Big Fish by Daniel Wallace Read Free Book Online Page A

ominously, “don’t look into the eye!”
    My father sat on the ground and waited in silence. He did not look into the eye.
    After a moment, the one in the middle spoke again.
    â€œWhy are you here?” he asked.
    â€œThe eye,” Edward said. “I’ve come for the eye.”
    â€œThe eye has called you here, has it not?” he said. “Have you not heard the eye calling for you?”
    â€œI have,” Edward said. “I have heard the eye call to me.”
    â€œThen take the eye and place it in the box, and stay with it all through the night, and return it here on the morrow. Should anything happen to the eye—”
    But the one in the middle stopped speaking, and there arose a mournful murmur from the others.
    â€œShould anything happen to eye,” he said again, “if it becomes lost, or broken—”
    But here he stopped again, and stared at my father through the slits in his hood.
    â€œâ€”then we shall take one of your eyes as recompense,” he said.
    The six hoods nodded as one.
    â€œI see,” my father said, unacquainted with this rather serious stipulation until now.
    â€œOn the morrow, then,” he said.
    â€œYes,” said my father. “The morrow.”
    L EAVING THE BARN AND entering into the dark country night, Edward walked toward the lights of Auburn, deep in thought. He didn’t know what to do. Would they truly take one of his own eyes if he failed to return the glass one tomorrow? Stranger things have happened. Clutching the box in his right hand as he walked, he touched his eyes with his left hand, each of them, and wondered what it would be like if one of them were gone, and if indeed his vow to the old lady should be honored when so much was at stake. He knew it was possible that the figures in the hoods had no intention of taking one of his eyes, and yet, if there was but a ten percent chance, even a one percent chance that this would happen, was it all worth it? His eyes were real, after all, and the old woman’s eye just made of glass. . . .
    He stayed up with the eye all night, staring into its shiny blueness, seeing himself within it, until the sun, rising above the tree line the next morning, seemed to him to be the shining eye of some forgotten god.
    T HE BARN LOOKED DIFFERENT in the light of day—not so scary. Just an old barn with missing slats, hay poking through holes like stuffing out a pillow. Cows chewing on the grass, an old brown horse fenced in nearby, nose full of air. Edward hesitated at the barn door, then pushed it open, its creakiness not so spooky now.
    â€œYou’re late,” someone said.
    Edward looked to the back of the barn but there were no hooded figures this time, just six college boys, roughly as old as Edward was, dressed about the same—loafers, khaki trousers, light blue button-down cotton shirts.
    â€œYou’re late,” he said again, and Edward recognized the voice from the night before. He was the one in the middle, the leader. Edward looked at him for a long moment.
    â€œSorry,” Edward said. “There was somebody I had to see.”
    â€œDo you have the eye?” he asked him.
    â€œYes,” Edward said. “The eye is here.”
    The man pointed to the small box Edward clutched in his hand.
    â€œGive it here then,” he said.
    Edward gave the man the box, and as the others crowded around to see, he opened it.
    They stared into the box for what seemed a long time, then all of them turned to Edward.
    â€œIt’s not here,” the leader said, almost in a whisper, his face turning red with fury. “The eye’s not here!” he screamed.
    All at once they came for him, until Edward raised his hand and said, “I told you the eye was here. I didn’t say it was in the box.”
    The six boys stopped, fearing the eye was somewhere on my father’s person, and that if they were to beat him badly they might end up