Heaven Eyes (13 page)

“Yes, Heaven Eyes.”

I slipped her a Hob Nob from my pocket.

“Lovely,” she said.

She wriggled and giggled.

We watched them, black glistening shapes against the black glistening Middens. We heard Grampa:

“Little Helper!”

“Yes, Grampa?” called Mouse.

“Memory! You must show me everything that you does find!”

“Okay, Grampa!”

“Okay, Little Helper! Get that shovel digging.”

We heard the sucking and slapping as they started to dig. I put my arm around her. She was so small, truly like a little sister. The sky above the city burned. The air was filled with the sound of the flowing river, of distant traffic, of the city’s low endless roar. Mouse went to Grampa with something that he’d found in the mud. Grampa held it up to the moon, then slung it far out into the river. Mouse turned back to his digging.

“Heaven Eyes,” I said. “Do you sometimes think there will be no treasures?”

“Oh, Erin. All them questions you does ask.”

“Do you sometimes think there might be nothing?”

“Him does dig things out every night.”

“But they’re not treasures, Heaven Eyes.”

“No, Erin.”

“You do think it. You do sometimes think that there will be no treasures.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “In mine sleep thoughts I does think that, Erin.”

Mouse found more. He took it to Grampa. Grampa threw it into the river. Mouse went back to his digging. He dug deeper and deeper. The mound of mud beside
him grew. We saw him going further down. He stood in a waist-deep hole, then in a chest-deep hole.

“Little Mouse is good as good at the digging,” said Heaven Eyes.

“He is,” I said. “Be careful, Mouse!” I called.

“Never fear,” said Heaven Eyes. “Grampa will make sure all is well with his Little Helper.”

I held her gently.

“Tell me about your sleep thoughts, Heaven Eyes,” I whispered. “Tell me what you see in them.”

“Oh, Erin. These things is secret as secret.”

“Whisper them.”

“These is things that does angry Grampa. These is things that does turn him wild.”

“Whisper them. I am your sister, Heaven Eyes.”

“You will tell nobody nothing?”

“I will tell nobody nothing.”

She held her fingers up to the moon. She breathed deeply.

“In my sleep thoughts I is like a ghost,” she whispered. “I is with them that is like ghosts.”

“Who are they, Heaven Eyes?”

“No way of telling, Erin. They is close by me. They is holding me and touching me. They is whispering lovely things. They is touching my fingers and whispering lovely lovely things.”

“Can you see their faces?”

“Happy faces. Sweet an kind.”

“What do they look like, Heaven Eyes?”

“The loveliest has hair that is like the sun and eyes that is like the runny water. She has shiny silver on her neck and flowers on her body.”

“What else, Heaven Eyes?”

“There is another further out. I cannot eye him proper. Him is shadowed like under the printing press. And there is others, sometimes little, sometimes big. And I cannot eye these proper either. They is little figures, like the ghosts across the runny water. But they is smiling and laughing.”

She gasped and nibbled a Hob Nob.

“You must say nothing about these things,” she said.

“I will say nothing.”

She sighed. We watched Mouse digging down.

“The loveliest is that lovely, Erin. She does make me cry sometimes in my sleeping.”

“What does she whisper, Heaven Eyes?”

“Little words and whisperings. She does tell me I is lovely.”

“Does she call you Heaven Eyes?”

“No, Erin.”

“What does she call you?”

Her voice grew smaller, became the quietest whisper.

“Tell nobody,” she said.

“Nobody.”

“She does whisper Anna, Anna, little Anna.”

“Anna? That’s your name?”

“My name is Heaven Eyes. Anna is my name in sleeping time. Anna is my fibbing and imagining name. Anna is the name that must never get telt to nobody, specially to Grampa.”

She gripped my hand.

“You must not tell him of these things, Erin.”

“Have you told him?”

“Once way back. Way way back. He did say these things was lies and wrongnesses. He was wild, Erin. Wild as wild. You must not tell him nothing. Nothing.”

“Nothing,” I whispered.

I held her tight. I thought of all the other questions I wanted to ask. The moon shone down. Mouse and Grampa dug and glistened. The mud sucked and splashed.

“Heaven …,” I said.

“Don’t ask nothing more, Erin.”

“But Heaven Eyes …”

And I was about to ask her more, when a scream came from below us. Mouse slithered and scrambled from his hole. He ran across the Black Middens. He shouted my name again and again. He screamed. He ran across the raft, climbed the ladder. He came over the edge. He trembled, gasped, howled my name. Water and mud splashed down from him.

“Erin! Erin!”

I jumped up and got hold of him.

“Mouse! What is it, Mouse?”

His mouth gaped and his eyes were wild.

“A body!” he yelled. “There’s a body in the Middens, Erin.”

He shuddered and wept.

Below us, Grampa leaned on his shovel and gazed up through the moonlight at us.

“M
URDER
!” said January.

We huddled together on the quay. Heaven Eyes stood frantic at our side.

“Murder!” he said.

He took out his knife and gripped it in his fist.

“Murder!” he said. “That’s what his secret is. Bloody murder!”

We stared down at the Middens. Grampa stood above the hole that Mouse had made. He stepped down into it and the blackness of his body was taken into the blackness of the Middens.

“What was it like?” said January.

Mouse gasped and jabbered.

“A body. A body. I felt it there. Thought it was something. Put my hand in the mud. Felt fingers there. Felt
a hand sticking up. Saw it shining in the moonlight. Like it was reaching up at me, but icy cold an still.”

