.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 in his head grew stronger the conviction that those grinning creatures, placed on white marble pillars, they 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 had born, the child remembered, but he focused on the folds on those wide, chanting mouths' sides, anything but divine, and they seemed to him a couple of little boys, like him, fatter and with a light veil placed on the "front bottom," as Sister Angela called it, but 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 the cheerful shouts of his mates, assembled in the courtyard, distracted him: 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 earthling because their mothers hadn't had the courage to strangle them and they had 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 the 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 wonderful dream to the livings.
Katlin had went inside with the excuse to need the bathroom, but she had seen Riddle at the window, her gang of friends considered him mad, they said he spoke with his mother, dead childbirth, that he sing-sung unknown and hissing words, that his nature was evil, and so they tried to subject him, but since Thomas was cruel, he had never bent.
One evening Anthony, the stronger among the twelve, he had dragged him out of bed, in the dark he had 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 had laughed in the morning.
Katlin had snorted. "You Know what joy go in isolation cell because you like to hit where... good Christians don't!"
"Yes, but he had liked it, because he not even screamed. Silent, like a statue. It's becoming boring, because he doesn't rebel or cry; he stays still, like a rag doll. You know, I think he is a freak." Anthony had replied.
It was bizarre that Thomas didn't give in, not even when they had made him taste the dirty pants of Giles, who although was quite feminine and well mannered, he used to do a lake of pee every night.
Anthony and Fred had heard Giles's whining, so they had told him to stand up and finish and then to give them his pants.
"Why?" Giles had asked.
"A price to pay, Giles, tomorrow morning, Brother Karl will notice your dry mattress and won't make you clean our dorm." had 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, that dripping cloth soaked with piss had entered in his palate.
The two braves adventurers had received a thin satisfaction, for such achievement: Thomas merely had 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." had mumbled Fred. "The fact is, even a freak like Riddle won't drink Giles's piss, will him?"
"I hope so." Kitty had ended.
Thomas just rinsed his mouth and washed carefully his teeth, in the morning.
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 the Mass.
Kitty wasn't able to analyze Thomas, he was so distant from her and the twelve, unable to enjoy or suffer, and once she has 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 a living room where had admitted one child's future parents.
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 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 a tiny hand in her black curls, her tail had loosened during the afternoon plays, but she knew the rules and if she had gone 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, delicious mannered like a kitten with nuns and priests, but she knew well how scratch, deceive and excel above the boys' group at her orders.
She was nice, loved by Sister Rita, Brother Karl and father Harold, his voice pleased Sister Marie, Kitty was a pimp, she was it for necessity, to survival, to risk as it was enough to show her friends was able to purr if only rewarded, because it was her nature to want it, Katlin had never worried about it.
Not at six years.
"Yes. Father Harold has ordered me to come." Thomas replied, almost annoyed.
"Father Harold Father confess us on Friday, not Tuesday." Kitty replied.
"I can't do anything." Thomas then said.
Kitty folded her arms. "Yes, you can: go in, say four things to Father Harold and go out." She replied insisting.
"Father Harold asks more. He wants that I forgive my dad." Tom admitted, and he didn't stare at her, he 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 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 that has 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... 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 repugnant pieces of stone!" he answered back breathlessly.
Sister Rita closed the entrance door with a thud, Kitty had gotten out the park, but she had noticed that the girl didn't wanted to go in the bathroom, but only to talk with young Riddle.
It was sad to know that a generous man like Mr. Riddle has 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 woman, thin, she forced her body to deprive 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 to 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 don'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, so she called Fred.
"Kitty, do you have seen 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 have you...?
Do you need some?
You know well 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 each good Christian.
One was standing stiffly; the latter was kneeling on the ground, with joined hands.
Kitty swallowed, walking forward with small footsteps, 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 turned toward the stony angels.
She was sobbing "Mercy" and broken words.
Kitty didn't understand the reason of it, until she didn't notice water on the floor, two small wet spots. She raised her eyes, those orbits open wide, of cold stone, 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.