The Necromancer

I don’t know very well how to start, so I’ll just write.

It’s been a while since I was taught to read and write and, well, writing about me wasn’t on my to-do list for the past three months. Not until now.

The young boy pauses. His eyes stare at the page he has just written, and his face passes between seriousness and satisfaction. With a slight gesture, he dips the tip of the quill once more in the inkwell and take the excess ink off the blackened edge of the bottle, and then restarts writing.

It’s been two years since I woke up in that lake. No family, no memory and no money. The only thing I had memory of was a person. A woman. Maybe my mother? No matter how many things I remember about that day, this memory still confuses me. I remember recipes for simple potions, panaceas and one or two fake potions that at most give tummy ache, I remember a basic survival training, some tips on how to steal a purse of gold without picking up too much and I remember the most important thing I need to do. My purpose in this place is to free my master.

That’s the main reason why I’ll write here: I want to make my mistakes recorded. I will not faithfully record my story, nor what I eat, much less my fateful days of boredom and despair in this stinking, filthy, foul-smelling store that now belongs to me.

NO!

I want to perpetuate in these pages every crime committed, as well as every step taken towards my purpose.

The first of all the steps has already been reached. As I already said, this place is mine now. Of course I had to commit my first murder, but it was necessary, since my safety was at stake.

I know it seems ungrateful to kill in cold blood the man who took me out of the streets, gave me a job, food, and new clothes. Believe me when I say: he was not the harmless old man that everyone always believed. I know he was looking at me while I was taking a bath.

“I’m just playing, boy,” he said.

It was always a play. “Clean it,” “Do it,” “Are you having fun?” “Help me clean myself” “I’m just playing”, “Come closer little boy”, “Don’t worry, it’s just a play.”

I know you tried to touch me while I was sleeping, Mr. Bermit, but you never succeed, did you?

He puts the pen on the inkwell. His hand now trembled with the memory. Angrily, he clenches his fist, as if ready to strike, but stops in the middle of the movement, leaving his arm suspended in the air. The boy shakes his head to ward off the haze of memories, causing the hood to fall off his head, revealing a dark blond hair.

“I think that’s it for today.” He says out loud as if addressing to someone.

Lifting his head slowly and staring at the methodically clean wooden ceiling he lets out all the air in his lungs with a long snort as he shoulders to ease the tension.

His eyes suddenly stop scanning the ceiling and run to the edges, now facing the corner of the reading room. A smile opens on the boy’s thin lips. He takes a breath and opens his mouth, but pauses in the middle of the speech process, letting the emptiness linger a little more through the place, as if he tastes carefully the words.

“Sr. Beeermiiiit...” The dark-eyed boy sings, prolonging.

In the corner, between two shelves of books, lays the body of the former owner of the bookstore. The head hanging loose, exposing a completely purple neck.

“Sirrrr Beeerrmiiitt... I’m going to break your soul into a thousand piecessss.”

The boy’s figure rises from the bench and walks slowly to the dead man’s feet. His smile and happy expression fades as he brings his face closer to the corpse’s white eyes.

“But do not worry,” he says, letting the smile die completely “I’m just playing with you.”