by David Almond
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.”
SHE 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.
JANUARY 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. H
e 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.
“See?” I said.
“Aye. But somebody’s going to see it and they’re going to come and get us and it’s back to Maureen and the rest.”
“We could pull it out,” I said.
“We’ve got to get away.”
He glared at the raft.
“I’ll go without you,” he said.
He looked sideways at me.
“I will,” he said.
I saw the anger in his eyes. But I saw the fear as well. He needed me to tell him not to go. He needed me to tell him I’d leave Heaven Eyes and Grampa and come with him. Heaven’s words kept running through my head: You is my sister … You is my bestest friend … I couldn’t leave her alone in the printing works with Grampa. Part of me already loved her as a sister. I didn’t know how to say this to Jan.
“It was going to be our adventure,” he said. “Just you and me and the raft and the river. Then you let stupid Mouse come. Then you let two stupid freaks put you under a spell!”
“Go on, then,” I said. “Go off on your own.”
Then I reached for his hand, but before I could touch him we heard footsteps behind us. The herring gulls swooped up into the sky. Grampa was stamping through an alley toward us. He had a carving knife in his hands. He held it high above his head. Its blade glittered in the sun. His face was red as blood beneath its creases of black. His eyes glared, filled with death.
January stepped in front of me. He gripped his own glittering knife in his raised fist.
“Come on, then!” he yelled. “Come on, old man!”
Heaven Eyes came running through the alleyways.
“No!” she yelled. “These is my friends, Grampa!”
She caught his shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him.
“Grampa! These is my friends that come in the moony night!”
He stood there panting. His eyes cleared. The knife dangled from his hands. Heaven Eyes clung to him and whispered desperately to him.
Jan kept his knife raised high. His body was tense, poised. His breath came in short deep gasps.
“Shame she come,” he hissed. “Could have finished it, here and now.”
Heaven Eyes turned Grampa away. She started to lead him back through the alley. She kept turning. Her eyes pleaded with us not to go away.
“Knife in the heart,” said Jan. “Or in the throat, or in the guts. Easy.”
“You weren’t scared?”
“He’s an old man. He’s cracked. He wouldn’t have a chance.”
I was trembling. I wanted to run to Heaven Eyes and comfort her.
“We’ve seen it, though,” said Jan.
“What?”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and glared at me. He spat out the words one by one.
“He’s a bloody killer, Erin. This place is mad and evil. We have to go away.”
He dragged my face toward him. He narrowed his eyes.
“Why d’you want to stay when you know we could all die here?”
I chewed my lips and felt tears trickling on my cheeks.
“Don’t leave me,” I wanted to say. “Please don’t leave me, Jan.”
But I said nothing.
He pushed me away, jumped over the ancient quay, scrambled down the ancient ladder and leapt across the water onto the raft. He stood over the red curse while the river tugged at the tightly fastened rope. I watched him, waited for him to sail away all alone and leave me all alone. But he didn’t untie it. He just stood there swaying with the movements of the water, his head filled with fury and dreams of freedom, and disappointment with me, his best friend.
