by Neil Gaiman
Her marvelous, beautiful steel grey eye.
And almost naturally, when she was done with that and took a moment to roll her head around on her shoulders and cry out like some tortured spirit, Olive wiped each side of the blade on her blouse and set to destroying her remaining eye.
Cecil babbled so incoherently he could not even understand himself. The nightmare was too much for him, finally. He could very nearly feel his mind breaking, hear the last sane thoughts pass through his brain before madness took root.
“No, no, no, no,” he went on and on. “No no no no no no no…”
The second eye came apart and out more quickly and efficiently than the first. Still, Olive shrieked dreadfully, her voice shrill and very loud. Her face was now awash in red, her eyes nothing more than dark, deep pits.
She screamed for what seemed to Cecil like hours. He gawped and babbled all the while. Gradually, her voice broke, quieted, and she dropped the knife to the floor with a jarring clatter. She staggered backward, knocked against a countertop and turned over a small stack of tins. A sticky sob spilled out of her mouth. In seconds it transformed into a sort of giggling.
“Now,” she said, her voice raw and ugly, “no one has Marla’s eyes.”
XII
The days passed slowly. She brought him bread and biscuits found with groping hands in the larder. Later came a bottle of port. She wrapped dishrags about her eyes in lieu of bandages. She refused to unbind Cecil, and he stopped asking her to do so.
Along the third day Olive began to sing whatever she said. She did not speak much, but when she did it was in a warbling, off-key croon.
“Olive has no eyes to see,” she trilled. “She’ll never see the sparkly sea.” Upon the end of the fifth day she disrobed and jammed her blood-soaked garments in the bin. She stood naked before Cecil, softly ran her fingertip up the length of his arm, and asked, “Do you still see, Cecil? Do you see me?”
He did not reply. She grunted and left the kitchen. She did not return for two days. Cecil remained strapped to the table. He soiled himself and there was nothing at all to be done about it.
Upon Olive’s return, she did not speak (or sing) for a full day. She remained entirely naked apart from the filthy rags on her face, black with dried, fetid blood. Whenever Cecil made a sound, she hit him on the face. The bread she gave him was mouldy. He ate it anyway.
He was given no water or wine at all.
He grew weak. Then, ill.
The kitchen reeked of sweat and faeces, piss and sweat.
Time lost all meaning to him. He did not know if the electricity was ever restored because Olive kept the kitchen dark. She no longer needed the light.
One day—or night—perhaps weeks after she carved out her eyes, Olive came into the kitchen with the lamp dangling from one hand and a curious object in the other. She had grown quite skilled at navigating the house with no eyes to see, never to see the sparkly sea. Cecil was suitably impressed.
She approached him where he lay strapped down, stinking wretchedly and shaking like a man possessed, and held the object up in the lamplight for him to see. It was a human skull, the bone scored with cross-hatching marks from top to bottom from whatever she had used to scrape away the tissue. There remained still patches of leathery brown skin, a few sprigs of hair on the crown, but all in all Cecil adjudged her work to be exemplary.
He told her so. She spat in his face. “It’s Ainsley, you know,” she sang.
Cecil grinned, a rivulet of saliva running down his cheek. “I know.”
She left it on the countertop beside the burning lamp where he could see it and left. He studied it closely, eyes narrowed to slits. It did not look a thing like his boy. It did not look like Ainsley at all. Cecil erupted into laughter and he laughed for a long time.
Days crawled by like slugs in the garden. Olive had not come back, not even to feed him mouldy bread. He had taken to dry heaving several times a day. He realised there was no sensation at all in his legs and he wondered about it absently.
The line that marked the difference between slumber and wakefulness, previous so clearly demarcated, dissolved entirely. Thus when Marla came to visit him, Cecil was in no way surprised to see her.
“My dear-heart,” she whispered. “You really ought to have known better.” “Certainly,” Cecil agreed. “Many women have eyes as gray as mine. Millions, I’d wager.” “Millions.” “A woman is more than her eyes.” “Much more,” he said. “So much more.” “You should have known better.” “I should have.”
