Chapter Text
Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.
- A.E. Housman, “Because I Liked You Better”
Exile, it turned out, was mist-shrouded and clammy cold, even in August, when it was still supposed to be a temperate waning summer. Ben’s wear-worn blue sweater did very little to keep off the chill, but at least it had stopped raining. Runnels of rainwater had streaked along the windows of the train for the last hour of the ride from London, making the gray-green countryside into a distorted, dreamlike blur.
The exhaustion was seated deep in Ben’s bones by now; he had been traveling for twelve long hours and hauling what little he had been allowed to bring from home in a single heavy suitcase. The damp mist seemed to be settling on it and beading on the hard sides. He shivered as he stood outside the squat brick depot, the sign on its wall proclaiming “Tindon Station.” His uncle was supposed to pick him up, but there wasn’t a single car in sight. Only a few people had disembarked here and for all Ben knew they would be walking wherever they were bound. The low-lying cloud swallowed them up, anyway, and they were gone.
Ben had never met his uncle, his mother’s twin. Luke Skywalker had left his native Massachusetts to attend Cambridge in the thirties, escaping the worst of the American Depression and embracing the English one. Ben’s mother had told him the whole story, but Ben only remembered bits and pieces, having just found out he was going to be shipped off to the boarding school in Wiltshire, England where Luke was headmaster. It was her last-ditch effort to get him through graduation.
Haverhill was supposed to be a famous pile of bricks that had produced prime ministers and generals, but all Ben needed to know was that it was some old wreck in the middle of nowhere. His mother had showed him some photographs of it—featuring a younger Luke, who had only been the classical languages master then—and it looked like something that belonged in a nineteenth-century novel: a four-story central building with a tall bell tower at the center and connected wings. It had a “storied, noble past,” he had been told, but there was nothing there for Ben but a year of prison on a dreary moor.
In the distance, he spotted an orange car sputtering up the lane toward the depot, splashing through puddles gathered on the badly paved road. As it got closer, Ben could hear the squeak of the suspension and smell the stink of an oil leak into the fuel line. The car stopped in an acrid blue cloud directly in front of him. Ben expected its driver to step out of the left side, but he appeared from the right, grunting as he stood up from the bucket seat. He was rounder at the middle and grayer in the beard than the pictures Ben had seen, but he was still undeniably Uncle Luke.
“Ben?” he asked, approaching him. His face was oval and high-browed, with a lock of light blond hair flipped over it in an uneven part, as if windswept. There wasn’t any breeze. His scruffy chin had softened with age but he had a wide, white-toothed smile when he recognized his nephew. “Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” said Ben.
For a moment Luke wavered with arms almost open for a hug, but then he settled on holding out his right hand. “Good to see you made it.”
Ben shook the proffered hand, his own almost swallowing it up. Luke stood maybe five-foot-nine, a full six inches shorter than Ben. When they released each other, Luke tugged on the hem of his cable-knit sweater and cleared his throat.
“Well, we’d better get going,” he said. There was a hint of an English accent in his voice, probably from years of living here, but it still had a Massachusetts lilt at its core. “Let me take that suitcase.”
“I’ve got it,” Ben said, picking it up from the ground and carrying it toward the little car. Luke opened the back door for him to shove it inside; it barely fit in the cramped back seat. Ben had no idea how actual people were supposed to get in there. He had problems enough folding himself into the front passenger seat. His knees were pressed into the dashboard to the point of pain.
Luke, settled more comfortably in his own seat, put the car into gear and it jerked forward a few feet. “Sorry,” Luke said. “I don’t drive much. Out of practice, and this old girl has a lot of clutch still.” When they got into second gear, things went more smoothly. “So, how was the trip? Was this your first time flying?”
“No,” Ben replied. “I’ve been out to see my dad in California a couple of times.”
“Oh, yes. Leia told me he’s moved out there. How long ago was it that they divorced?”
“Three years,” said Ben, “when I was fourteen.”
Luke hummed contemplatively. “Well, that’s for the best, I suppose. They were always an unlikely pair.”
Ben scowled down at his cramped thighs. He still remembered the anger-tinged pain when his parents had sat him down at the kitchen table to tell him they were splitting up. His father had just come home from a week on the road and his mother still had her uniform from the hospital on, smelling of antiseptic. They had been across from him, both with eyes as dry as Ben’s. They told him it wasn’t his fault, that the problem lay with them and their disparate tempers. They said they loved him and would still be a family, but he didn’t buy that garbage.
His dad had left that night, taking a bag and ruffling Ben’s hair by way of goodbye. Ben heard some six weeks later that he’d decided to live across the country. What a relief it must have been for him after all those years of pretending he didn’t regret getting married and having a kid. It wasn’t just the long hauls in his truck that kept him away while Ben was growing up, and Ben knew it.
Leia, his mother, had taken on more shifts at the hospital to cover their expenses, even with the monthly checks from Han. Neither of them had ever made much, anyway. Ben was old enough by then to come home to an empty house instead of going to stay with their neighbors, but he still saw more of the walls of his bedroom than of his mother. After the divorce, he finally gave up on bringing home good report cards in order to earn himself at least a hug or his favorite dinner. It was a waste. Classes were easy to skip and it was pretty simple to get cheap beer.
Leia didn’t seem to notice until he was suspended for getting into another fight on school grounds. Only then did she bother to find out that he was failing most of his classes and cutting out of the multiple detentions he had been assigned for absences. She had tried yelling and tried crying, but Ben didn’t care about the feelings she liked to pretend she had for him. Shipping him off to England was what she should have done right after the divorce; it would have freed her just like it freed his father.
“You didn’t have trouble getting the train from the airport, eh?” Luke said as they drove. “It’s a much better system in this country than it is back in the States. What did you think of London?”
“All I saw was the airport, the inside of a taxi, and the train,” Ben said, terse. “But I guess it was fine.”
Luke looked at him out of the corner of his eye, but kept his tone light: “We’ll have to go sometime, maybe at half-term, since you probably won’t want to stick around school.”
Ben said nothing, just staring straight ahead. He didn’t care what they did.
“Anyway,” said Luke, “it’s just five miles to the school grounds. Did Leia tell you about Haverhill’s history?”
“Yeah. I don’t need to hear it again.”
“Ah. That’s fine, then. You’ll learn more about it, too, in your classes and from your peers. Almost all of them have been there since they were thirteen.”