I TRIED TO SHOUT AT HIM. “Jan! January!” But my voice was a hopeless whimper, and he didn’t turn. He’d given up on me. I left him and turned back to the dark alleyways, the dilapidated quays, the broken buildings, the ruins of the past, the place he said was mad, was evil, the place he said was death. I kicked my way through ancient litter and fallen rubble. The walls and ceilings creaked and groaned. Dust seethed all around me. Shadows shifted. Dark birds flapped above. Dangling doors led into pitch-black rooms and offices. The ground was cracked and potholed. In places it had simply fallen away, and yawning gaps showed cavernous cellars below. I imagined ghosts all around me, watching me, the ghosts of those who had worked here and filled the place with noise and light and life. I felt their fingers touching me as I walked, heard their hollow breathing, their whispering, their sad laughter. I imagined beasts staring out at me from the deepest darkest places. I saw their eyes glittering, saw their raised claws glinting. They were creatures that had grown in darkness and desolation, mutant life-forms, half-dead and half-alive. They grabbed at me as I passed by, they hissed my name, they tried to drag me to them, tried to make me theirs. I kept walking, walking, walking. I walked through my own mind, through my memories and hopes and dreams. I kicked the litter, breathed the dust. I remembered walking down to the raft for the first time with January when we felt so light and free. We spun out onto the river and hugged each other. Freedom. Freedom. A new beginning. So how had we come so quickly to this dark dilapidated dangerous place? How had we been so quickly thrown apart? I saw him drifting alone downriver on the raft, drifting into the endless empty sea. I saw him raising his arms in joy. Freedom! he yelled. Freedom! I pushed through a dangling door. Darkness. I shuddered and groaned. I held my hands out in front of me and went deeper, deeper. I edged my way past the sad ghosts, came to an opening in the floor. I went down, down. Ancient crumbling steps. The stench of damp and rot and doom. I went down into the deepest darkness until there was nowhere left to go, just the furthest corner of the furthest cellar. I lay down in the slime.
“Mum,” I whispered.
No answer.
I found her hand resting in mine. Her hand grew colder, colder. I held it as she closed her eyes for the last time. I held it as she disappeared, as she left me all alone. It grew colder, colder.
“Why did you die?” I said to her. “Why? Why?”
No answer.
“Mum,” I whispered. “Mum. Please, Mum!”
No answer. Just her hand in mine. Just her cold, still, dead hand in mine.
I lay down at her side in silence. The cold and stillness entered my bones. I lay there in the slime as the mutants gathered around me. The scratch of their claws replaced my mum’s caressing touch. Their vicious hiss replaced her voice. I moved beyond words, beyond laughter, beyond tears. No hope. No joy. No life. Death grew all around and drew me in.
“ERIN LAW! ERIN LAW!”
Her voice echoed through the alleyways and the buildings and found its way through the dangling door, past the ghosts and mutants, into my deep darkness.
“Erin Law! Erin Law!”
It found its way into my head and called me back from silence, emptiness, deadness.
�
�Erin Law! Erin Law!”
I rubbed my face and felt the thick slime on my skin, in my hair. I retched and spat. I sat up and tried to call her but I only gasped and croaked.
“Erin Law! Erin Law!”
I stood up and tottered through the darkness with my hands held out in front of me, but I was sore and stiff and I stumbled and fell into the stony litter.
“Heaven!” I tried to shout. “Heaven!”
I crawled, but couldn’t tell if I was crawling to the light or deeper into the dark.
“Heaven!” I called. “Heaven Eyes!”
I wiped my face and tasted the blood that trickled from my hands.
“Heaven Eyes!”
“Erin Law!”
Her voice was closer, clearer. I strained to hear her footsteps through whatever walls and floors surrounded me.
“Where is you, Erin Law?”
I wiped tears from my eyes.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“I’m here!” I called. “Here I am!”
“Erin Law! Erin Law! Erin Law!”
I stumbled and crawled and tried to find the ancient stairway, tried to climb out of the stench of damp and doom. But crawled in useless circles, crawled to places where there were cracks and chasms in the floor, where there were more stairways heading down, openings to even deeper cellars. I felt the mutants’ fingers, urging me down. I heard their hiss. “Yes. Yesss. Further down. Further down.” I struggled with them. I tried to focus on Heaven Eye’s voice, but it was tiny, distant, something from another world. I told myself I was lost, never to be found, that I had gone too deep into impenetrable dark, that no one could ever find me and help me out. “Further down,” the voices hissed. “Yes. Further down.” I stopped crawling. I held my mum’s hand again for the final time as she closed her eyes for the final time.
“Erin Law! Erin Law!”
The voice circled and searched and faded and grew and faded again and would not give up.
“Erin Law! Where is you, Erin Law?”
“I don’t know,” I wept.
I sobbed. I held my mum’s dead hand.
“I don’t know!” I called.
I lay down in the slime again. I felt the coldness entering my bones again.
“Here!” I called.