Marla smiled a sweetly familiar smile, small and sharply upturned at the corners of her pink mouth, and bent over to administer a kiss to Cecil’s cheek. Into his ear she whispered, “The cow is dead, you know.”
“Olive?” “She fell down the steps, just the other day. She is at the bottom now, dead as a doornail. Dead as that cat. Dead as Ainsley. Dead as me.”
“Heavens,” Cecil said. “Why, everybody in this horrid house is dead now.” “Mrs. Rollo.” “Yes, her as well.” “And me? What about me?” “Silly dear-heart,” Marla laughed. “You are dead too, of course.”
Cecil smiled. “Of course,” he said.
She cocked her head to the side and looked at him adoringly. He closed his eyes and she climbed up onto the table, laid down beside him. He floated into a dream.
When he awoke next, she was gone.
Marfin was shaking his shoulders, shouting close to his face. “Mr. Hughes, my god, my god, Mr. Hughes,” the gardener bellowed. “Quiet, you stupid dool,” Cecil said. “Dool? I meant fool. You, I mean. You’re the fool.” “Christ Jesus, Mr. Hughes, what’s happened?” “Why did I say dool?” Cecil wondered aloud. He squinted and turned to look across at the countertop. The skull was still there, but the lamp had long burned itself out. He then looked up at the ceiling, at the knives and cleavers suspended above him. The electricity was back on. Well, Cecil thought, thank goodness for that.
“Dead, Mr. Hughes! All of ‘em, dead!”
Cecil frowned. “Don’t be so bloody stupid, Marfin. We’re all dead, aren’t we? Is this not hell?”
“I rang for the police afore I come in here, Mr. Hughes. They’ll be here…oh, but Jesus!”
Marfin fell to tearing away the ropes that bound Cecil to the table, gone stiff from the mess he’d made and ripping away from his clothes at places. Shouting erupted from elsewhere in the house. Marfin cried out, “Here, we’re in here!”
Moments later a storm of pounding footsteps thundered toward them and a trio of smartly uniformed Bobbies burst into the kitchen. They formed a phalanx, Olive at the point with a shiny black nightstick in her hand and at her rear Mrs. Rollo and young Master Ainsley. All three of them grimaced menacingly, their eyes glittering with hate.
“A right rotten mess you’re in, Mr. Hughes,” Olive said in a faux deep voice. “You shan’t talk your way out of this one.”
“Blimey, you’re a beast,” said Ainsley.
Mrs. Rollo blew the whistle that hung from a chain round her neck.
Cecil sneered, glanced over to Marfin who was just about done plucking his eyes out with his thumbs. “Nothing to see here,” he said.
“Ridiculous,” Cecil said. “Just,” Marfin concurred.
Cecil shook his head disapprovingly, closed his eyes and his ears and his mind. Some time later, hours or days, he opened up again and was alone. His stomach ached and his neck felt bruised. He blinked in the darkness and listened to himself breathe. It sounded like crinkling paper, or dead leaves.
Not long afterward Olive did come back. She padded softly to the lamp, poured some more oil into it, and lighted the wick. Cecil watched passively as the flame grew and threw light on Olive and the skull on the countertop. There were small back insects crawling over the skull, their interest directed primarily at the scraps of rotted flesh that still clung to the bone.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hughes,” Olive said sheepishly. “I tried cleaning the windows in the study—them in the parlour’
s broken up, you remember—but I can’t do it. I’m no good to you blind.”
“It’s all right, Olive.” “I expect you’ll want to sack me, then.” “Poor girl.”
She let out a small, shivering cry and ran her hands down the length of her nude body. Her skin was dirty, oily, riddled with little cuts and bruises. A substantial amount of blood stained her thighs, spread out from the tangled dark V of her groin.
“I’ll just lie me down a spell, if you don’t begrudge me that, sir.” “Yes.” “Just a short kip.” “It’ll do you good.”
Just as Marla had done in his waking dream, Olive climbed up beside him and draped a leg and an arm over his bound body. She purred like a kitten and Cecil decided it was rather nice even as she finally plunged the blade between two of the ribs on his left side. It sank in neatly and his side went hot and wet. She left it in, stuck in up to the hilt, and pulled in closer, nuzzling her nose against his neck.
