Eddy trotted home obediently. His father met him at the door. He had watched Annie disappear down the driveway. “Where’s Annie going?” he asked Eddy.
“Boston,” said Eddy, proud to know the answer. “Annie’s going to Boston.”
Chapter 30
“This man is not my son, I drive him forth, and command you to take him out into the forest and kill him.”
The Brothers Grimm, “The Three Languages”
But he couldn’t wait for Annie to come home. Eddy loved Annie’s wall. He had seen her lock the door, but he came back anyway to look through the glass. To his surprise he found the door ajar, and the screen propped open with a stick.
Gladly he walked in. Was Annie home again from Boston? But no one welcomed him. No one said, Hello, Eddy! and offered him a big piece of paper and a paintbox. Flimnap wasn’t there either, Flimnap who found gumdrops in Eddy’s ears, who could catch a ball in his mouth and carry Eddy high in the air on his funny bike.
He was alone in Annie’s magical house. There on the table was the new picture he had drawn for Annie, and high on the wall her new animals glowed at him—two funny ones in a boat. He had to come closer. He had to see. He would be so careful! He mustn’t hurt anything that belonged to Annie.
Carefully Eddy went to the ladder and climbed up to the place where Annie sat to work on her pictures. The ladder was shaky. When he got to his feet on the platform, he had to throw out his short arms for balance, because the scaffolding was rolling sideways. Then it stopped. He looked up. The new animals were higher still.
Grasping the second ladder, Eddy went up slowly, setting both feet on every rung. He put his knees on the upper board and crawled forward until it was safe to stand up. Then he moved cautiously to the right, with the board shifting beneath his feet, and stopped in front of the little river scene. There before him was a big mouse standing up in a boat and holding a pair of oars, and another funny animal with glasses perched on his long snout. It was the Water Rat and the Mole from The Wind in the Willows, and it was the last wondrous vision of Eddy’s life.
Charlene saw everything. She heard the thundering racket and Eddy’s cry, she felt the vibration as his body struck the tile floor, she witnessed the final blow. Then there was no sound but weeping, and the rasping voice of a crow in the faraway field, caw-caw, caw-caw. The shutter of Cissie Aufsesser’s camera had made no sound at all as it opened and closed. Nor was there a sudden flash of light, because the brilliant sunshine of midday flooded the room from Annie’s four tall windows.
Charlene put the camera in her pocket and said, “I’ll tell.”
Only then did her father turn around, his shoulders shaking with sobs, and see his daughter standing in the doorway.
“Oh, my Lord Fish,” said the fisherman, calling to him above the rumble of thunder, “my wife is still unhappy.”
The great fish gazed up at him from the water and said softly, “But she is rich and young and beautiful. Is that not enough?”
“I am sorry, Lord Fish, but she wants to be Queen of the land.”
The fish looked at him gravely, and murmured, “Go home. It shall be as she desires.” And then he sank down into the deepest part of the sea.
Part Two
Wipe, wipe your eyes, and shake your head,
And cry, “Alas! Tom Thumb is dead!”
—“The History of Tom Thumb”
Chapter 31
Annie lugged her books from the car to the front door. She had to set them down on the broad stone step in order to unlock the door and push it open. Then she transferred the books to the hall table, hung up her coat, and dodged into the laundry, where she took the wet towels out of the washing machine and shoved them into the dryer.
It was a routine job, postponing for a moment the discovery that her life had taken a new and disastrous turn. Not until she picked up the books and carried them into the living room did she see what had happened. At once her arms went limp, and the books fell to the floor.
In the general wreckage of collapsed ladders, fallen boards, and smashed jars of paint she did not at first see Eddy, because his small body was obscured by her big plastic tarp. But when she came closer, cursing, there he was, and she cried, “Eddy, oh, Eddy,” and fell to her knees beside him.
It was clear that he was dead. His small round head was flattened against the tile floor in an ooze of blood. Annie wrenched herself around and stared at the French door. It was open, it was wide open, swinging a little in the cool spring breeze. But she had locked the door, she had locked it!
But there it was, wide open, and Bob Gast was running into the room, followed by three men in uniform. When he saw Annie, he shouted at her, “Get away from my son. You killed him, you bitch, you killed him.”