“Uh-huh,” Ben said absently while he watched farm fields go by, some of them with stone fences or hedges between.
Luke kept talking: “Boarding is a different experience than school in Massachusetts, I have to say. It’s regimented, but for the good of the students. We value discipline and focus. You’ll get a good education.” He paused, but then said, “Leia said you were having trouble back home. You were skipping class and getting into fights. Is that true?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Ben replied.
“Well, we won’t tolerate fighting here,” Luke said. “And skipping classes doesn’t happen. The school grounds aren’t so big that you can’t be found.” His voice grew more steely. “Respect and responsibility are important values at Haverhill.”
Ben didn’t bother to acknowledge him, but when he asked “Is that understood?” Ben forced out a “Yeah.”
“It’s ‘Yes, Headmaster,’ when we’re talking about school, Ben,” Luke told him. “There’s that matter of respect. I may be your uncle, but I’m also in charge of you and all the other pupils. No exceptions from the rules will be made for you.”
“I get it,” Ben snapped.
“It’s ‘Yes—’”
Ben said, icy, “Yes, Headmaster.”
They pulled off of the main road onto a gravel drive. A pair of wrought-iron gates flanked it, wide open on rusted hinges. The car bounced along, the plunk of stone hitting the undercarriage the journey’s accompaniment. It wasn’t long before the hulking main building came into view on the other side of a small hillock.
It occupied the center of the grounds, with a kind of castle-like body and two wings on either side enclosing a lawn and babbling fountain. Narrower offshoots with pitched slate roofs and finials shaped like budding flowers came out from the wings, making the whole thing seem exceptionally grand. The stone of the buildings was gray and damp with the rain.
Luke drove them around the far side. Sports fields lay on the outskirts, the close-cropped grass marking them out from the longer trim of the surrounding spaces. The water in a blue-tiled swimming pool beside the fieldhouse caught the scant light and winked.
The car stopped in the round driveway of a stone house with windows that had that wavering, old-fashioned glass that made you dizzy if you looked at it for too long. Luke hit the brakes hard, jerking Ben forward and making his knees connect with the glovebox. He winced.
“This is the headmaster’s lodge,” said Luke as he opened the driver’s door, letting in a gust of cool air. “You’ll be staying with me until term begins and you can move into your dormitory.”
Ben shoved his own door open and eased himself out of the car. He rolled his shoulders to stretch them, even though the trip had been a short one. His suitcase he pulled from the back seat and dropped onto the white gravel at his feet.
Luke stood with his hands on his hips facing the house, squinting up at it as if the sun was behind it. “Come on, Ben. Let’s get you settled upstairs and then something to eat.”
“Alice?” Luke called as he led the way through the heavy wooden front door and into the foyer. It wasn’t overly large, but the ceiling was high and the stairs up to the second floor—wide at the bottom and curving up to a landing with thickly carved banisters—were only a few paces across from the door. A threadbare Oriental runner lined the steps.
From a door to the left, a stout woman with curly hair barely contained by a headband appeared. She was wiping her hands on the half apron she had tied around her ample waist. Her top shone a shocking bright orange, the collar and rolled-up cuffs stark white. The smile she sported bared front teeth with a significant gap between them. She brought with her the smell of freshly baked cookies.
“Headmaster,” she said, “I see you’re back. And with your charge.” She turned to Ben, still grinning. “You must be Mr. Ben Solo, then. Welcome to Haverhill.”
Ben mustered the energy to nod, but he wasn’t about to smile back; he was too tired to say much, let alone match her cheerfulness.
“Alice is my housekeeper,” said Luke. “I wouldn’t be able to keep this place running without her.”
She waved him off. “The usual untruths, sir. The school depends on you; I just keep you fed so you can manage.” To Ben: “You look like you could use some tea, dear. I’ll just put some on for you while you run your luggage up to your room.”
Ben adjusted his hold on his suitcase, his arm already aching from the weight. “Where’s that?” he asked.
“I’ll show you,” Luke told him. “This way.”
They went up the stairs to the second floor, where Ben was shown into a guest bedroom. The fourposter, with its fluffy duvet, beckoned, but Ben needed the bathroom before he could even think about lying down. Luke pointed him in the right direction before saying he’d meet him downstairs for tea as soon as Ben was ready. The implication was clear, though: he was supposed to hurry it up.
Ben used the toilet and then stopped to splash some water on his face. The sink had those terrible double faucets, one for hot and one for cold. He either had to use freezing water or burning hot; there was no in-between. He cursed whoever had decided that was a good idea while he tried to catch some warm and some cool water in his cupped hands.
The mirror had a long crack in the upper leftmost corner and it was mounted so low on the wall that Ben’s reflection was bisected. He looked as bad as he felt: dark circles under his brown eyes, drawn cheeks, and he was pale as a corpse. He just wanted to go to bed and wake up in his room at home in Massachusetts. It was still summer vacation for a couple of days and while he had nothing to do, he could at least have wandered around a town he actually knew.
He followed the smell of food back downstairs and into a little parlor off the foyer. Luke was already sitting in a wingback chair embroidered with blue cornflowers, holding a cup and saucer. A small plate with two cookies on it lay on the table beside him.
Alice came into the room with a tiered server filled with white-bread finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off. She set it down on the coffee table and gestured for Ben to come. “Here, dear, have something to eat. You must be famished after such a long trip. And that airplane food just doesn’t hold one over, does it?” She shook her head. “Certainly not.”
Ben chose a chair by the sandwiches and, picking one up, shoved the whole triangle into his mouth. It was a strange combination of cream cheese and cucumber, but it wasn’t too bad, so he picked up another while he was still chewing. Alice eyed him with her pink lips compressed, but said nothing. Luke was too busy stirring a slice of lemon around his tea to notice.
“So, Mr. Solo,” said Alice, sinking down onto the very edge of a chair across from him, “you’re to start in sixth form. That’s admittedly not the easiest time to enter a new school, with only this year left before you finish. Most of the boys here have been studying together since they left prep school and came to Haverhill. Has it been decided which house you’ll be in yet?”
“House?” Ben said.
Alice raised her unshaped eyebrows. “Have you not been told how things work here?” She glanced at Luke. “Have you not told him?”
Luke took a sip of his tea, the china clinking as he put the cup back down on the saucer. “I thought maybe his mother would have, but apparently not. What did she tell you, Ben?”
