Prisoner of the Molepeople

Chapter 36 - Guardian

Soon enough, as dictated by the point of a gun, I was back in the palace bedroom. Gahboo ninjas, standing outside the window, were working on repairing the hole they'd cut. It was strange how good it felt to be back in “my room.” But then, when one was as tired as me, anywhere with a bed was home.

The ninjas went so far as to install bars over the window. With all the noise of their power tools, I wondered how they were possibly staying undetected by the palace guards. Then, as I peered through the window, I noticed the policeman on the ground below. Along with a handful of other ninjas, he was licking a soft-served ice cream cone. This place was wrong on so many levels.

Corrupt police … that explained how the Gahboos had gotten Lenny out of jail. If Duthbert had traitors in his own house, maybe a revolution was more of a possibility than I’d thought.

Though I’d had enough politics for one night. Plopping down my weary body, I shut my eyes and tried to let go, but my aching frontal lobe had reached that point of irreversible insomnia. My desperate mind wouldn't stop scrambling to piece together a way out of this dark world. For all I knew, in much less than twenty-four hours, Duthbert would whisk me away on a so-called honeymoon. And then what? I couldn't even imagine. I refused to imagine. That is, I refused to imagine anything but a sword through his heart.

Hoping it wouldn't come to that, I rotated the black crystal through my fingers, rehearsing the words of my TV guardian:

The black crystal will bring darkness to light. But to become a shadow master, you must learn to see without light. You must become one with the darkness.

I was fairly certain those words didn't actually mean anything, especially as I realized the crystal was made of plastic. According to Bobbert, his father had ordered it from the Molemania Shopping Network, hoping it would somehow lead him to secret passages. But the old moleman had never figured out how to use it.

Perhaps he missed something. I held the crystal in front of the light. I searched for hidden messages. But the truth was too plain: between my bodyguards and I, we'd amassed quite a collection of junk. I tossed the worthless hunk onto the dresser. To think I'd almost lost Lenny over the stupid thing …

Next I rolled out the blueprints of the Romantic Division's secret network. True to Bobbert's words, at the center of the paper was a square labeled “Elevator to the Netherworld.” But beyond that, I couldn't make any sense of the labyrinth of lines, symbols, and acronyms.

To make things worse, the power happened to go out in that very moment, leaving me in total darkness.

Before collapsing on my bed, I rolled up the map and tossed it onto my junk pile. You would think I'd be used to doom and gloom by now, that I'd have nothing left to cry about. But then, you'd also think something would have worked out by now, that, having overcome so much, the God of heaven would have delivered me from this lion's den. If only someone, anyone, would help me. Really help me.

I don't know how much time went by as I lay there in the darkness, but when I came to myself, the clatter and voices of the Gahboos had ceased. The only sound was my breathing. That is, until I heard the hum of a motor. Fearing that another car full of kidnappers was pulling up to the palace, I parted the curtains and saw …

Grandma.

There was no mistaking her red lipstick and frizzy, white hair. Riding her electric wheelchair along the front path, she was heading for the gate at a blazing mile per hour.All sorts of interesting things happened here at night. Alone in the darkness, the ancient matriarch of Molemania seemed to glow like an angel. The sight was so surreal, part of me wondered if I was dreaming. And I can't say just why, but I had a strong impression that Grandma didn't belong in this world … which made no sense, because she was Grandma, the epitome of Molish insanity.

She twisted her baggy neck to glance behind. She looked worried.

“Where are you going, Grandma?” I whispered to the window.

There was no way she could have heard me. Yet, as if by her queenly powers, she stopped her progress, rotated her chair, and looked up at me. A smile graced her lips, and though I was startled, I couldn't help but return the gesture.

She grabbed her necklace and raised it for me to see:

A black crystal.

There was a question in her face. And though not a word was spoken, somehow I understood.

Filled with wonder, I ran to the dresser, grabbed my own crystal, then returned to the window and held the crystal up for Grandma to see. Though this whole crystal business was downright weird, suddenly I was proud of the plastic thing, as if I was part of some high society.

Grandma nodded her head with approval.

Think, Ann … what does this mean? How could she know I had this, unless … unless …

Something sparking within me, I pointed at my crystal, then at Grandma. “You?” I asked.

As if reading my thoughts, she nodded. Gone were those dilated eyes. In their stead were the wisest eyes I'd ever seen.

And then I knew. As strange as it was, Grandma was my TV guardian. It was she who had sent me to the graveyard, and somehow it was she who had led me to the crystal. Perhaps she'd been watching over me this whole time.

Confused beyond measure, I wondered which was the illusion: the senile vegetable I'd seen before or this saintly vision in front of me. Yet the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. As a techno artist, she was obviously technically savvy. After all, her room was like a command center. And in a nation full of hidden cameras and microphones, who was more apt to see all than the queen of eavesdroppers?

According to Howard, Grandma was a huge supporter of the top secret Romantic Division. Perhaps she was the Romantic Division. She must have been in charge of the Molemania Network as well, making it easy for her to tap into transmissions. And having heard her taste in music, this explained why the Molemania Network had such terrible programming.

But why so mysterious?

Grandma turned her wheelchair back to the front gate and resumed her tedious journey. Was she trying to escape? Was she also a prisoner?

Suddenly the light in my room turned on again, my alarm clock flashing twelve o'clock. Grandma glanced back again, a look of fear in her face. She was trying to escape. Though it was liking watching a snail race, I’d never wanted anything like I wanted to see Grandma get through that gate. As one queen to another, I cheered her on. “Go!”

As if seeing something only she could see, she exerted all of her meager force against the joystick of the wheelchair, but the pathetic vehicle wouldn't go any faster.

“There she is!” someone shouted.

Two molemen rushed into the scene: Chuck and Willie. They seized the wheelchair, holding down the arms of the helpless old molewoman as if she were an armed criminal.

“Nice try, Grandma,” said Chuck, “but it's gonna take more than flipping a power switch to get past our security.”

“Yeah,” said Willie, sounding like the dumb horse he was, “however many eyes you think you've got, Duthbert has more.”

“Let me go!” Grandma shrieked.

“You're off your meds again,” said Chuck. “If we let you go, you could get hurt.” He pulled out a medicine bottle, and Willie forced open her jaw. Together they stuffed a handful of pills down her throat.

This was the second time I'd been forced to stand by and watch from this window as my friends were assaulted. With nothing else to do, I banged the glass.

Chuck and Willie looked up at me … and smiled. Soon Grandma’s squirming body began to relax, then slump … and then she was completely still. The goons began to push her back to the palace. To top it all off, Willie blew me a kiss on the way.

Before they disappeared from my view, I had a disturbing glimpse of Grandma's dilated eyes. Once again she was staring into space.

Just beyond the palace gate, some headlights lit up, and a van drove off.

Great. Another conspiracy and another person to rescue.