It felt like they had been sitting in Marjoe's and Yuma's room for weeks when, in actuality, it had barely been two hours. The air was still chilly but in no way comparable to the icy cold from before.
Marjoe was itching to run to the window and sneak a peek outside. The terror he had felt when cold had first hit him had long been replaced by his natural curiosity. Since he had heard the stories for the first time, he had wondered what the Undertaker really looked like. Because even though the people liked to tell tales about him, nobody really seemed to want to answer any further questions about him. Even Yuma was usually fairly wage and turned defensive as soon as Marjoe tried to dig deeper.
And that was the thing that always bugged Marjoe the most. That even his big brother seemed to fear him. Yuma, who Joey thought, was fearless for most of his life. But it appeared that he had been wrong about that after all, and that was an eyeopener for him.
So he sat between his brother and Susanna, who was silently shaking, and felt like he would soon die out of boredom.
In the first hour, the whole situation had still been horribly exciting. After Marjoe had gotten over his initial fear, the tense silence, the ghostly chill, and the pale faces of the others had felt like he was in the middle of one of Yuma's stories.
But after another two hours passed, he had lost his interest rather quickly. All that was left now was the cold and utter disappointment. He had hoped to at least be able to throw a glance a the mysterious Undertaker he had heard so much about. But even that had been denied from him. After about three hours when he could no longer stand sitting around, he had tried to get up and sneak to the window. Yuma, however, had hissed at him like an angry cat and ordered him to sit back down. So Marjoe had protested and pulled a face but climbed back onto the bed, nevertheless.
Therefore Marjoe would have almost been happy when it was finally over if it hadn't been for the life that would end in such a terrible way.
When Marjoe heard the voices, he didn't understand their meaning at first. It had been quiet for so long that he had almost fallen asleep. But soon, the voices turned into aggravated shouts and finally the piercing cry of a woman. The silence that followed was heavy with shock and confusion.
Marjoe jumped off the bed and stormed to the window, ignoring his brother, who tried to stop him.
He peeked through the gaps of the shutters, and his eyes grew wide. Since their house was directly at the town square, their window had a clear view of the fountain in the middle. And that was where he saw him for the first time.
After all the horror stories he had heard Marjoe always imagined him as some kind of monster, but at first glance, he looked almost human.
He sat on the steps of the fountain, his tall body bend into a curve. He was extremely skinny. In fact, he was thinner than Marjoe thought was humanly possible to the point that he looked more like a skeleton than an actual person. His whole body was covered in clothes, even his hands. He wore a black trench coat with the collar raised to hide his face. The part of his profile that wasn't covered by his collar or the thick beard, that seemed to grow from his face like weeds, was hidden under the brim of the head he had pulled low into his face.
The only part of his face Marjoe could make out was the long, bony nose that stuck out of his beard like the beak of a hawk.
His body appeared to swallow the light around him, and the air surrounding his skeletal frame almost vibrated.
He sat there completely motionless except for his thumbs that cycled slowly around each other.
He looked utterly relaxed like he was waiting for something.
For what, Marjoe would find out soon.