He shrugged. “That the school’s been around since the eighteen-hundreds and it’s pretty fancy.”
Alice stifled a laugh with her pudgy-fingered hand. “Oh my. You have quite a bit to learn, dear. At least tell him about the houses, sir, even if you’ve not chosen one for him yet.”
“I have,” said Luke. “There was space in Arkanis House this year.”
“Ah,” Alice said, sobering. “Well, I’m sure Housemaster Snoke will do well in overseeing his progress.”
Ben, baffled and fighting with rising annoyance, cut in: “You going to keep at the Greek, or does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Alice gave a little gasp of shock and Luke glared.
“Watch your language,” he said. “We speak with dignity here.” He paused, expectant, but when Ben didn’t apologize, he pressed on: “If Leia didn’t tell you anything about the system here, I might as well.
“The school is divided into five houses, with around ten boys in each year. There are nine in upper sixth form in Arkanis House; that’s why there was space for you there. Your house is the center of your life at Haverhill. It’s where you sleep, and the boys in your year are those with whom you’ll have your lessons. Housemaster Snoke looks after Arkanis House. He oversees the daily activities there, from games to discipline.” Luke gave Ben a level look. “He has a stern hand and expects the best from his house. He certainly won’t put up with any fighting.”
Ben didn’t say anything, just picked up another sandwich. Alice poured him a cup of tea, which he ignored. He had been warned like this more times than he could count; it was nothing new and nothing interesting.
“Master Snoke also teaches maths,” Luke continued. “You’ll see him a few times a week for your lessons. Since he can’t be involved in every single thing in the house at all times, he appoints a head boy to manage things he can’t. The head boy will be in sixth form, as you are. He has prefects who also manage affairs in the house. You’ll meet them all this weekend when they arrive to move in.”
“Sounds fancy,” Ben said. “Just like Mom told me.” He drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair. “You said games. What kind of games?”
“Oh, sport!” Alice interjected, beaming. “It’s a very important part of a boy’s education to have a healthy love of sport. There’s rugger and cricket and swimming. Which do you prefer?”
“I don’t do sports,” said Ben. “They tried to get me to try out for the track team once. I told them to fu—no.”
Luke said, “Well, you’ll have to play here. The houses compete for points. The best of the year wins a trophy.”
“Impressive,” Ben said, exactly the opposite of impressed. “But there’s no way I’m doing that.”
“I’m afraid you haven’t got a choice,” said Luke. “There’s a daily sport period in the schedule.”
The sandwiches suddenly tasted ashy, and Ben set a half-finished one down on a plate. There was no way in hell he was going to be doing that; there had to be a way out of it. But from his uncle’s steely expression and Alice’s eager one, he wasn’t sure there was. Maybe he could just stand in the back field and kick a ball occasionally to get credit for the class—if they even had credit like they did in high school back home.
“Anyway, you’ll get used to the schedule,” Luke said. “It’s very rigorous.”
Ben sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Right,” he grumbled. “So, everybody moves in this weekend? What am I supposed to do until then?”
“Certainly your uncle will show you around the grounds tomorrow,” said Alice. “There’s a great deal to see. And you’ll need to be fitted for your uniforms. I’ve made arrangements down at Fischer’s in the village for you.”
The dress code was one of the things Ben’s mother had insisted would be good for him, and it was part of the reason he had only been allowed to bring one suitcase: he wouldn’t need the clothes. He hated the idea of stuffy uniforms, but there were worse things, he could concede.
“Sounds great,” he said flatly.
Luke turned a cool blue gaze on him. He looked so little like his twin that Ben never would have called them for it had he not been told. “You’re going to thrive here, Ben,” he said. “It will be a beneficial experience.”
Since Ben was finished eating and his tea had gone untouched, he was permitted to leave just a few minutes later. It was only a quarter past seven, but Luke told him to go up and get some sleep. He’d have to get used to being five hours ahead of Massachusetts.
He brushed his teeth using the cold water tap and then stripped down to his underwear. It was chilly in the house, but hadn’t slept in pajamas since he was ten. Curling up under the duvet, he breathed in the unfamiliar lavender laundry detergent smell of the sheets. Beneficial experience, Luke had said. Ben doubted it. He just had to suffer through this for a year and then he could go home. There wasn’t exactly a bright future waiting for him there, but England was just as bleak.
Mornings at Haverhill apparently started at half past six, because an alarm clock Ben hadn’t even noticed on his bedside table started ringing its insistent bells at that godforsaken hour. He blindly sought the mechanism to turn it off, but couldn’t manage and had to open his eyes and pick it up to flick the switch. He rolled back under the duvet, groaning and intending to go right back to sleep, but what seemed like only seconds later, his door opened and he heard Luke’s voice: “Good morning, Ben!”
Peeling back the duvet, Ben squinted at him.
“Rise and shine,” Luke continued. “Breakfast is in a half hour. Alice ran you a bath. It should still be warm if you hurry.”
“Bath?” said Ben. “Like in a tub? Isn’t there a shower?”
“Not in this old house.” Luke rapped his knuckles on the doorjamb. “Come on, then, up and at ‘em.”
He disappeared back into the hall and Ben, fuzzy headed, managed to drag himself out of bed. He had to put on yesterday’s clothes to venture down the hallway to the bathroom, where there was indeed a claw-footed bathtub full of steaming water awaiting him. He stripped down again and slipped into it. Admittedly, it felt good.
There were various floral-scented bath products arranged on a shelf by the tub, and Ben helped himself to shampoo. He scrubbed his hair, which he kept longer these days: it hung down to his shoulders and covered his ears. Wet, it was heavy, but would dry into waves in the humid English air. He soaped up the rest of his body, washing away the sweat of international travel and a night in an unfamiliar, if soft, bed. He felt his chin for any stubble, but there was none; he only had to shave every few days.
Clean and dressed in fresh corduroys and a green sweater, he went downstairs and followed the scent of sausage into the dining room. Luke was already seated with his breakfast on a plate in front of him and the newspaper folded in quarters to his left. He wore a pair of reading glasses on his wide nose, and glanced up over them at Ben as he walked into the room.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“I guess,” Ben replied, once again noncommittal, even if he did feel better. He sat down at the place that had been set for him at Luke’s right and reached for the plate of link sausages. Next to it was a basket of white toast and an uncovered dish of softened butter. Luke also had a helping of brown beans over his slice of toast, which Ben forwent.
