Dark Eye

They were always quiet when they left, always careful to brush the sand off themselves before they returned home. They gave their grandmother no cause for suspicion or alarm. Ernie was deliriously happy, and each night seemed more intense, more momentous than the one before. But he could never entirely shake his sense of foreboding. He knew that what they were doing was wrong, or at least that their grandmother would think so. Didn’t that mean they would be punished? Would she return to her sewing basket? Would she hurt him again?

What he did not realize was that his punishment, when it came, would be ever so much worse.

“Gi

The wave crashed down on them, huge and impenetrable as a wall, knocking Ernie off his feet. “Gi

He scrambled up, fighting the pounding of the water, but his feet sank into the sand. “Gi

She had been digging a tu

“Gi

“Gi

He struggled to make his way to the two castles and found a half-dug tu

The tide had come in while she was burrowing. The tu

He began digging as fast as he could, pulling out great clumps of wet sand, trying to find her head, but it was slow work for little hands. He knew every second counted. He called out her name again and again, crying into the night wind, but there was never any response.

He didn’t know how long it took, a minute, twenty, he couldn’t tell. He excavated her head and finally managed to roll her out of the muck. He brushed sand from her mouth, her nose, her eyes, all the while screaming out her name.

Her eyes remained closed.

He opened her mouth and blew air into it like he’d seen people do on television, but she did not respond. He was scared and alone and he didn’t know what to do. He raced back and forth on the beach, the death clock ticking away in his brain.

He had to get help. Grown-up help. He started ru

As soon as he arrived at the house, he called the police. They were the ones best able to help Gi

Ernie found it difficult to function, to perform even the simplest tasks. He was weary and heartsore and scared and confused. He answered the policemen’s questions as best he could and took them out to the beach.

“Dear God,” the cop said when they finally arrived. “Why didn’t you call us sooner, son? We might’ve saved her.”

The rest of the night was a hideous blur. There were questions and questions and questions. He was still wet and cold and miserable. And all the while, his grandmother stared at him, her eyes dark as coals and cold as night. He knew what she was thinking.

Around three A.M., they took Gi

Ernie didn’t know who all these people were. He’d never known Nana had any friends; only her nighttime lady friends came to the house. But at the reception after the funeral, the place was packed with strangers.

No one would talk to him, not at the funeral and not now. He knew why. Some of them thought maybe he’d done it on purpose. They thought he was a bad seed, a chip off his father’s block. They blamed him not only for Gi

Someone had brought food, a couple of casseroles and some bean salad, but he didn’t eat much, even though he’d taken nothing all day. The first bite died in his throat; it seemed tasteless.

The minister was the only person there who didn’t have wrinkles. He was new, maybe thirty. Ernie knew his grandmother didn’t like him. Ernie didn’t like him much, either. But he was the only one in the house who would talk to him.

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” Reverend Barton said. “God called her home, that’s all. She’s in heaven now, with the angels. We should be so fortunate.”

“It doesn’t seem right,” Ernie mumbled.

“It never does. We think, why did it have to be her? But remember-she went to be with Jesus. That’s a good thing, not bad. The Lord God moves in strange and mysterious ways. There is a plan, even if we have not yet discovered it. Evidently, God needed her more than we did.”

Ernie looked up at the minister, his eyes pleading. “What I don’t understand is, why didn’t God take me, too? We belong together.”

“You will be together again one day, God willing.”

“But why not now? I feel so-awful. I never should’ve gone out there with her.”

Reverend Barton knelt down and took the boy by the shoulders. “It’s not your fault, son. You were God’s instrument. You helped Him fulfill His plan.”

That night, she came for him.

“Ernie,” she said, standing in the dark at his bedroom door. The cat was curled between her ankles. “Wake up.”

“Can’t…,” he moaned, pretending he had been asleep.

She grabbed his head by the hair and jerked him upright. Ernie sputtered, wild-eyed, drool spilling from his lips.

He looked down at her other hand. She was holding the needle.

“Thought those damn fools would never leave.”

“Please don’t hurt me, Nana. It was so bad last time. Please don’t do it again.”

“You’re all alike,” she said, her eyes glistening like the silver dagger she held in her hand. “Your father took my first little girl away from me. And you took my next one.” She grabbed him by the collar of his pajamas, shaking him. “Did you do anything to her before you killed her?”

“No!”

“You disgusting men with your disgusting little things.” She shook him even harder. “Tell me the truth. What did you do to her? So help me, I’ll-”

“No!” He broke away, scrambling across the bed. He dove through the doorway but miscalculated in the darkness, banging his head on the wall. He leaped to his feet, stubbing his toe in the process. She reached out just in time to grab his leg.

“Gotcha!” She jabbed the needle into the soft underside of his foot.

Ernie shrieked, then tore himself away from her. He pushed ahead, but the cat raced in front of him and made him stumble. He collided with the banister, headfirst. She came after him, her teeth bared, her needle shining in the reflected moonlight.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpered. “Please don’t.”

“You’ll take your punishment, Ernie. If I have to chase you to the ends of the earth. God punishes si

She reared up before him, her needle poised like a dagger.

Ernie kicked her in the stomach.

For a long moment, she seemed suspended in air. He could have grabbed her hand and pulled her back onto the landing. But the needle was in that hand.

He let her fall.

When at last her body stopped, the tumbled heap at the foot of the stairs did not stir.

Ernie moved quickly. He gathered together everything he wanted to save, threw it in a bag, and hid it in the forest. Then he killed the cat. He took his time about that, releasing much that had been pent up for so long, in a slow, protracted, highly gratifying dissection. Then he burned the house down.