Matt Dovey

They surround us both in the school car park, enough of them that numbers don't matter, their shadows snatching the hot sun from our faces. Boys stalking like hyenas; a pack mentality of cruelty and fear.

Madeleine hides behind me. I try to stand tall and brave for her sake, to show her the only honest way to justify your existence in this world: pride.

Lindom Hall was a cold place; a lonely place; an empty place of stone and echoes. Margaret had her servants, of course, but they hardly counted. She had grown used to the silence, perhaps, but never truly comfortable with it.

Yet now that her son was returned at last to the Hall, she took no solace in the company.

"Mother, please," he said. "It is not so much money to ask for, is it?"