“What a thing,” Luke said, tapping the page of newsprint. “Unemployment at over a million. Turning into a bit of a problem, I’d say.”
Ben buttered his toast and let his uncle talk to himself. The sausage was good, greasy and flavorful. There was a pot of coffee to be had, but Ben didn’t reach for it. He spotted a pitcher of orange juice, though, and settled for that.
“Got to worry about the economy when things get to this point,” Luke muttered, shaking his head and taking his glasses off. “The boys here will be lucky to skip the workforce for now and go to university. Do you have an idea of what you want to study, Ben?”
Ben paused in eating, half-chewed toast in his mouth. He swallowed after a moment of stalling. “I’m not going to college,” he said.
Luke’s bushy gray eyebrows rose. “You’re not?”
“Mom and Dad didn’t,” said Ben, “so why would I? I’m not really good at school, anyway.”
“Not if your marks have anything to say about it,” Luke countered. “I have all of your school records, and you had stellar marks throughout all of your education...until three years ago.”
Ben kept his face turned down, concentrating on eating, and said nothing.
“If you do well here,” Luke pressed, “you could attend university in England. There are some very good ones, even if you don’t shoot for Oxford or Cambridge. Most of the boys here do, unless they’re bound for the military. We have a few of those.” He scratched his beard. “I’m sure your mother would be proud if you decided to continue your studies.”
“I won’t,” Ben told him coldly. “But I’m not joining the Army, either.”
“No? What will you do, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll drive a truck like my dad.” He stabbed a sausage with his fork and bit it in half, functionally ending the conversation.
Luke wasn’t deterred. “That would be a waste of your talents, I think. But the choice is yours in the end.” He poured himself another half cup of coffee. “Here at Haverhill, however, you’ll be expected to try for high marks. We value academics.”
“And sports,” Ben grumbled.
He got a light laugh in reply. “Yes, and sports. Boys need to expend their energy in constructive ways. Sport is good for that. You can tackle a man in rugby instead of hitting him in the corridors. It’s cathartic.”
Ben snorted. “Sure.”
“Anyway,” said Luke, “today we’ll tour the grounds and then go for your fitting at Fischer’s. Perhaps we’ll have lunch in the village. There’s a fine pub there.”
“Can I get a beer?” Ben asked.
Luke frowned. “No.”
Ben turned back to his food.
Alice appeared a few minutes later to clear the dishes. She was dressed once again in vibrant colors—this time lime green—and her hair was a light brown puff of curls. “Good morning, Mr. Solo. You’re looking fit. I hope you got a good night’s sleep.”
“Too short one,” Ben said.
“You’ll adjust to the time change,” said Luke, rising from his place at the head of the table and coming around it toward the door. He clapped Ben on the shoulder as he passed. “Let’s be off.” In the foyer, he asked, “Have you got a jacket? It’s raining a bit.”
Ben shook his head. “I left it at home.”
“Well, you can borrow one of mine.” Luke reached for a tan raincoat, but Ben knew it wouldn’t fit him. He said as much and Luke muttered, “Oh, yes, of course. Take the umbrella, then.”
Ben did, and he actually did open it as they went out through the chilly precipitation. Luke led the way in purposeful strides across the lawn toward the main building. It took a full five minutes to walk all the way around the side to where the fountain was babbling on the main green.
“The largest structure started out as a country house for an earl in the early nineteenth century,” Luke told him, “but it was almost completely knocked down when the school was established. A few walls remain, though not many. Construction started in 1882 and was completed in 1884, when Haverhill opened for the first eighty students.” He pointed to the far left side of the building. “They all boarded there initially, but the dormitories have expanded since then. Each of the five houses has their own wing, now. These two”—a gesture at the additions to the left and right of the main building—“are Fircroft and Elmfield, the two oldest houses.
“Behind them are Oakeshott and Raglan. Arkanis is on the north side. I’ll show you later.” He took a step toward the front doors. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”
The entryway was massive and soared up at least three stories, mirrored stone staircases winding up around both sides of the space. The floors were gray flagstone, bare and worn with almost a century’s worth of boys’ feet. It was somewhat warmer in the building, but drafty, as if some hidden bellows was blowing air from the nooks under the stairs.
“The dining hall is straight through the doors here,” Luke said. “We all eat together three meals a day, as soon as term starts. Breakfast is at seven-thirty every morning, lunch at half one, and supper at six. You have a house meeting after breakfast for announcements—usually short—and then there’s chapel.”
“We have to go to church?” Ben demanded. Neither of his parents had been churchgoing and he had been in one only once, when he and his mother had been sightseeing in Boston.
“Only to sing a hymn or two, say your prayers, and hear something from the chaplain. It’s fifteen minutes at most.”
“I don’t pray.”
Luke shrugged. “Then you can contemplate something else for a few minutes. It’s tradition here to attend chapel. You’ll get used to it.”
Ben scowled at the green and gold school banner, which hung from the second story and was adorned with a sprawling tree under some other kind of elaborate heraldry. It looked like fruit was hanging from the branches, but Ben couldn’t make out what kind.
“Come along,” said Luke. “I’ll show you the classrooms.” They ascended the rightmost staircase, and he narrated as they went: “Lessons start at nine o’clock every day and last about forty minutes each. You’ll take classes in maths and classics and English literature and composition. There’s history and geography, too. Do you have a favorite subject?”
“Not really,” said Ben, stepping up onto the second floor landing. “What’s classics?”
Luke turned to him, seemingly affronted. “Latin and Greek, of course. The poets and philosophers of the ancient world.”
Ben blinked uncomprehendingly. “You mean we have to read dead languages? Like, in a class?”
Luke actually blanched. “You’ve not had either in school?”
“No,” Ben said. “I took Spanish, and I failed it. Why the hell would someone want to learn Greek?”
“Mind your language!” Luke stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The classics are the foundation of a complete education. I had Latin in my schools in America when I was young. Greek I learned at Cambridge. You’ve really not had any?”
Crossing his arms, Ben said stolidly, “Nope.”
Luke worried his cheek, shifting his weight between his feet. “Well, you can’t just go into the younger boys’ classes to learn the basics. Someone will have to tutor you to get you up to speed.” He sighed. “Finding the time and the right boy…”
“Don’t you teach classics?” Ben asked. “Can’t you do it?”
