The day of the funeral was cold, grey, and rainy, yet quite a lot of people attended it. Mrs Weiser had always been friendly and always helped wherever she could, so the number of people who had liked her, and now felt sad about her passing, was not small. After the service some of them, mainly neighbours, came over, bringing some food and something to drink, to sit together and remember the deceased. Ben knew that this was a custom, but he wished they would just go away and leave him alone. He had enough of the sad looks they were giving him all the time and of being told, what a poor, good and brave little boy he was, before they started ignoring him again – he, as a child was not a suitable conversational partner for an adult, after all, in their eyes.
When the guests were gone, Ben silently went up to his mother's room and sat down on the bed, thoughts swirling through his mind. What would become of him, now that he was alone? Would he be sent to an orphanage, where he would stay until he was old enough to start to work somewhere? Orphans had to take any position offered to them, and those were usually the lowliest paid and most dangerous jobs, that no parent wanted their child to take. If an orphan died, he or she would not be missed, maybe by one or two other children from the orphanage, but no one else would care. So, if he really went there, the probability of his survival was low and the life he would lead was far from enjoyable. After he had lost his mother and brother, he would lose everything else, too, all because of those stupid witches. Witches. It was all their fault: If they had not abducted – and very probably killed – his brother, his mother would not have become sick and would not have died yet, and he would not be sent to an orphanage, meaning that his life would probably end soon, too. Ben's sadness now made room for anger and hate towards those creatures. He remembered the two children that had been in town when his mother fell sick, they had escaped and killed a witch and were not much older than he was. They had been called to another town, though, to rescue another child, so he could not reach them now. He would have loved to talk to them, to ask them how exactly they killed that witch and whether they could teach him, too.
A knock on the door threw him out of his thoughts. When he answered, Mina came in and told him that the doctor would like to see him. When Ben entered his office, he was sitting at his desk, working on some document. He only looked up, to tell Ben to take a seat and wait a few seconds. While he waited, Ben looked around. The office was not very large and quite untidy. Books were lying nearly everywhere, medical instruments on top of them and the shelves were full of flasks and pots filled with herbs and liquids. There also was a slight smell of ether in the air, coming from a piece of cloth that lay on the table. Finally the doctor put away his feather and looked at Ben. "So, Benjamin, I know that the last few months have been very hard for you, but nevertheless this needs to be done, better earlier than later. You have no living relatives to look after you, but someone has to take care of you." Ben knew what was coming. His mother was not resting under the earth for a day and he, Ben, would be sent to an orphanage. He tried to hide his feelings, though, and kept looking at the doctor, who continued talking. "There would be the option of sending you to an orphanage, but as I have seen quite a lot of those, I know that no child should be sent there. Therefore, I would like to adopt you and send you to school, so – "Here the doctor was interrupted by Ben, who, in a rush of joy, had jumped from his chair and was now hugging the doctor. He let go as suddenly as he had hugged him, obviously shocked of the behaviour he had just displayed. He mumbled a short excuse and, flushing, returned to his seat. The doctor, who was quite amused by this small emotional outburst, now continued with a smile. "Well, it seems, as if you have no objections to this, so I will go and sign as your guardian tomorrow. Afterwards I will enrol you at school; you will be going there every day from next week on, and I expect you to work hard. You may go now." Ben assured the doctor that he would indeed work hard and thanked him, more formally this time, before he went out of the room.
He had just closed the door, when he was pulled into a hug. Mina had stood behind the door all the time, listening to every word that had been said and was now smiling as much as she had never done before. She looked as happy as Ben felt, now that they both knew that they would not lose the person they each had adopted as family.