PART 18 (END)

At the last hour of a certain Saturday, November 1st, the day after my favourite holiday, Halloween, I had the greatest scare of my life. Not only the biggest or the most memorable; no: the greatest, in every sense of the word.

This was ten months ago. I’m now marching towards being fourteen and a half with the feeling that I was always destined to live this unique experience, and that it changed the course of my story.

I grew ten years older during that unforgettable night. My mum must have noticed – if only she knew why! – because she has stopped shouting at the drop of a hat, and she keeps giving me confused looks.

I saw Aunt Maude again. She still wears the same purple polka-dotted bodice, but she always speaks to me in the respectful tone she first used the morning after that night. It’s another source of confusion for my mum.

Since my adventure, the symptoms I mentioned are already permanent. I feel like a radio tuned to the ultimate station, just waiting to receive a signal. The other day, as I was visiting an abbey with my friends, I stayed behind, for a few seconds at most, but long enough for the air in front of me to get thicker and for a presence to make itself known. A familiar tingling sensation went up and down my spine…

I feel like this is only the beginning, that lost souls are counting on me, that there will be in due time – I’m willing to bet on next Halloween – many other meetings. Unlike the kid in the Bruce Willis ghost movie, I won’t hide under my covers and whine: I see dead people. I won’t be scared, there is no need to be scared.

You think all this is a joke? You think that when the time comes I won’t be any better than Aunt Maud, that in the end I’ll chicken out like a wimp? You would be wrong, and as an end point, let me tell you why: I now know that I passed my entrance exam, and got a perfect score, because the whole time I spent, sat at my desk in my room, writing the story of my adventure, I felt behind me – and I put up with it without flinching; no, better: I accepted it as a gift – the pressure of an icy hand on my shoulder.

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