“No,” Luke replied. “That wouldn’t be appropriate. It could be seen as favoritism, and word will get around quickly enough that you’re my nephew. And teachers don’t spend one-on-one time with boys. It’s...inappropriate.”
There was subtext that Ben couldn’t quite puzzle out in that, but he didn’t press the matter.
“It will have to be one of the other pupils who works with you,” his uncle concluded. “I’ll have to arrange it when the boys from your house arrive, speak to Housemaster Snoke about the keenest ones who have the time. You certainly can’t just sit in on the class without being prepared to delve into the material. What do you know of Herodotus?”
“Who?” Ben said.
Luke pinched his eyes shut, as if mourning. “Yes, well, we’ll see to it that you’re caught up. Come along, now.”
They turned down the nearest hallway, which had very little natural light filtering in through narrow horizontal windows set high in the wall. The ceilings were beamed with ornately carved dark wood, the plaster above yellowing. It cast an imposing air over the place—hallowed halls of knowledge and all that, Ben supposed. There was a mildly musty smell to the whole place: aged and damp.
“This is Housemaster Krennic’s classroom,” said Luke as they stopped outside a small room filled wall to wall with old-fashioned student desks, their wood tops the kind that lifted to allow you to put your books inside and, if Ben wasn’t imagining it, a circle at the top corner to hold an inkwell. The wood was discolored from years of lacquer and Ben could only imagine that the hinges creaked.
“What house is he ‘master’ of?” Ben asked.
“Fircroft,” said Luke. “They have a good relationship with the Arkanis boys, even if they don’t mix much. You might run into trouble with Oakeshott. They’re Arkanis’s rivals in academics and sport. Mainly sport.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Don’t talk to Oakeshott, got it.”
Luke shook his head. “It’s not that you can’t talk to them, but there’s just some animosity. And schools today are more modern in how the houses interact. There was a time when you kept only to your house and to your year. Speaking with younger boys or boys from another house was frowned upon.”
“Why?” Ben had found himself hanging around some older kids when he had skipped school, but he wouldn’t really have called them friends. He had never really had many of those in the first place; he had been either too focused on his grades—before—or just didn’t care enough to bother.
“Well, it’s a complicated history,” said Luke with the same kind of caution Ben had heard when he talked about masters and boys being alone together, “but some younger boys got an unsuitable kind of attention from the older boys and administration strove to keep them separate.” He waved a hand. “But things have changed in the last few years with more flexible governance in the schools.”
Ben had no real idea what he meant. Whatever he was trying to say was shrouded in “flexible governance” and “unsuitable attention.” It made the sentences sound important without actually saying anything understandable; people at his school in Massachusetts had done it with him, too.
“I try to foster a healthy environment here,” Luke continued, “even if sometimes the old ways are too ingrained to completely buff out.”
“Okay,” Ben muttered.
Luke took a breath. “Anyway, Master Krennic teaches English. You’ve had at least that in school, haven’t you?”
Ben nodded. “Everything else you said, we had. Just not the Latin and Greek. What about science? Biology or chemistry?”
“Ah, those things are not traditionally taught in a public school. Haverhill was meant to educate gentlemen, and for most of them science was a hobby, not a subject to study in school.” He sniffed. “That classics were considered more important.”
Ben heaved a sigh. This place made even less sense than his uncle’s makeshift history lesson. “Whatever.”
From the classroom, they continued down the hall, Luke pointing out other spaces. Mostly it was closed-off classrooms, which were mirrored on the other side of the main building. It all looked similar enough that Ben was sure he wouldn’t remember how to get anywhere when term actually started.
“The staff offices are on the third floor,” Luke explained, “but you likely won’t be called to one unless you’ve done something to merit punishment. And I can rely on you not to, correct?”
Ben guessed right in saying, “Yes, Headmaster.” The words tasted sour.
Luke gave a curt, satisfied nod. “Good. Now, why don’t we venture outside again? I’ll show you the chapel courtyard and and sports fields.”
The rest of the grounds took a good part of the morning to explore, and Luke talked all the while, outlining more of Haverhill’s background and rattling off sports records. Apparently, boys from the other schools around the country would play each other in cricket or rugby once or twice a year and the whole school made a big deal of it: sitting out on the lawn with tea and “biscuits” and cheering on your classmates. It sounded awful. At least there wasn’t a play Ben would be forced to do. He was also told if he didn’t want to sing in the chapel choir, he didn’t have to.
“Shall we head to the village, then?” Luke said as they arrived back at the headmaster’s lodge after a dewy walk around the cricket pitch and between the crumbling, tin-roofed sports equipment sheds.
With no other choice, Ben said, “Yeah, okay.”
He folded himself uncomfortably into the little orange car again, and Luke started the engine; a belt whined as it warmed up. In jerky, stuttering motions, Luke got the car rolling around the driveway and toward the central lane that led from the front lawn of the school building to the iron gates some quarter mile away. They passed very little traffic on their drive, the feeble windshield wipers struggling to slough off the rain.
They drove by the empty train depot and on down a shallow hill to where a few houses began to come into view. Tindon was a tiny place with no more than five hundred residents, Luke told him, but most public schools were out in the country like that. The village had the essentials—butcher, baker, pharmacy, tailor’s shop, pub—and little more. Luke pulled the car onto a side street and yanked on the parking brake. They had already rounded the corner onto a larger thoroughfare when Ben realized he had forgotten the umbrella.
Fischer’s was a remarkably airy shop with sharply dressed mannequins positioned in the large front windows. Ben recognized the heraldry of Haverhill on one of the hunter green blazers: a patch sewn onto the breast. Paired with it was an awful yellow tie striped with the same green and black and a white shirt, khaki trousers. Ben couldn’t imagine wearing it, but with the way things were going, he expected he was about to.
A bell tinkled on the door as he and Luke entered the shop, summoning a lanky man with leathery skin and white hair from behind a counter. He offered Luke a nicotine-stained smile and a handshake.
“Jacob Fischer,” Luke said, “this is my nephew, Ben Solo, who is matriculating at Haverhill this term.”
“A pleasure to meet you, lad,” said Fischer, also shaking Ben’s hand. Ben could feel all the bones in it, fragile and grinding like a chicken’s. “We’re to get you outfitted for school, then, are we?” He looked Ben up and down, appraising. “You’ll need a good fitting for your size. Stand over there by the mirror, lad.”
