Heaven Eyes - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The novel is told from the first person, the first sentence being, “My name is Erin Law.” The author then introduces the other characters, and indeed, tells the entire story, through her. Erin lives at Whitegates, a home for "damaged children". Erin's father was a foreign sailor who left her mother after a brief affair. Years later, Errin was grief-stricken when her mother died. Many of the other children at Whitegates.

Whitegates is run by a well-meaning but flawed woman named Maureen. Erin and January Carr and some other children frequently reject her superficial, half-hearted attempts at therapy.

January Carr is Erin’s “running-away-friend”, and the two often escape from comfortable but suppressive Whitegates to live out of dumpsters in the city. One day, January decides to build a raft and float away down the river. Before leaving, Wilson Cairns tries to show Erin that the clay figures he is constantly molding actually come to life.

Erin and January leave with their raft, but Mouse Gullane and his pet mouse Squeak insist on coming with them, Mouse tries to bribe them with money and small plastic toys he has dug out of the ground (one day Mouse hopes to uncover something really important buried in the earth). The others eventually allow him to come, even though they worry for the younger child’s safety. And indeed, they all almost die, as the raft is hurled along the fast-moving, polluted river and carried into the Black Middens, where they are all nearly engulfed by the mud. However, a strange young girl named Heaven Eyes rescues them. She cries, “Is you my sister? Is these mine brothers?” An old man whom Heaven Eyes refers to as Grampa tells her that they are not and that they should be dug back into the Middens. But she insists on bringing Erin, January, Mouse and Squeak into their home; a huge old stone building decorated with stone statues of angels. It is very close to the river. The building contains an old printing press, as well as boxes of corned beef, raisins, and chocolates. Grampa is still distrustful of the new children. Grampa is constantly writing in a book in which he records every thing he sees in and around the middens.

Heaven Eyes shows them around the building, and Erin gets lost in a deep cellar, where she becomes spiritually lost and her despair over the death of her mother overcomes her. Heaven Eyes rescues her once more, stating that she must be careful as there are holes where one can slip into another place, a place of darkness.

Grampa becomes more tolerant of Erin and her friends and allows them to help him dig in the Middens, which Mouse particularly enjoys. January, whoever, is very distrustful of Grampa and thinks they should leave. He begins to snoop around, despite Grampa’s warning, “No shenanigans”, and discovers evidence that Heaven Eyes was a child aboard a ship with her family. He suspects Grampa of kidnap and murder. When they find a body in the Black Middens, January feels vindicated, to the point that he threatens to leave the others behind and escape on his own if they refuse to come. Grampa becomes enraged and dangerous when he discovers January has been snooping. Heaven Eyes claims the body is a “saint”. That night, Erin and January dig up the body and discover that it is the mummified body of a dock-side worker that has lain in the mud for many, many years. They bring the body (or the”Saint”), back to land, and Heaven Eyes makes a bed for him. Grampa’s affection for all of them strengthens, and then, to their grief (especially Heaven Eyes’), he dies. “Lovely as lovely,” he says when Heaven Eyes tells him that Erin and her friends are her brothers and sisters. Then he becomes “Dead as dead,” according to Heaven Eyes. Then the mummified body of the Saint comes to life and guides Grampa’s spirit over the Black Middens and down into sparkling waters.

When construction vehicles come to tear down the old building, and erect modern businesses in its place, Errin and her friends manage to rescue many of the treasures, including Grampa’s huge book. Then they take Heaven Eyes, whom they now call Anna May, back to Whitegates, where the extraordinary child is able to heal Maureen’s “damaged” soul. Maureen is able to finally become a true mother to the abandoned and orphaned children of Whitegates. Miraculously, January’s mother appears to take him home, and she is just as he imagined her.

At Whitegates, Wison Cairns’ clay figures really do come to life. Erin and her friends vow to solve the mysteries of bygone decades recorded in Grampa’s book, and to continue his work. Errin explains that this story has no end and is part of all the other stories of the world.