Heaven Eyes (9 page)

“O
N PATROL, LOOK
.”

We were in a lane outside the food warehouse. Grampa was coming toward us. His jacket was buttoned up tight and he wore his peaked helmet. He swung his arms stiffly at his side. He carried an ancient black flashlight. He stopped at a little door and rattled its handle. He nodded and scribbled something in a little notebook, then came on toward us again. We stepped back against the wall.

“Good morning, Grampa Caretaker,” said Heaven Eyes.

“Good morning, little Heaven. Anything to report?”

“Nothing, Grampa. Just ghosts running on machines way way out across the runny water.”

He nodded.

His brow furrowed as he stared at January, Mouse and me. Heaven Eyes stood on tiptoe, leaned on his shoulder, whispered to him.

“These is those that come last moony night. Memory, Grampa?”

He nodded again, and scribbled in his notebook again. Then he raised his finger and peered into our eyes.

“I have you in this little book now,” he said. “I will remember. No shenanigans, now.”

“No shenanigans,” I said.

He blinked, raised his helmet, scratched his head, gazed up into the brilliant blue sky. He slowly followed the flight of a seagull with his eyes. His face softened and he began to murmur a song. Then he blinked again and looked back at us.

“There is patrolling to be done,” he said.

Heaven Eyes reached up to him again and kissed his cheek.

“No shenanigans,” he said to me.

“No shenanigans,” I said.

He let Heaven kiss him again; then he walked on, peering into ancient doorways, rattling handles, scribbling in his book.

“He is that important, see,” said Heaven. “He is caretaker.”

We wandered back toward the printing works. January
kept watching me, shaking his head, cursing under his breath.

“Is there nobody else here?” he said to Heaven Eyes.

“What means you, Janry Carr?”

“Others. Other people.”

“There has been ghosts sometimes. We have hid from them, and if they have come too close then Grampa has fettled them.”

“Fettled them?”

“Yes, Janry. Fettled them.”

January looked at me.

“What did he do to them, Heaven Eyes?”

She shrugged.

“Things I does not know. Fettlings.”

“And there are no other caretakers.”

“Grampa is caretaker. Grampa.”

“Who pays him, then? Who does he report to? What does he do on his weekends off?”

Heaven clicked her tongue.

“Janry Carr, my head is flapping and rattling with you. Why not you be still a little bit?”

January shrugged. He took a chocolate from his pocket and chewed it.

Heaven Eyes took my hand.

“Grampa is busy as busy,” she said. “Patrolling and caretaking in sunny days and digging and searching in moony nights.”

“Digging for what?” I said.

“Oh, lots of lovelies, Erin.”

“Will we see?”

“Mebbe under the shiny moon and shiny stars Erin will eye every little thing.”

I wanted to ask more, but I just shook my head and closed my eyes and grinned as my mind flapped and rattled and wouldn’t be still.

We walked on. We entered the printing works and passed the great machines and entered the office.

“See?” said Heaven Eyes, showing us the things on the shelves, the bottles and rusty tools and shiny pebbles and bones. She stroked the dried-out wing of a seabird, its feathers all clotted with oil and mud. “See? Lots of lovely lovelies.”

She linked me by the arm.

“And there is more lovelies, Erin. He says there is my treasures waiting to be dug one starry moony night. They will be dug up and chucked into his bucket.”

January snorted. He picked up the discoveries one by one from the shelves. He sighed in disgust. He stared up at the closed boxes by the ceiling. He turned over a few pages of Grampa’s great book on the desk. He cursed. He sat against the wall, on his blanket, and scraped the mud from his sneakers with his knife. Heaven Eyes watched him.

“Poor Janry Carr,” she whispered.

Mouse knelt by the table. He played with Squeak, letting him tumble through his fingers. Heaven smiled.

“Mouse and Squeak is happy but,” she whispered. “Come. Come and sit.”

S
HE LED ME TOWARD THE DOORWAY
. We sat down there against the open door. We leaned against each other. I touched the webs on her fingers, delicate things that gleamed with light. In front of us, sunbeams cascaded into the printing works. Dust danced there. Birds sang in the rafters. The sky beyond the broken skylights was brilliant blue, going on forever. A breeze blew across our faces.

“Who was your mum, Heaven Eyes?” I asked.

Her eyes clouded. I smiled and tried again.

“Your mum,” I said. “Your mummy. Your mother.”

Her face crinkled.

“You and Janry Carr,” she said. “Such funny mouthings from your mouths.”

“You don’t understand?”

“Stand under what, Erin Law?”

I giggled.

“Just a sec,” I said.

I went to my blankets and got my backpack. I took out my little cardboard treasure box and untied the ribbon.

“My mum was a little woman with red hair and green eyes,” I said. “She wore earrings like parrots and we lived together in a little house above the river. We were very happy and it was like Paradise.”

Heaven smiled and sighed.

“This is telling tales,” she said. “Like Grampa telling tales about the black Black Middens. Lovely lovely. Tell, Erin. Tell the tales.”

She wriggled and eased closer against me.

I took out a photograph of Mum and me in our garden.

“This is us, see?” I said. “There’s me when I was little, and there’s my mum.”

She gazed down into the picture.

“You is like the ghosts,” she said.

I smiled. I heard Mum’s giggling inside me.

“No,” I said. “This is my mum when she still was living.”