“Good night, sir,” she rasped into his ear.
Minutes later she was softly snoring.
Cecil shut his eyes and remembered her eyes as they were. Grey and cool and knowing and intelligent, impossible to lie to, impossible not to adore. He remembered her when she was well and when she was pink and warm with life; he remembered her big as the Durdle Door, gravid with unborn Ainsley for whom the hopes of their whole world rested. He recalled her words both scolding and kind, her voice never raised, her attitude always noble, her intentions always good. He thought of telling her once he would one day write a book just for her, no one else would ever be allowed to read it, and his eyes clouded over because he knew he never would fulfill that promise since he was dying now.
He said, “I love you, Marla. I love you so very much.”
And as the blood leaked out inside of him, Cecil Hughes exhaled a mawkish breath and went to sleep forever.
The Liar
BY LAURA LEE BAHR
The innocence of youth is such a tenuous thing. We tend to cherish it in our children, and try to preserve it as long as possible, even though grown-up prevailing wisdom says that it’s utterly useless once real life gets down to business.
Of course, the business of very young children is to try to make sense of the world they’ve fallen into. They’re hungry to learn and impulsively eager to trust anyone who might help them decipher life’s riddles.
The child inside Laura Lee Bahr has not forgotten what it was like before we knew, nor does she soft-pedal the painful gnosis to come. What we get in this story, with remarkable purity, is the wide-eyed moment of impact itself.
And I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t hurt.
Boiled beets. Mashed potatoes from a box. Ground hamburger mixed with vegetable soup from a can. They all fold their arms and close their eyes. Dad gives the blessing.
Topaz opens her eyes just a peek. Ruby is staring right at her, through her. Topaz quickly shut shuts her eyes and keeps them tight.
Amen.
Mom puts the mashed potatoes on a plate, the beets on the side. She scoops the vegetable and hamburger mix on to the mashed potatoes. It is one of Topaz’ favorite meals. Lavender and Lily start to complain to each other that the beets make their mashed potatoes pink and they don’t want them touching each other. Dad makes the point that they all end up mixing in their stomachs anyway.
Dad asks about school, and the twins are telling a story about what happened during lunch. There is something wrong with Ruby, but there is always something wrong with Ruby. She is always in trouble at school. She is always making trouble at home.
Topaz is afraid that she might let slip what Ruby told her not to let slip about sneaking out last night. She is afraid because sometimes she says the wrong thing without knowing and then Ruby will sit near her in the dark and tell her, like a bedtime story starts, how what she did was the wrong thing and how she should have known. And sometimes the punishment comes then, a pinch so hard that Topaz screams into the pillow—or worse, the punishment that comes later. The time her hamster disappeared—that was the worst. Ruby said she had nothing to do with it, but there was a glint in her eye and a sidewise wink that told Topaz otherwise. She had cried, and she would have told all, but Ruby told her Cocoa Puff wasn’t dead yet, and she could bring her back to life if Topaz was sorry now, and never crossed Ruby again. Thankful, so thankful, Topaz said yes yes yes and please please and never again and Cocoa Puff had appeared back in her cage that next morning like magic.
But something is wrong with Mom, too. Her words come choked and with sighs in between. Topaz doesn’t mind the beets bleeding into the potatoes. She likes that they turn pink and she is mixing it all around on her plate when Mom suddenly says, very loud and clear, “You all know that you must never, never get into anyone’s car, or go anywhere with anybody unless it’s me or Daddy, right?”
Lavender and Lily look to each other then back to Mom. They nod.
Topaz nods.
Only Ruby keeps eating like it’s nothing and says, “What about Uncle Gerald? Or Aunt Jess?”
“Well, that’s different,” Dad says. “Or what if it’s a teacher from school?” Ruby continues. “Well, I’m not sure why you would be riding with your teacher, but if it were something where the school knew about it, then…,” Dad was saying but Ruby just cuts him off.
“What if it’s someone from the Church?” Ruby says and then stops chewing and looks at him directly. She knows how to make everyone stop and look, for sure, and the whole table does. There’s something in it that makes Dad look uncomfortable.
