Dell'Oscuro e dell'Amore

*. Pietas .*

- Nimue -

The angels guarding the heavy door's sides of the Holy Virgin's Chapel, were horrendous: more the child stared at them and more he thought that those grinning creatures, placed on white marble pillars, had nothing to share with the celestial world, which Father Harold called "The Heaven."

They were statues of cold stone, barely damaged by the earthquake that had shaken the town five years before, the same year he born, the child remembered. he focused on the folds on those wide, chanting mouths' sides, anything but divine, and they seemed to him a couple of boys like him, but fatter and with a light veil placed on the "front bottom," as Sister Angela called it. Nonetheless they were two children, brawny, wrinkly like old men and soulless, they were repugnant and monstrous.

Thomas turned around, he felt those sculptural jokes' lethargic glance, but he was distracted by his mates' cheerful shouts as they played in the courtyard. some of them skipped around in circle, holding hands, other ran as if the Devil was hot on their heels, and they laughed: perhaps they didn't understand to have been refused by their parents, to tread the ground because their mothers hadn't had the courage to strangle them and they ended in a cage, exposed for the hypocrites visiting they.

They were objects of pity and Thomas hated it, because something in his soul screamed, it kicked to show him his strength, his superiority, even to Father Harold and his words, even to those monsters spying him from their columns.

The angels, Thomas said to himself, were soft, fair, and delicate like the flowers trampled by his mates, like his mother, who had become one of those sweet creatures, whose singing gave peace and beautiful dream to the livings.

Katlin went inside saying she had to go in the bathroom, but she had seen Riddle at the window. her gang of friends said he was mad: they said he spoke with his mother, dead in childbirth, that he sing-sung unknown and hissing words, that he was evil and so they tried to subject him. since Thomas was cruel he had never bent.

One evening Anthony, the stronger among the twelve, dragged him out of bed and in the dark he hit him with a bar of washing soap, stolen to Sister Cecilia, on his thin and tense belly and indecent parts.

"An other blow and he would have ended in your dorm, Kitty," he laughed the morning after.

Katlin snorted. "You know what joy go in isolation cell because you like to hit where... good Christians don't!"

"Yes, but he liked it, because he not even screamed: silent, like a statue. It's becoming boring, though, because he doesn't rebel or cry: he stays still, like a rag doll.

"You know, I think he is a freak," Anthony replied.

It was bizarre that Thomas didn't give in, not even when they made him taste the dirty pants of Giles, who although was quite feminine and well mannered, he used to make a lake of pee every night.

Anthony and Fred heard Giles's whining, so they told him to stand up and finish, and then to give them his pants.

"Why?" Giles asked.

"A price to pay, Giles, Brother Karl will notice your dry mattress and won't make you clean our dorm tomorrow morning," said Fred.

Thomas found with his nose covered, not even one as evil as him seemed to last much without air, he opened his mouth and that dripping cloth soaked with piss entered in his palate.

The two braves adventurers received a thin satisfaction, for such achievement: Thomas merely stared at the window; while a honeyed ray struck his reddened face, dirty with urine and saliva.

"Phew... he should have tossed a bit in sign of respect," mumbled Fred. "The fact is, even a freak like Riddle won't drink Giles's piss, will him?"

"I hope so," Kitty ended.

Thomas just rinsed his mouth and washed carefully his teeth the morning after.

The boys had tried quite everything, risking Father Harold's "Turn of Rosary", but Riddle was irremovable from his cruel muteness.

"He never sings." Once said Sister Marie, who liked order during Mass.

Kitty wasn't able to analyze Thomas, he was too distant from the twelve and her, unable to enjoy or suffer, and once she wondered about the origin of Riddle, who seemed to have a father, since he bestowed an annual donation to the religious college and Brother Benvolio recorded it with joy, greeting Mr. Riddle in the living room where one child's future parents were admitted.

However, Riddle didn't want Thomas with him, and if Sister Rita was right when she said that a man wasn't suitable to educate a child, then Mr. Riddle's money could be used to hire a nanny to educate his son as a good Christian.

Brother Benvolio's register didn't count many donations from relatives, which meant that Mr. Riddle was really enthusiastic to get rid of his son, and the reason was one: Thomas was a freak.

Kitty ran a tiny hand through her black curls, her tail had loosed during the afternoon plays, but she knew the rules and if she went in Refectory with loose hair she would receive three blows of rod.

"Hi, Thomas, are you here to confess yourself?" she asked with indifference, approaching him with caution.

Katlin was like a feline: thin, quick and precise in her graced movements, deliciously mannered like a kitten with nuns and priests, but she could scratch, deceive and excel above the boys' group at her orders.

