The Heir Of Sargas

HALLOWEEN "So, it's for tonight, okay?" said Derek. Jamie waited a few seconds to answer, looking around the crowded mess hall and rumbling with the screams and laughter of the boys. Finally, as if pondering the words, he said, "I doubt my parents will allow me." "Don’t say what we have in mind." "What time do we have?" "I do not know. We'll stay there for a couple of hours, then go home. And you, Willy, are you one of us?” Derek and Jamie turned to their friend, watching the scene that was unfolding a few tables away. Billy Benson had sat on the stew that Jimmy Richer had hidden in his chair, and in getting up with a scream of anger he had accidentally spilled the can of Coke on his shirt. The boys sitting nearby were bent in two with great laughter, Even the professors tried with little success to get a hold of themselves and take a serious look. “It suits that brat right. Always so arrogant…” Derek commented disdainfully. Willy barely looked away from that scene, and the half-smile he had printed in his mouth sagged like a withered flower when he returned to focus on the greenish mush, with pieces of carrot floating like so many cockroaches. "And this is called soup?" he blurted out in disgust and pushed his plate away with an annoyed gesture. Suddenly, he had lost all his appetite. "Hey, Willy, are you listening?" called Jamie back. Willy shook his head as if to chase away an annoying insect and looked up. Derek and Jamie looked at him with an im-patient and resentful expression. "Sorry. I was just..." "... scared?" concluded Derek to him. "I'm not afraid," Willy retorted. "I was thinking about other things." "See you tonight?" sneered Derek. "No," replied Willy, grimly. "To this s**t that they stuff us every day passing it off as food." "This is nothing new. I thought you had gotten used to it after all these years," Jamie said, ravenously biting into his sausage. “We weren't talking about that anyway,” Derek interrupted. "Right, we still have to decide what to do tonight." "There is no doubt about that. The problem is another: will you dare to do it?" "The question is not whether we are brave or not," Willy said. "Indeed," Jamie immediately agreed, glad that he was not the only one who felt that way. “We can't go home at three or four in the morning.” “We have to do it after midnight, when there won't be anyone on the street anymore,” Derek decided, not listening to their comments. "Then we'll take action." Then he giggled in front of their faces and said something, but his voice was swallowed up by the sound of the bell and the scratching of the chairs on the dirty and sticky floor, so that Willy and Jamie did not hear his words. Willy stood up and grabbed his backpack; Jamie and Derek did the same. Without saying anything else, without looking into each other's eyes, they separated. Derek and Willy walked out the front door, while Jamie approached a row of boys on the stairs to access the upper floor classrooms. Although uncertain and unconvinced of the success of their plan, they would still have found themselves that night in front of the cemetery. From the open window came the shouts of children knocking on the door of each house with the ritual formula: "Trick or treat?" Willy quickly tied his shoelaces, grabbed the mask thrown over the bed and ran down the stairs. As soon as he put his hand on the knob of the door, he heard his mother call him back. "Yes, Mom?" he said, looking into the living room. “Curfew is at midnight.” Willy's hands holding the mask trembled slightly. He had hoped so much that she would forget about it! "But I..." He began to say. "You're only twelve years old," his father intervened sternly. He had just entered the room and was looking at him from head to toe “You are too young to come back later.” "But I want to be with my friends," Willy protested. “Isn't it enough for you to stay with them until midnight? Besides, you see each other every day.” Willy shook his head. Is it possible that they did not understand? That was a special night; it was Halloween night. "And then," his father continued, "at a certain time people want to go to sleep. Or did you think you'd eat all the sweets at once?" "No, no, I don't want to do this." As soon as he said this sentence, he bit his lip. And in fact, his mother asked, suspiciously, "So what do you want to do?" Stupid! Willy told himself. Now they won't move the curfew. He had screwed himself. He certainly couldn't tell them that he intended to spend the night in the cemetery. So, he turned on his heel and opened the front door. "You don’t want to do like last year, do you?" his mother shouted after him. Willy turned around, his hand still gripping the doorknob. “I already told you, “he said through clenched teeth. "I have nothing to do with it." “Mr. Lunber claims you were there too.” "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Willy blurted out. "I was on my way home and as I passed in front of Villa Lunber, boys were throwing firecrackers on the roof of his house. By the way, I don't even know those guys, they were all older than me." His father looked at him suspiciously but said nothing. Willy knew that if he didn't believe him then, he wouldn't believe him now. But he didn't care. Without saying anything else, he crossed the threshold. As he was leaving, he heard his father shouting after him: “Please, come home no later than midnight. I don't want to stay up waiting for you." Willy closed the door behind him with a sharp thud. As soon as he arrived at the gate of the garden, he heard the door open. He turned and saw his mother coming towards him with a bunch of keys. “Don't be too late, and don't make any noise when you come back” were her only words. Willy thanked her with a smile and ran to Derek's house, only two blocks away. "So?" Willy asked as soon