“Well, you shouldn’t be taking rides from anyone, Ruby, but it isn’t you we are worried about, anyway.”
“Yeah, probably be just as glad to get rid of me,” she says under her breath. “No, no, of course not! You have to be careful, too, Ruby,” Mom says, “but the people that this monster is taking are much younger than you. He’s taking children. Little kids. Eight year olds. Seven year olds, the last one.” And here Mom chokes on the next words and they come out as a sob: “The last one was five.”
And then everyone turns and looks at Topaz. She is six. Lily and Lavender are twelve. Ruby is sixteen. Topaz is the baby. She likes being the baby.
She knows just what to say. “I don’t ever talk to strangers,” she utters with her best brave face.
Her mom smiles as tears run down her face. “I know, baby, I know,” she says, and she leaves her seat to rush over and hug Topaz, and she keeps on crying.
Ruby sits on the end of Topaz’ bed. Topaz has to share the room with Ruby. Ruby sneaks out all the time, and sometimes Topaz has heard a knock at the window. She would be so afraid that it was a ghost or a monster, but it would be one of Ruby’s boyfriends tapping. There was Dale—the bad one—she didn’t like. He was mean. He hurt animals. And he liked to pick on Topaz, with Ruby’s approval. Or sometimes Jeff, who was okay and would bring her little pieces of candy sometimes, but he hadn’t been around for a while. Ruby would leave with the boy when he came and tap tap tapped on the window, and Topaz usually would try to pretend she didn’t wake up and she had never been afraid it was a ghost or a monster.
Sometimes Ruby would come back all giggly and smelling strange. Sometimes she would wake Topaz and hug her, sometimes crying, sometimes she would say, “Oh, my little sister, my sweet sweet little sister, I would kill kill kill anyone who hurt you. You know that, right?”
Topaz doesn’t know that. Sometimes she thinks Ruby would kill her, herself. Now Ruby sits on the bed, this night, and is combing Topaz’ hair. It feels nice. Topaz is scared—she is always scared when Ruby is nice—but she tries to act like Ruby is always nice.
“Poor Mom,” says Ruby. “She just can’t understand that there could be such a beast right under her nose. Do you want to know what he did?”
Topaz doesn’t want to know but she says, “Yes.” “Well, there are four missing children, but they found the body of the five year old. The last one he took. He raped the kid, and then strangled her, and threw her body
in a ditch. And I could tell you more gory details but I’ll spare your innocent ears.”
“My ears aren’t innocent,” Topaz says.
Ruby pinches one, not hard, but Topaz still yelps. “Baby,” says Ruby. “Do you know what rape is?”
Topaz doesn’t know. “Yes,” she says. She doesn’t want Ruby to tell her.
Ruby laughs. “You don’t know. But I do. I know. But it’s not something I could tell you. Telling you wouldn’t really tell you.” She has finished combing Topaz’ hair. She pulls Topaz into a hug. Her voice is calm and soothing, but Topaz feels freezing cold, like her insides are prickling. “Mom is crying because Mom doesn’t know who it is, or how to protect you from it. But I do.”
“You do?” says Topaz, because she can tell Ruby is waiting for her to say something. “Yes. I know who it is, Topaz. I know who is killing the children.” “Who?”
Ruby remains quiet for a minute. “Who?” Topaz asks again.
“Do you want to see?”
Topaz follows Ruby down the stairs on her softest feet. First toes, then slowly the heel, then lift the next leg, first toes, then the heel, lift next leg…creep creep quietly. She knows how to creep this quiet because Ruby had taught her the hard way. If she was sneaking something for Ruby—money from Mom’s purse—if she made noise, if she got caught, Ruby would punish her. Now she knows how to be silent, and she follows Ruby like a shadow.
‘I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me.’ Topaz likes to tell herself poems she knows in her head to keep herself from shaking, from slipping up. The poem makes her feel like this is an adventure she is having now, with Ruby. Ruby is taking her into her confidence. Ruby is looking after her like big sisters are supposed to do. And maybe, sometime very soon, Ruby might realize that she really likes Topaz. That she likes telling her things. And what a good help Topaz is.