

“Dunno,” Sam shrugged. “They just disappeared and were replaced by the Greys.”

“Where did they go?” I asked him.

“How should I know?” Sam whispered, approaching the door to the classroom and pushing it open. I followed him inside.