Ben went across the shop floor to where a tri-paneled mirror stood against the wall. A raised platform waited there for him to step up onto. He had seen this kind of thing in movies, but never expected to do it in real life; it was something out of history, just like the rest of Haverhill.
“How’s business?” Luke asked as Fischer returned with a tape measure around his neck and a few pairs of trousers slung over his arm.
“Fair to middling,” Fischer replied. He pushed a pair of tan trousers into Ben’s hand and said, “Off with yours and on with these. You’ll tell me if the waist is too tight.”
Ben cast a glance around to see if there was a private place to change his clothes, but when he turned up nothing, he quickly undid the button fly of his jeans and shimmied out of them. The tan trousers fit well around the waist, which Ben was sure Fischer had already known before he picked them out. He figured the old man was the kind of fairytale tailor who could gauge a size just by looking.
“You always say that,” Luke laughed, sitting in a chair nearby. “Surely all of the boys still come here to be outfitted, even up from London.”
Fischer ushered Ben onto the platform and made him turn around in a circle, lifting his sweater hem up to bare his belly. He did this all with gestures and movements alone, talking to Luke all the while. “I’d say a good number of them do; their mums and dads know the quality of the work, but sometimes a trip here is too much when they’re off on a continental holiday for the summer and all that.”
“How many haven’t you seen in the past two weeks, then?” Luke asked, wry.
Fischer grumbled, “Enough.”
Luke chuckled, resting his hands on his belly as he sat in the armchair. “Well, Ben will certainly give you some good business. He needs everything from underwear and socks to ties.”
Ben shot him a look. “I have my own underwear.”
“Not the appropriate kind, however,” said Luke. He and Fischer shared a laugh while the tailor tugged at Ben’s waistline and then stooped to measure the fall of his pant legs. They were too short.
“I’ll have to put you in the long cut, then,” he said, much to himself. “But can’t be having a looser waist. They don’t feed you well enough up there on the hill to fatten you up.”
Luke scoffed. “Our fare is more than enough for growing boys, Jacob. I don’t starve them like a Victorian headmaster, I’ll thank you to remember.”
Ben looked down his long and lean torso, thinking that breakfast had already gone through him and he was getting hungry for lunch. Fischer made another few measurements at Ben’s feet before standing upright again and clearing his throat. Close, he smelled of cigarettes.
“Fine, fine,” Fischer muttered as he manipulated Ben’s arms so that he was holding them out to be measured. He wrapped the tape measure around Ben’s neck, too, under his hair. “We’ve got shirts in stock for you. Socks and pants, too, but the jacket will have to be cut to suit. I should have it by, hm, Thursday.”
“That’s more than time enough,” said Luke. “Term doesn’t start until Monday, but Alice will need time to sew in the tags. She’s a quick hand with the needle, as you well know.”
Fischer smiled almost wistfully. “Pretty Alice, yes. She’s still up there with you, then? Thought she would have been married years ago.”
Luke shook his head. “She could never find a man good enough for her. And I would sorely hate to lose her.”
Ben watched him in the mirror’s reflection, recognizing the fond look there and wondering if maybe Luke was weighing himself against Alice’s apparently stringent requirements for marriage. The look faded as fast as it had come, however, and Luke was back to the banter with Fischer about his business.
Put through a few more rounds of trousers and then a tie fitting, Ben said nothing. Both Fischer and Luke were aghast when they learned that he couldn’t do up the tie knot himself. Han Solo had never once in his life worn a tie—not even to his wedding—and his son hadn’t had much cause to, either. Luke came up beside him and walked him through the simplest knot that would serve for school.
“I’ll teach you more later,” he said as he tightened it far too much, restricting Ben’s airflow. As soon as he had stepped away, Ben hurriedly loosened the noose.
“He’ll have everything ready in time,” said Fischer as he ambled back to the counter and began to ring numbers up on his antiquated till. “On your account, Headmaster?”
“Hm, yes,” said Luke. “I’ll have to telephone Leia about it. In fact…” He turned to Ben. “We should have rung her yesterday when you got here. She’ll likely be worried sick wondering if you got here safely.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s fine,” said Ben, flat.
On the day he left, there had been no time for more than a peck on the cheek and a crooked, half-formed hug by the time he and his mother got to the airport. She had been running late from the hospital again, and if she didn’t have a lead foot, he would have missed his flight. The sharp edge of Leia’s handbag had knocked against Ben’s knee as she had pulled him down for the obligatory kiss; she had struggled to keep it on her shoulder in their rush to get to the gate. Ben had carried his suitcase alongside her, taking one stride for every two of hers.
“Be good for your uncle,” she had said, giving his hand a last squeeze.
That had been her send-off, and Ben was positive she had slept soundly that night and then woken up for the early shift at the hospital the next morning without a second thought.
“Well, we’ll still telephone when we get back to the lodge,” Luke said, clearly resolved. To Fischer: “If everything’s in order, then we’ll be by on Thursday to pick the lot up.”
Back in his own clothes again, Ben followed Luke out of the shop and back onto the street. The rain was falling heavier now and Luke cursed, pulling up the collar of his raincoat. Ben trailed behind him, his hair already beginning to grow damp, as they made their way down the street to another crooked-roofed building in the Tudor style. Ben could only guess if it was authentic or not.
Inside, it was warm and smokey, darker than Fischer’s shop. A pair of older men were seated at the bar, one of them sucking on an unlit pipe. A bartender was behind the bar, cleaning the taps with a stained rag. “Hello,” he said gruffly when the door had shut behind Luke and Ben. “Get you something?”
“Two steak pies, I should think,” Luke replied. “And a pot of tea to share.”
“I don’t like tea,” said Ben.
Luke patted his bicep. “You’ll come to.” He went to a high-backed booth in a corner and slid inside. The unpadded wooden bench was hard on Ben’s seat bones.
Sitting down for the first time in an hour, Ben peered around the pub. It was cramped and old, but the smell of food from the kitchen was tantalizing; his stomach growled. He didn’t know what a steak pie was, but he was ready to eat almost anything at that point.
“When did you come here?” he asked Luke, who had been removing his raincoat and pushing it to the side.
“To Tindon?” Luke said. “Or Haverhill?”
“Both.”
Luke rubbed his chin, his short nails rasping in his beard. “Going on twenty-four years now, I think. I got the position right out of university.” He lowered his voice, eyeing Ben pointedly. “As classics master. But I took over the headmastership five years ago, when my predecessor, Owen Kenobi, retired. Good God, he’d had the job for over three decades.”
