The Collector of Names Read Online Free

suddenly stopped and then there was a complete silence.
    They waited and did not dare to move.
    Adriano slowly raised his head and looked up. Bruno followed. The boy was still staring ahead with his eyes wide open. He looked enormous from the ground as if his head was right up in the clouds.
Bruno mumbled to himself.
"There's something very strange, something...."
"What?" hissed Adriano. "What?"
"I don't know!"
"Adriano, look, look! LOOK!"
    Bruno grabbed his shoulders, digging his fingers so deep it hurt. Adriano was looking around, his eyes scanning the walls, meadow and the wood, but he could not see anything which would justify Bruno's horror.
"LOOK! LOOK!"
Bruno turned onto his side, looked up and screamed.
"WHAT? WHAT?" started shouting Adriano. "What?"
How their voices carried across the open spaces! They filled the night.
"LOOK! THERE! LOOK!"
    Bruno's finger was drawing big lines in the air finding it impossible to point in the right direction. Adriano finally managed to wriggle out of his hands.
    "CAN'T YOU SEE? CAN'T YOU SEE?" Bruno carried on shrieking and his horror slowly started giving way to despair and panic at his friend's stupidity and unresponsiveness.
    Adriano looked towards the motionless boy. He strained his eyes to pierce the darkness and find the cause of Bruno's terror. He could not see anything. Nothing even remotely suspicious. Just the whiteness of the rescued boy's T-shirt and head.
The whiteness of his T-shirt and...
... and...
his head?
HEAD?
    Adriano grabbed Bruno with all his strength and pulled him up. They stood a foot behind the boy, who did not even flinch. His hair was completely white.
"I'm scared..., I'm scared..." Bruno kept repeating.
Adriano shook him.
"Me too! ME TOO! CALM DOWN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND! CALM DOWN!"
"Yeah, yeah... I'm calm... I'm... I'm... I'm..."
"What are we going to do? What?"
Bruno tore his eyes away from the white head for the first time.
"One of us should..., one of us should turn him round..., this way..."
"Yeah..."
They were pressed against each other and they both thought how much the other one trembled.
"Adriano, I daren't! I daren't. Will you?"
"Why me? Why?"
    O, hell, why him? But at the same time he knew very well that they could not go on like that. Would all the binds holding his body and soul together break and would his innards just spill out like fish out of a fishing net?
He would do it.
Slowly he started reaching for the boy.
A few centimetres from his shoulder he stopped.
Suddenly he could not hear Bruno's breathing anymore.
But he had already touched the boy! Earlier, by the ankle. Had he been icy cold? He could not remember.
He grabbed him and turned him.
Bruno screamed.
Fear gripped his heart and for a moment he thought it would burst. But his fear was unfounded.
"It's alright Bruno. It's nothing. He's just unconscious!"
"His eyes! Adriano, his eyes?"
"It's nothing, Bruno, it's nothing! His eyes have turned! That's all. That's all!"
    Their shouting and shoving must have brought the boy round. They noticed his mouth opening and his lips moving. They watched him expectantly. As if one word from his mouth could wash away all the fear, return his hair to its normal colour and restore the night peace.
    He moved his lips. In bursts and twitches.
    Bruno and Adriano leant forward without realising and nearly touched his face.
    "A... AAA... AA... A... A AAAA. AAA....." he stammered for an unbearably long time and then suddenly collapsed, making his startled rescuers jump back.
*
She replaced the wooden lid and checked whether it was on properly. Then she knelt down, put her hand on it and whispered:
"Goodbye. They interrupted us, before you became complete."
    The contents of the wooden box still had not cooled down completely and she could feel them glowing through the lid. She stroked the wood and got a few splinters in her hand. She got up without moving her eyes away from the box.
    In there. Her son.
    "Goodbye. Sleep! Wait!"
    As she put her foot on the