She was nice, loved by Sister Rita, Brother Karl and father Harold, Sister Marie was pleased with her voice. Kitty was a pimp, she needed it to survive, to risk as it was enough to show her friends she was able to purr if only rewarded, because it was her nature and Katlin never worried about it, not at the age of six.

"Yes, Father Harold has ordered me to come," Thomas replied, almost annoyed.

"Father Harold confesses us on Friday, not Tuesday," Kitty replied.

"I can do nothing," Thomas then said.

Kitty folded her arms. "Yes, you can: go in, say four nonsense to Father Harold and go out," she replied insisting.

"Father Harold asks more. He wants that I forgive my dad," Tom admitted: he didn't stare at her, but raised his green eyes on the two angels.

"Say that you forgive him..."

The silence that followed her declaration paralyzed Kitty, an unknown fear, deeper and more distressing than to be whipped with a rosary or beaten: it was terror, the one you feel before a demon.

Thomas's eyes turned in a dark colour, aching like blood spilling from a wound. Kitty jumped back.

"Should I forgive the monster who killed my mum?" he screamed with such vehemence that even the statues seemed to stir, repeating that angry accusation.

Katlin took off that deafening rumble from her head and stammered. "No... you have to... let the priest to believe it," she explained hesitantly.

Thomas gave her his shoulders. "Never, not even if it is a lie! I hate that monster, I will kill him and I will see the true angels, not these ugly pieces of stone!" he answered back breathlessly.

Sister Rita closed the entrance door with a thud: Kitty had got out the park, but she noticed that the girl didn't wanted to go in the bathroom, but just to talk with young Riddle.

It was sad to know that a generous man like Mr. Riddle had a heir contaminated by the Demon, but it couldn't have been otherwise, being him the son of a Devil's slave, cruel and deceiving.

Good Thomas Riddle wanted Tom to stay among those holy boundaries, he perhaps hoped without light, yet Sister Rita didn't want to disappoint him and she heartened him, assuring him that Tom would have been taken care of, and he was.

"Thomas, how could you talk in this way before a sacred place and deny the angels' glory?" she inquired fiercely, avoiding Kitty and staring at the boy.

She was a tall and thin woman: she deprived her body of food, she wanted her eyes to burn for long hours of vigil spent praying, she implored the divine mercy, the coming of Judgment and Eternal Life, she asked God to receive all her orphans, even Thomas, to embrace them and give them love and mercy.

Mercy drove her hand, with hooked, bony fingers, on Thomas's mouth.

Kitty felt a sharp pain in her heart: she was a traitor!

It didn't matter if she commissioned Anthony and Fred's capers or if she thought Thomas was a freak, the first and inviolable rule of the college was to not jeopardize a mate in front of a black skirt.

She was shattered by her own stupidity and she only wanted to get Thomas out of trouble, for her own conscience, for the loyalty that doesn't have to be broken among mates.

She ran outside, she knew that Thomas would never retracted his affirmation about those blocks of stone, that he would say to Sister Rita he hated his father. she called Fred.

"Kitty, did you see Sister Cecilia get undressed?" the boy snickered.

"No... I have get Riddle in trouble with Sister Rita," muttered Kitty.

Fred ran a hand through his ambered hair. "Oh Heaven! How did it...

"Do you need help?

"You know it's your fault, Kitty: these rules are more sacred than Father Harold's nonsense. Phew... your dorm-mates will kill you!" Fred said.

They hear a snap, powerful, sadistic: Sister Rita's Rosary on Thomas's mouth.

"My fault!" Kitty cried.

"Yes, Kitty," said Fred severely.

The girl drew near the door. there was a strange silence, a low weeping and a choked prayer.

Kitty pushed the door. it had never seemed so heavy.

She saw two figures, wrapped in the black imposed to every good Christian.

One was standing stiffly and the latter was kneeling on the ground, with joined hands.

Kitty swallowed, walking forward with small footsteps, and she knew to be afraid.

"Miserere nobis, mercy. Miserere nobis!" sing-sung the voice.

It was a splendid but spine-chilling image like an Apocalypse's representations: Thomas M. Riddle was stained with the blood spilling from his chin to his pinafore; Sister Rita was on ground, her white Rosary dirtied with blood was turned toward the stony angels.

She was sobbing "Mercy" and broken words.

Kitty didn't understand the reason of it, until she noticed water on the floor, two small wet spots. She raised her eyes and she was that those cold stony, wide eyes were full of tear. The tear of a hopeless child.

"They are angels' tears!" Katlin screamed.

Thomas sneered sarcastically and didn't utter a word: in a way it was true, but the only Angel that could cry for him was his mother.