334. Very Dark Eyes

334. Very Dark Eyes

We had our doubts before climbing up the kiddynapper’s tree. It was only natural, considering what we were hearing come floating down from up there. You see, the Grim Granny was singing to herself her own version of Dark Eyes. And she wasn’t doing it softly. She was shouting with more vigour than a choir of slavic soldiers.

“Eyes that pop out, when they see me, eyes that freeze square, how they fear me!

Eyes that freak out when they sight me, eyes that go blank when I bite thee!

I’m here to take away your happiness, and make it mine instead!

You’ll rue the day you met me!

La la lai la, la la lai la, you are as good as dead!”

“Is that her raving madly?” asked Uncle Richie. “Voice not bad, but lyrics yes.”

“I told you she was ******* ****** terrifying!” hissed Uncle Fi.

“And I always thought she was an invention of Mummy’s to spook us into behaving. You believed in her, Fi. And you were ******* right. Oh, sorry! Sorry for  the foul word. I don’t say them. You are contagious, Fi.”

“I don’t think I want to do this,” grumbled Fi frowning darkly. “I’m not climbing up there to confront her! I loved my mother too much not to be traumatized”

“Wow!” said Richie. “You’ve spoken three sentences without saying a foul word. You must be really scared. What about you, Gentie? Did you or did you not believe in Granny Grimface? Did you think she was real, or a ruse of Mummy’s?”

“I didn’t know what to think, so I decided to try to find her and see for myself. Not by provoking her into popping up and eating our parents. I wouldn’t ever do that. But I noticed the way our father would look away whenever Mummy mentioned her. He never said she wasn’t real. He just made himself scarce when about to be questioned on the subject. So I was curious.”

“Did you really think, Gentie, like Fufi did, that someone would be able to eat our parents? I mean, they are not precisely unpugnacious.”

“I almost died of a heart attack when I met Eulalie,” said Fi. “It took all the calm and the courage I could muster for me not to fly out of Fancy’s life the  very moment I realized who Eulalie was. I never would have courted Fancy if I’d known who her ****** foster gran was.”

“When we were little, I decided to learn all I could about her, because if she were real, she would have to be stopped. But I wasn’t able to learn much,” said Gentlerain. “Only that she wasn’t likely to be Mummy’s invention, because there were other much older people than us who had been tormented by the idea of her when they were kids. But now I know that she turned her husband and his mistress into peas and swallowed them and that is probably all she has eaten. Of people, I mean. Of course.”

“She ate her cheating husband?” asked Richie. “What are we doing here?”

“They were a childless couple all their married life. She wanted to order a kid, or even a dozen. But he refused to. He said either kids showed up naturally right in front of his eyes or he wouldn’t have any. Then, after centuries together, she discovered he had kids with another woman. And she turned him into a pea and swallowed him. And the other woman too. Like I said.”

“And they are still inside her?” asked Richie.

“No. She was forced to throw them up. But she was never normal again. Before she was made to release her peas, she had brought up their  kids. Everyone had been thinking how nice of her that was, to care for her missing and unfaithful husband’s children. And then the eating part of the story came to light. And everyone shied away from her, and she got into the habit of abducting abused kids and bringing them up in her eucalyptus home.”

“Before which we now stand. I know this song. It’s an intense love song,” said Richie. “Do you think I should join the singing?”

And, before he got an answer, he did just that. He began singing Ochi Chyornye in Russian because he was not scared at all any more. He had told himself he was used to domestic quarrels and had always come out of them the better for having had them. They had ended with his being abandoned by all his dreadful wives, of course.

“Who is that down there?” hollered Granny Grimface. “You sing good, cheeky *******, but are you mocking me?”

“No!” Uncle Rich assured her. “I just was moved into participating. I like your voice. Do you really like mine? Maybe we should get together and-"

And Uncle Fi nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. Brutally.

“Ow!” complained Uncle Rich.

“Mrs. Bloodstone, I’m Brightfire Goodfellow. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m a friend of Fancy Feverfew’s. She introduced me to you once,” said Fi.

And Granny Grimface came down her tree, and I will have a word about the tree before I go on. Though it looked at first like an Australian tree, it now morphed into what seemed to be a rainbow eucalyptus tree, for its bark became many coloured. I know this tree because of Beau’s visit to somewhere near Mindanao when he went to acquire the carrousel horse that made it possible for the Atshebies to have a safe name day party. Granny did not descend from it alone. She did this  surrounded by a swarm of little children who would not stay quiet but began to dance all around us, giving little leaps and bounds and making ugly faces and tee-heeing and cracking up more loudly when they saw we did not respond to provocation. And I must say they looked happy.

“Who ironed your shirt?” Granny Grimface asked Esmeraldo.

“Why?” he cautiously answered her question with another.

“It’s very well ironed.”

“Ah!” said Esmeraldo. Just that.

“Are these your kids?” she asked Brightfire.

But before he could answer, Azuline said, “We’re his nieces and his nephew. And he is a nice uncle and always treats us right.”

“Yes!” said Neferclari. And Esmeraldo nodded.

“Good!” said Granny Grimface. “He had better be!”

“Mrs. Bloodstone, I am Gentlerain Goodfellow,” said Uncle Gent, who always takes the initiative when he smells blood. “We’re trying to locate Umbrian Silvervine Parry, and we thought you might help us with this.”

“I remember you perfectly,” Eulalie said to Brightfire. “You are the incendiary. And I wish you had shown more interest in Fancy than Umbrian did. She went from bad to worst when you left her. And you, Gentlerain, or whatever your name is, I haven’t eaten Umbrian, if that is what you are implying.”

“Any information you could give us would be of use,” said Gentie.

And then the granny began to look like a really bad witch. She even grew a black hat, so malevolently did she cuss.

“You would have to ask that ******* lying ***** whose hair I *******pulled right off her nasty head when the Golden Girls had sewn it ******* back. I forget what her ****** name was. Make my Fancy cry! I couldn’t allow that, though it was over an *******, they broke her heart. But you can’t ask her, because she absconded with that ******* fool and is missing too. I should have ******* eaten those two pieces of ****! Blast their ******* black hearts!”

“Yes, we know you had a showdown with Malina Badlight. And we know she is missing too.”

“Did the Aureas tell you that?”

“I read about it somewhere.”

I, too, had read about the fight. It was described in  faithful and colourful detail in the index card from the first coffer. The Aureas had had to sew Malina’s hair back on a third time.

“So we were in the press, were we? Good. That will ******* teach people to stay away from me. And what about you, the cheeky singer? Who are you and why are you here?”

“He’s my beloved and perfect daddy,” said Azuline. “He couldn’t be a better model daddy. And I love him to the moon and back.”

“If you say so,” shrugged Granny Grimface. “Anybody else have a daddy here? Good or not?”

“No!” said the Blue Twins in unison.  

And Esmeraldo and Neferclari nodded to support her answer. Yes, mercifully Esmeraldo was prudent and kept his mouth shut.