She chewed her lips and stared, like she was pondering some great mystery. I showed her the parrot earring.

“What’s mums, Erin?” she said.

“Mums are what we come from. There are dads as well.”

Her face crinkled.

I dug into the treasure box again. She giggled and squirmed.

“This is your treasures, Erin, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Lovely lovely. My treasures is waiting in the Middens says Grampa. He will dig them out afore he is still as still.”

“Still as still?”

“Still as still. Not mind, Erin. Show, show.”

I took out the blurry photograph from the hospital, the scan that showed me growing inside her. You could see my head, my arms waving, my legs kicking.

“This is me,” I said. “This is me when I was inside my mum. This is me months before I was born.”

She giggled. She looked at me and at the photograph.

“You’s fibbing?” she said.

“No. This is me inside my mum.”

She stared again.

“Is dark as dark in there. Is hard to eye proper.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Dark as dark.”

“You memory it?”

“No, I don’t remember it.”

“No nor me.”

“Nor you?”

“I was in the black Black Middens where all is black
as black. Grampa dug me out into the sunny days and moony nights.”

“You must have had a mum,” I whispered.

She pondered.

“So the black Black Middens was the mum.” She laughed, delighted, and she squeezed me tight. “The mum of Erin Law was dark as dark. The mum of Heaven Eyes was black as black.”

We sat there in silence for a time.

“How did you get into the Black Middens?” I said. She sighed.

“This is mystery, Erin Law. Grampa says that mebbe once I was a fishy thing or a froggy thing swimming in the water.”

She looked at the photograph of me inside my mum again.

She beamed.

“And eye this proper,” she said. “Eye them little hands and little feet. Eye little Erin flapping like in water.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Erin Law, you was also once a fishy thing or a froggy thing.”

I laughed.

“Yes,” I said.

“Erin is like Heaven Eyes and Heaven Eyes is like Erin.”

“Yes,” I said.

We grinned at each other.

“Fishy,” I said.

“And froggy,” she said.

We laughed and laughed. How would we ever make proper sense to each other? I put my arms around her and squeezed her tight and she wriggled, just like a little sister would.

“You!” I said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! You! What am I going to do with you?”

“Do nothing, Erin Law. Just stay and be my friend. And just be careful.”

“Careful?”

“Yes, my sister. For there is holes here. There is places to tumble out the world and not get found again.”

I laughed again and dug into the treasure box. I took out the bottle of perfume. I tipped it onto my finger. I touched the perfume onto my neck and onto Heaven’s neck. I felt Mum beside us. She held both of us in her arms.

“Lovely,” whispered Heaven.

“Lovely,” I whispered.

“Lovely,” whispered Mum.

J
ANUARY KICKED MY FEET
.

“Outside,” he hissed.

I rubbed my eyes.

“Outside, Erin.”

Heaven dozed against me, holding my arm with her webbed hand.

January glared at me.

“Come on,” he said.

I moved Heaven’s hand away, stood up, went through the door with him into the printing works. He led me between the machines, stood beneath a huge cast-iron eagle.

“We’ve got to go,” he said.

I said nothing.

“We’ve got to bloody go.”

“Soon,” I said.

We walked on. Through a massive doorway we saw the river running, the opposite bank. Grampa strode past with his arms dead stiff and the flashlight in his hands.

“We’ve got to get away from them,” he said.

“Oh, January,” I said.

“He’s mad and she’s a freak. Have you seen her bloody hands?”

“Something awful’s happened to her. I just know it, Jan.”

“Something awful’ll happen to us if we stay. There’s a bloody big ax under his desk. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

“It’s to protect her.”

“Aye, but what if he decides to protect her from us, eh?”

“He wouldn’t harm us.”

“Ha!”

He kicked and metal letters scattered and chinked across the floor.

“What about the raft?” he said. “What about the river? What about getting miles and miles away?”

“But this is miles and miles away. Does it not feel like that?”

“Feels like a nightmare, Erin. Worse than that. Feels like a mad place, an evil place.”

“Evil!”

He kicked again and cursed. Grampa passed by the door again, dead stiff, the peak of his helmet glinting in the sunlight.

“Look at him!” he said.

“Ha!” I laughed.

“It’s like you’re under a spell.”

“Ha!”

I pushed a chocolate into my mouth, pushed another into his hand. He threw it at the eagle. He kicked the letters; then he calmed himself.

“It feels like death, Erin. That’s what it feels like. It feels like if we don’t leave soon, we’ll never get away.”

We faced each other, unblinking.

“Ha!” I said again, more quietly.

Then I lowered my eyes.

“We will get away,” I whispered. “We will, Jan.”

We ran our feet through the letters on the floor.

“Look,” he said. “At least let’s check the raft’s all right, so we can make a quick getaway.”

We walked toward the river. We heard Grampa’s footsteps nearby. We spotted him watching from a doorway in an alley. I sucked a butterscotch. A pair of herring gulls were squabbling on the quay, lunging at each other with their long sharp beaks. They hopped away as we approached. They continued to fight, beaks clacking and scratching, voices screeching. We came to the end of the alleyways.

I giggled.

“Look out for ghosts,” I said.

“Ghosts! Bloody ghosts!”

We went to the edge, looked down. The Middens were covered with running water. The raft floated there, tugging at its rope. January sighed with relief.