Immortal

One

I never wanted to go to boarding school. Hanging out with a crowd of rich kids in a swanky school was never on my wish list. I was content with my old life, in a keeping-myself-to-myself kind of way. Not happy, perhaps, but content. And then, one soft blue September day, my grandmother--Frankie--became seriously ill.

She had never been Gran to me, only dearest Frankie, my surrogate mom, my best friend. I had stupidly expected her to go on unchanged forever. But no one is immortal, not even the people we love. And now Frankie was sick and I was forced to pack my bags for Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies. Life really gives you a kick sometimes.

I was doing my best to think of it as a challenge.

The journey to Wyldcliffe seemed to last hours as the train headed north. I was traveling alone. Dad had wanted to come with me, but I'd convinced him that I would be okay going by myself.  I knew he wanted to spend every possible moment of his leave with Frankie at the nursing home before he had to go back to his army posting overseas. So I told him I was quite capable of sitting on a train for a few hours without ending up on a missing persons poster....Honestly, Dad, I'm sixteen now, not a child anymore....It wasn't that difficult to persuade him.

The truth was that I guessed it would be easier saying good-bye to him at home. The last thing I wanted was for these snobby Wyldcliffe girls to see me sniveling as my dad drove away. No, there was going to be no "poor Evie" this time. I'd had enough of that over Mom. People whispering about me in the street. The pitying looks behind my back. It wasn't going to be like that again. I was going to show them that I didn't need anyone. I was strong, as strong as the deep blue ocean. No one at Wyldcliffe would ever see me cry.

I transferred to a sleepy local train just as it was beginning to get dark. We chugged through an unfamiliar landscape of sloping hills covered with bracken and heather. In the depths of my misery I felt a twinge of curiosity. When I was little, Frankie had told me stories about Wyldcliffe, which she had heard from her mother, stories about the wild moors and the lonely farms and the harsh northern skies. I had never seen the place, but now I was almost there. I put away my magazine and my headphones and peered out of the window into the dusk.

Half an hour later, the train pulled into a little station at the head of a deep, shadowed valley. As I heaved my bags into a beat-up old taxi, a gust of wind whipped up a spatter of rain. I said, "Wyldcliffe, please," and we set off. I tried to make conversation with the bleary-eyed taxi driver, but he barely grunted in reply. We drove on in silence.

Between the clouds, I caught sight of the sun slipping behind the moors like a streak of blood. The leaden sky seemed to press down heavily on the land. I had lived all my life next to the open sea, and those dark hills made me feel strangely hemmed in. For all my brave talk, I suddenly felt very small and alone. How stupid I'd been not to let Dad come...Then the car turned a corner, and the tower and gray house buildings of Wyldcliffe village finally came into sight.

The driver pulled up outside a tiny general store on the rain-blackened street. "Where to, then?" he growled.

"The Abbey," I replied. "You know, Wyldcliffe Abbey School."

He twisted his head around and glared at me. "I'll not take you to that cursed place," He spat. "You can get out and walk."

"Oh, but--" I protested. "I don't know where it is. And it's raining."

The man seemed to hesitate, but then he grunted again. "Its not so far to walk. Knock on the door of the Jones's shop, if you like. He'll drive you, but I wont."

He got out of the car and dropped my suitcases onto the wet pavement. I scrambled after him. "But where's the school? Where do I go?"

"The Abbey is yonder." he said, pointing reluctantly to the church. "No more than half a mile from the graveyard. Tell Dan Jones that's where you're headed." A second later his car roared out of the village, leaving me behind like an unwanted package. I couldn't believe that he had just dumped me there in the pouring rain. I knocked furiously on the door of the little shop, where the sign read, D. Jones, Wyldcliffe Store And Post Office. There was no answer. It was a late, wet Sunday evening, and the whole village seemed to be shut down for the night. I swore under my breath. There was no choice but to walk.