They looked so dissimilar, though so linked by unmistakable ties.
She was a slim, middle-aged lady, hard-featured and masculine, resolute and firm; he could be nearly seventeen, giving the impression of being undecided and anxious.
That building was rather old, whereas properly maintained.
They had bought a flat there, as it was ‘classy’, according to the opinion of that unappealing woman.
“How comes, Cinio? Don’t you really like this place?” she had asked. “Don’t you know how much this cost us?”
“No, Aunt Ada…it’s not that I don’t like it,” Cinio answered. “Only it looks sad to me...”
“Umf! Nuts! When we’ll put ourselves up, you’ll get used to it. It will be different then!”
And thus she ended her speech.
After Cinio’s father’s death, the child had gone to live with his paternal uncle, Ada’s husband. After his uncle’s departure they had been left alone, enjoying each other’s company, so to speak.
She did not love him, and this was clear; he tolerated her, and also this was patent.
It happened on the first night in the new house, after they had settled in.
That night after dinner, when Cinio had just arranged his own room, he overheard a piece of conversation between Aunt Ada and a friend of hers, Violetta, a careless damsel who had helped with the removal.
“This house is beautiful,” Ada was saying, “but I’ve heard some strange stories about it.”
“What stories?” Violetta chimed in.
“Stories. Stories I would like Cinio not to be aware of–-you know how sensitive he is.”
“Tell me,” her friend insisted, “what do they deal with?”
“It seems,” Ada murmured, “but it only seems, mind my words, that the first inhabitant of this house, a woman, long time ago, died a violent death. Since that tragic day they say the poor soul in torment left her ‘aura’ within these walls. At night she wanders about the rooms, through the corridors, and she can’t rest.”
“Good Lord!” her interlocutor cried out “You are right: I really hope Cinio will never know anything about this. He gets scared so easily!”
Cinio, instead, had heard every single word and that night he could not sleep a wink.
He looked around him, after the clock had just finished striking the twelve hours. The walls were dark, big, and felt like enemies.
He had asked for a small light on, and Aunt Ada, a bit unusual for her normal temper, had agreed his request.
Even better, she had left the door of Cinio’s room open. His room was, in actual fact, at the end of the corridor; nevertheless, this way he could call his aunt without difficulty, if he needed to.
Cinio fixed his eyes on that small beam shining on the bed table.
He hoped he could find some comfort to his fears with it. But that comfort had some inconvenience in coming to him, or it did not come at all.
It was then that he heard a sound from the end of the corridor, a rustle.
He pricked up his ears to make sure it repeated.
Surely it was a trifle.
After all he was not alone in the house; there was Aunt Ada, and she could move and make sounds of that kind.
He tried to cheer up with this, but he was not able to.
The sound, unfortunately, came again.
Maybe leaving the door open was not a good idea.
Conceivably, it would have been better closed, or even better, locked.
But now it was too late.
The noises grew, unless they were a figment of his bothered imagination.
His eyes felt strained as he tried to scan the darkness, barely poking his head out of the sheet.
What he saw was a gleam, like a candle emerging from the end of the corridor.
“Aunt? Is it you?” he asked in a faint voice.
There was no answer.
“Is that you, Aunt Ada?” he said again.
The candle was now moving towards his room, and Cinio could now make out a black form, which was holding the light.
The appearance shifted, silently and slowly, along the corridor. It was so nimble that it seemed, at times, as if it were flying over the floor.
Cinio felt as though his heart would shatter inside his chest. And again he called out, “Aunt!” shivering. But Ada did not answer his appeal.