“Still as still,” I whispered.

“Still as still, Erin.”

“What else?” said January. “What about the face?”

Mouse gaped at him.

“A face? Didn’t want to see no face. Didn’t want to—”

“He’s coming!” I hissed.

We looked down. He splashed over the Middens, carrying the shovels and buckets.

January reached out and grabbed Heaven by the throat.

“Murder!” he spat into her face. “Murder! Who has Grampa murdered, Heaven Eyes?”

Tears streamed down her face. She reached out to me.

“Erin! Erin!”

I pulled her from him.

“The ax!” he said. “The ax beside the desk. Come on!”

We hurried through the pitch-black alleys to the printing works. Heaven sobbed and sobbed.

“You is wrong!” she whimpered. “Erin, tell Janry Carr that Janry Carr is wrong!”

We rushed beneath the outstretched wings to the office. I saw January’s footprints on the shelves. Objects that had been on the shelves were scattered on the floor.

January grabbed the ax. I took his knife. Mouse and Heaven cried. We stood and waited.

“Mebbe he’s done in lots of kids like us that’s come here,” said January.

He glared at Heaven.

“Speak!” he said. “How many kids has Grampa fettled? How many has he killed?”

She sheltered at my back.

January cursed and spat. He stared at me. He caught his breath.

“Her family,” he said. “What happened to her family?”

I gripped the knife.

“Dunno,” I said. “I don’t know.”

We watched each other.

“It can’t be,” I whispered.

“Can’t it?”

He dug into his pocket. He showed a photograph. It was cracked and creased. It was a family—mother, father, children—smiling out at us. The mother had blond hair, blue eyes, she wore a brightly colored floral summer frock. She held a baby in her arms. I couldn’t speak. My heart thundered and my head roared. I held the photograph to my face. I tried to see the baby’s fingers. Then Heaven was at my side. She caught the edge of the picture with her webbed hands.

“Erin,” she whispered. “Oh, Erin. This is my sleep thoughts, Erin.”

I let her take it from me. She squatted on the floor and gazed at it in wonder.

“It’s from up there,” said January. He nodded upward to the ceiling. His eyes widened. “That’s it! He’s done them all in! Bloody murder!”

“No,” I said.

“Ask her.”

I stared at Heaven Eyes, who trembled on the floor.

“Anna,” I whispered.

“Not that name, Erin.”

“Anna. Anna. What else do you see in your sleep thoughts?”

“Nothing! Nothing nothing nothing! That Janry Carr is all lies and fibs and wrongnesses!”

She jumped at him with her fingers spread like claws. He shoved her off. She sprawled on the office floor. He spat and cursed. He glared at me.

“You,” he said. “You’re the one that made us stay with these freaks and crazies. So you better make sure you help me to do him in.”

We stood there, gasping, whimpering, listening.

Then the sound of Grampa’s footsteps came out of the night and approached the door.

H
E CAME IN DRIPPING MUD AND WATER
, black as night. His shoulders were huge. He dropped the shovels and buckets and they clattered to the floor. He stood stock-still, staring at January with the ax raised above his head, at me with the knife gripped in my fist and pointed toward him.

“Heaven!” he whispered.

“Grampa!”

“You is all right, Heaven?”

“Yes, Grampa.”

Suddenly the carving knife was in his hand.

“Come to me, my little one,” he said. “Come away from them ghosts.”

She stood up to go to him. I caught her arm and held her tight.

“She’s ours,” said January.

He stepped forward, holding the ax. Grampa stepped back, into the doorway.

“Touch her and you is dead,” he said.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Little Helper,” he said.

Mouse shuddered and whimpered.

“Little Helper!”

“Grampa.”

“You is all right, Little Helper?”

“He’s terrified,” I whispered.

“Touch him an you is dead,” said Grampa.

“Murderer!” said January. “Murderer!”

Grampa wiped the slithery mud from his eyes and stared at him. He held his hand out.

“Come, Heaven Eyes,” he said.

I held her tight.

“Keep still, sister,” I hissed. “Keep still, Anna.”

I closed my eyes.

“Mum!” I whispered. “Mum! Mum!”

Her voice rose inside me.

“Stay calm, Erin. Stay calm and everything will be well.”

“He does not want to hurt you,” said Heaven Eyes. “Grampa is a good grampa. He will do no harm.”

I heard January’s frantic breath, his terror, his excitement. His arm holding the ax jerked and trembled.

Grampa wiped the mud from his eyes and stepped forward.

“Grampa!” said Mouse.

“Little Helper?”

“Grampa, there was a body in the Middens. A body buried deep deep down.”

“I do know this, Little Helper. And that is why there is great joy in your digging this night.”

“Great joy?”

“Great joy, my Little Helper. For you has found a saint this night. You has found a saint that in all his years of digging Grampa has never never found.”

He reached out his hand.

“Come to me,” he whispered. “Come away with little Heaven Eyes from these wicked ghosts and I will tell you all about saints.”

He glared at me, at January.

“I has seen,” he whispered. “I has seen how you has led my Heaven Eyes astray. I has seen how you has led my Little Helper astray. These two is precious. Time for you to go. Time to leave them here alone and safe with Grampa.”

“We won’t leave without them,” I said.

He stepped forward suddenly. He snatched the ax easily from January’s grip. He knocked the knife from my hand. He took Mouse and Heaven in his arms.

“What now?” he whispered. “Does you leave alone, or does Grampa have to fettle you?”