Ben said, “Did you always want to be a teacher?”
“I can’t say I did, but I wasn’t going to be a scholar, so I ended up in the right place. Haverhill is as much home as anywhere else, I suppose.” He smiled. “A school like this grows on you, absorbs you. It will be become part of your legacy, too, and shape you in ways you don’t expect.”
Ben wrinkled his nose. “I doubt it.”
Luke shrugged. “Just wait and see. By the end of the year, you might be a whole new person, Ben.”
The tea arrived, and then shortly after what looked like a chicken pot pie, but with mashed potatoes and a boat of gravy on the side. When Ben cut it open, the scent of cooked beef and ale rose up, filling his nose and making his mouth water. The first bite was divine.
“Like it, eh?” Luke said with a wink. “It’s my favorite, too.”
Ben nodded as he chewed, already busily cutting another chunk of flaky crust and dousing it in gravy. He covetously eyed the older men’s pint glasses of dark brown beer, but forced himself to try some of the tea. He drank it plain in three gulps, despite the temperature.
Luke settled the bill with coins unfamiliar to Ben, leaving them on the table with a colorful banknote as he gathered his coat again. They didn’t have any more errands to run, he said, so they would return to the lodge and spend the afternoon.
“I think I’ve got a rudimentary Latin grammar in the library,” he told Ben. “You can start there this week and build a foundation for your tutor.”
Ben didn’t protest, even if he didn’t relish the thought of reading anything that was called a “grammar.”
Back at the lodge, Luke called for Alice to arrange an international telephone call for Ben. He hoped his mother was actually home as the ringing tone sounded in his left ear. After seven rings, Leia picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Ben!” She sounded surprised. “Oh, I’m glad to hear from you. You must be at Luke’s by now.”
“Uh-huh. I got here yesterday.”
“Good.” She paused. “How is it?”
Ben replied, “Fine, I guess. Weird. Old. I just got fitted for my uniform.”
“You sound absolutely thrilled about that,” his mother said dryly. When Ben didn’t say anything, she continued: “Will you put your uncle on? I haven’t talked to him in years.”
“Okay. Hang on.” He set the handset down and went looking for Luke, whom he found in the small library with a battered book in his hand. “Mom wants to talk to you,” Ben told him. More than me.
“Oh, very good,” Luke said. As he went by, he handed Ben the book. “Have a look at this.”
Alone in the library, Ben flipped the book open to the first page: the Latin grammar. He looked at the words he had never seen and didn’t understand with a kind of hopelessness. The reality of everything was just beginning to set it; he had to be here without an escape. His mom cared more about catching up with her twin than about her son—not that Ben had much to say to her anyway. He snapped the grammar shut and stalked back out into the foyer. From the parlor, he could hear Luke chatting with Leia. He lingered in case she wanted to say goodbye to him, which she did, briefly.
“I love you, Ben,” she said.
“Yeah, you, too. Bye, Mom.” He hung up the phone.
Luke was smiling at him. “Well, I suppose it’s official now. You’re over here and term will be starting soon. You’ve got the rest of the afternoon to yourself, if you want it. I’ll call you down for tea around six.”
Ben didn’t waste time; he went upstairs to his room and closed the door firmly behind him. He fell back onto the bed, which had been made in his absence. The ceiling above him was low and ancient, compounding the feeling of being trapped. Tears pricked his eyes, but he didn’t dare let them fall. At some point, he fell asleep.
On Thursday morning after breakfast, Luke drove him back to Fischer’s to pick up his school clothes, which Luke entrusted to Alice to “get ready.” They had a light lunch before Ben was given liberty again. It was a rare sunny day, and warmer than the last few, so he ventured outside and over to the pool. It was locked, but he managed to scale the fence. He took off his shoes, rolled up his pant legs, and stuck his feet in the water. At least he could pretend for a few minutes that it was a real summer.
First and second and third conjugations of Latin verbs swam in his head as he sat at the poolside. Luke had spent time with him over the past days introducing the language, which was already more complicated than Spanish; Ben had struggled enough with that even when he was attending class. His uncle was sometimes inspired by a certain quirk of the grammar to do a reading from some formative ancient text, which Ben listened to without comprehending. Sometimes he got a full translation and other times Luke just launched into a lecture about the content. The words rolled over Ben in waves he barely heard; he spent more time looking out of the window at the field beyond the lodge than reading the book in his lap.
He had had free hours to walk through that field, damp, fresh-cut grass sticking to the toes of his shoes. The school grounds were lined with stands of trees into which he could disappear, even if he couldn’t climb up onto low limbs and tuck himself away. Alice had warned that the “forest” was off limits to students during the term, when they were expected to stay within bounds.
“I’ll admit,” she had said the day before when she and Luke and Ben had been having tea in the parlor, “the boys aren’t afforded much freedom, but that’s by design. Otherwise they’d be getting into all manner of trouble, wouldn’t they, Headmaster?”
Luke had given a grunt of affirmation.
Alice had leaned in toward Ben, conspiratorially whispering, “A little trouble isn’t so bad.” She had given him an expectant look, but he had just taken a bite of a cookie and kept his eyes straight ahead.
Swinging his feet through the cool water of the pool, he drummed his fingers on the cover of the grammar where it lay at his side. It had a few of Luke’s margin notes in it, some of which were in English and others in Latin. Ben had, on one occasion, opened the thick dictionary Luke kept on his desk and looked up the words, brokenly translating them and marking it down under Luke’s looping scrawl in pencil. His own handwriting was blocky and easy to read; the cursive he had been forced to learn long disused.
Luke had told him that he would have to pass the final Latin exam if he wanted to pass the course, which meant in no uncertain terms that he had to bone up fast and cleverly. The ghost of his drive to succeed began to make itself known as he cracked a composition notebook and copied vocabulary. He wasn’t about to admit that to his uncle, though.
The school building lay to the northwest of the pool, at Ben’s back, but he cast a glance over his shoulder at it, still uncertain as to what he was going to face when the other students returned. He didn’t crave friendship, seeking only to get through the academic year and, hopefully, pass his exams. Luke hadn’t mentioned what would happen if he didn’t, but Ben anticipated that it would be a longer sentence at Haverhill; he didn’t need or want that. The sense of unbelonging hung heavy over him, the look and feel of the grounds foreign and discomfiting.
