The next morning, big clouds kept dragging across the sky and they just never seemed

to want to
stop. It hadn't rained in weeks. In the grass outside the village gate, the children were not playing as
they usually did, they stood in a huddle and talked thickly. There were Nannina and Hector, Renzo,
Marietta with her brother Gianni, and Lelletta.

"...And Nonna got angry," Renzo said, "She makes me say: don't get involved in these grown-up
things, Dad is fine, go play. But I say, how is he fine? He doesn't look normal to me!"

Ettorino nodded, because he was there and confirmed everything. After escaping, they had gone to
look for Renzo's mother, but they had found only his grandmother, and that grandmother had
reacted so nervously as to make them suspicious.

The strangest thing, however, had happened in the evening: returning home just before dinnertime,
Renzo recounted finding his father back to himself, beaming as he had not seen him in weeks,
pouring two generous glasses of red wine for himself and his wife. He had never seen his parents
drink wine that was not diluted with water.

"Viè qua," his father had told him, welcoming him in a hug, "Sunday we all go to the market! Let's
buy this child a pair of new shoes! And a toy too, if we can find it!"

Lelletta stood with her arms folded and her mouth twisted:

"It doesn't make sense to me at all... I mean, your father sat on a bench all day and when he woke up
he was toasting good wine and talking about the market? But if you always say that in your house
you don't have a penny to spare!"

"That's why he tells it," Nannina intervened, "Because it's a strange fact!"

"Embé? It may as well be a hole! It's not that because it's strange it must be true!"

"But my brother was there too, he saw it all," Nannina retorted.

"And he didn't see the money, though," insisted Lelletta. "When I see Renzo wearing nine shoes, then
I believe it!"

But Nannina was no longer listening to her. Out of the corner of her eye she had seen a hunched
figure trudging off into the distance, the Old Woman of the Pots leaving along the mule track.

Without a word he left his friends to join her.

"Mother is getting angry!" shouted Hector after him.

"But 'ndove va?" asked Renzo.

"That's the Old Madwoman of the Pots!" said Gianni. "She's dangerous, Dad says she eats children!"

"Don't ce andà!" her brother shouted after her, but Nannina was not paying attention and no one.
She was holding a metal pot, the Old Woman. She stopped and turned around, fixing her eyes on
Nannina who was coming running:

"Did you bring some bread?" she asked making small circles with the saucepan, as if to stir up some
slop that was in it.

"No, I don't have bread today. I want to know if it has arrived!"

"But who?" replied the old woman, looking inside the pot.

"The bad person you said yesterday, The Everyman!"

"I said Oniromancer. Yes ch'arival. I told you that he's going to take mom and dad away from you."

"But what does that mean? What is he doing to them? Where is he taking them?"

"I don't know how he does it, but he leaves the body here, he wants what they have in their heads."

This last piece of information left Nannina interjected.

"But where is he, this Ogni Mante?"

"Oniromancer. How do I know 'nd where he is? Ask that one, who is his friend!" said the old woman,
raising the pot in the direction of a man, far away, who was leaving on the path riding a mule, with a
cloak and a dark hood lowered over his head. He turned suddenly, the hooded man, casting a furtive,
mean glance toward Nannina and the Old Woman.

But the Old Woman had already turned around and went on her way, making small circles with the
metal pot.