as he had opened the door. “My parents aren't here,” Derek replied with a broad smile. "What?!" Willy said, surprised by such luck. “Business. They won't be back until the day after tomorrow. So I can also spend all night outside. And how did it go for you?" “They gave me the keys. And Jamie, did you hear that?” "He has a fever. He can't get out." "What a hell! Just on Halloween night." Derek locked the front door and put on the mask. Willy also put on his and together they had dived into the tide of children on the road. The gardens that preceded the dense terraced houses shone with lights and colors. Large pumpkins with gnashing mouths and evil eyes looked from the top of the balconies of the windows, tombstones of various sizes were scattered here and there to give the impression of being seriously in a cemetery. Skeletons, witches, monsters and much more roamed the crowded street and knocked on the doors of the houses. "Trick or treat?" they asked when someone came to open the door. But this was only a child’s game, it was no longer suitable for twelve-year-olds. Now they were tired of going to ask for sweets in every house and eat them all in one night, before the adults threw them in the trash with the usual excuse that you get tooth decay. When you grow up you go in search of new adventures, new entertainment. What Willy and Derek were going to do that night was very different from what their companions were doing. They had no intention of setting fire to a few gardens, throwing firecrackers on the roofs of houses (Willy had been unjustly accused) or among the stream of children just for the sake of terrorizing them. None of this. They wanted to experience something new, if not unique. They wanted to spend the whole night in the cemetery. In fact, that was not an ordinary night, like all the others. It was Halloween night, the night when ghosts retrace their earthly footsteps to haunt the living. To tell the truth, Willy was not particularly enthusiastic about the idea, but in order not to be considered a coward he had accepted. After all, it was only a matter of a few hours, and then that night it wasn't even that cold. The real obstacle to this plan, he thought, was his parents. When he told them that he would be later than usual, he expected harsh reprimands and that, as usual, they would schedule the curfew at midnight. Instead, it had gone luxuriously. Hard to believe his own eyes, he had taken the house keys from his mother's hands without showing that he was too pleased and had run away with her voice behind him advising him to avoid making too much mess when he returned. It would have been enough for him to get home before seven and that was it, no one would ever have noticed that he had spent the night away from home. While mulling over all this, he did not realize that he had arrived in front of the closed gate of the cemetery. "Shall we go?" asked Derek in a thin voice, so much so that with the screams of the children behind them, Willy barely heard him. "Let's go," Willy replied resolutely, and at the same time as he uttered that word he marveled at his courage, while his limp legs were shaken by a slight trembling. "Afraid?" Willy thought he caught a note of mockery in his voice. "Not even by dream," he said dryly. By now it was decided, they would spend the night there. They turned around to make sure they weren't seen, but there was too much confusion for anyone to notice. So, one by one, they climbed a tree beside the fence and dropped down on the other side. Willy was the first to land on the thick, unkempt grass of the hillock on which stood a myriad of tombstones eroded by time. Not far away a shovel lay abandoned on the ground and nearby there was a hole still to be dug. Everything would have been plunged into darkness if the light from the streetlamps hadn't filtered through the bars of the gate, casting dark shadows on the loose earth of the tombs. Derek, as soon as he got down to his side, pulled a sleeve of his jacket. "Come," he whispered in his ear and walked away with cautious steps toward the top of the hill. Willy hesitated; he had all his senses on edge. Every single noise, however slight, such as the rustling of the wind in the branches of the tree or the footsteps of Derek themselves, made him wince from fright. But he didn't want to look like a coward, so he clenched his fists tightly and followed his friend. They sat at the foot of the great oak tree overlooking the summit. At first, they exchanged a few words, but after a few minutes they were silent, afraid of disturbing some creature hidden in the shadows. So it was that they waited. But what were they waiting for? The arrival of some ghost? Or that a zombie came out of his grave and headed towards them, the bandages that unfolded around the slender greenish arms stretched forward? Willy didn't know and didn't even care. I don't believe in ghosts, he told himself trying to control the shaking in his legs. He just hoped Derek didn't notice. He turned to him and saw him staring straight ahead, his arms wrapped around his legs pressed against his chest. The starless black sky was cloudless, and the silver slice of the moon shone brighter than ever, engulfing the surrounding darkness, and spreading a pearly halo all around. Eagerly, he leaned back against the cold bark of the oak and put his hands in his pockets to protect them from the biting wind. Gradually he stopped shivering as an intense heat warmed him from within, blurring his vision… When he opened his eyes, his limbs were completely sore. He struggled to his feet and pounded his feet to the ground to try to get the blood back on track, at the same time rubbing his arms and cheeks vigorously. Once sensation returned throughout his body, Willy felt an unpleasant sensation in his side, but he could not understand why.