“Oi!” came a voice from the other side of the pool’s fence. “How did you get in there?”
Ben turned to see a grizzled man standing there glaring at him, a ring of old brass keys jingling in his knobby hand as he fussed with the padlock on the gate.
“Boys aren’t permitted in here unsupervised,” he continued, incensed. “You’re not even supposed to be here until the weekend. Who are you?”
Ben pulled his feet from the water and onto the deck, leaving wet footprints on the concrete. “The headmaster’s nephew,” he said, loudly enough to be heard. “I, um, got here early.”
The man paused, having marked Ben’s accent. “American?” he grumbled.
“Yeah,” Ben said, reaching down to pick up his shoes and socks and the Latin grammar. “Who are you?”
“Groundskeeper,” the man replied as he swung the pool gate open. “McDougle. Come out of there. Quick now.”
Ben took his time—deliberately—but went out the gate onto the grass.
“What are you called, headmaster’s nephew?” McDougle asked.
“Ben Solo.”
“Don’t share a name with the headmaster, then.” He had brown hair fading to gray and liver spots on his sinewy forearms, bared by rolled-up sleeves. His brown trousers were stained with what looked like soil and maybe grease; his boots were worn at the toes from years of rough treatment. It was plain he worked outside.
“No,” Ben said.
McDougle made an honest-to-God harrumphing sound and locked the pool gate again. “Going to school here, then? You’re too big to be fourth form.”
Ben shoved one hand into his trouser pocket, the other cradling the grammar at his side. “Upper sixth, I guess. Arkanis House.”
The groundskeeper snorted. “Oh, that’ll be a treat. Snoke runs it with an iron fist. Administers the most canings per year, far as I know.”
“He does what?” Ben asked, taken aback. Surely he didn’t mean actual beatings.
He got a harsh, rheumy laugh. “It’s just what it sounds like. He puts boys over the block and switches them, and not lightly.”
Ben’s mouth hung open. “No way.”
“They must do things differently in America,” said McDougle with a crooked smile. “Cross the housemaster or even the head boy in this place and you can earn yourself a caning.” He wagged a finger at Ben. “You’d best watch yourself. Breaking into the pool would likely get you one, if Snoke were here. And you shouldn’t dare think of actually swimming without your gamesmaster. Ten strikes at least. Sore bum for days.”
Ben, unbelieving, shook his head. “Jesus.”
McDougle laughed again. “Get gone now, boy. I’ve work to do and I can’t be dallying around here talking to you.”
“Fine,” Ben grumbled as he stalked past the groundskeeper and toward the lodge barefoot.
He carried his shoes back inside, making sure to wipe the grass from his feet on the doormat. Strains of the Bee Gees floated into the foyer from the parlor, and he followed them in to find Alice sitting in one of the chairs with a radio next to her. One of his school shirts was in her lap and she was stitching something into the collar.
“Hi,” Ben said, approaching her.
She glanced up, beaming. “Hello, dear.” Her gaze went to his shoes and rolled up trousers. “Been outside, have you? Lovely day for it. Would you like something to eat?”
“No thanks.” He shuffled closer, eyeing his shirt. “What are you doing?”
“Sewing in your nametags,” she said, lifting the shirt to display the neatly written Benjamin Solo on the tag. “You need one for everything. They do the washing in big batches and without the tags, your clothes will never find their way back to you.” She brandished a pair of the plain white underwear Ben had been supplied with. “Even these.”
“Great,” he mumbled.
Alice’s smile softened some. “I know this is all different for you, and a bit overwhelming. It’s a big change to come to a school like this after yours in America. The headmaster told me about how it works over there. Things are more formal here.”
“I met McDougle outside,” Ben said. “He told me that people get caned if they break the rules.”
“Oh, dear,” Alice sighed. “McDougle can be upfront. It’s not as common as it used to be, but sometimes it still happens.”
“He said Housemaster Snoke does it more than others.”
Alice worried the collar of Ben’s shirt. “He’s a very severe man, I’m afraid. He was brought up in public schools like Haverhill, but in an earlier generation. He’s some ten years older than your uncle. The old ways of doing things are sewn as surely into him as your tags are into this. If you don’t cross him, though, he won’t trouble you.”
Ben chewed his cheek. “Yeah, McDougle said that, too.”
“Things might be difficult for you at the start of term, dear,” Alice said sedately. “Outsiders aren’t always welcomed warmly. The boys here can be...selective in who they get on with. I’m sure you’ll do all right, but it’s only fair to warn you. Your uncle has played it down so far.”
Ben looked down at his clothes from home and then to the neat white shirt he would have to wear at school. It would make him blend in, but his voice would stick out. He wasn’t here to make nice, though; he’d survive.
“Anyway, dear,” said Alice, “I’ve gotten your trunk upstairs for you. As soon as I’m finished with these clothes, I’ll send them up for you to pack. Best to do it yourself so you know what’s where.”
“Okay,” he said. “Um, why do I need a trunk? I have my suitcase.”
“Oh, a trunk is customary. You keep it at the foot of your bed, with all your private things in it. Everyone knows not to root through someone’s trunk.”
Ben nodded shallowly. “Okay.”
Alice got to her feet—the top of her head came only to the middle of Ben’s chest—and took his hand in her petite one. “Be brave, Mr. Solo.” A beat and then: “You’ll need it.”
Ben went upstairs to his room, where a wooden trunk was waiting for him, its lid open. A brass nameplate was screwed onto the top of it. It looked expensive. He wondered if Luke had asked his mother for money, or if he had just paid for it himself. Ben would probably never know, since he wasn’t going to ask.
The trunk smelled of varnish and leather, other old-fashioned scents that he would never have associated with school. His single-floor high school had been built a decade before and mostly reeked of linoleum cleaner and occasionally a whiff of marijuana. Haverhill was like traveling back in time, from the drafty building with its high ceilings to the custom-made trunk for his “private things.”
He didn’t have much other than his clothes from home, all of which would be packed away into some closet in the lodge, not be touched. Keepsakes and little boy’s treasures had been left in his bedroom in his mother’s house, surely to become dusty and forgotten. Everything he would be taking to the dormitory in Arkanis House was new and unworn, impersonal. It suited the situation, Ben supposed: everything was unfamiliar and orderly and stiff.
Slamming the trunk shut, he sat on it and put his face in his hands, bitterly resigned.