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He gave all his attention to fussing with his remote controls while Molly and I took the opportunity to move a few steps away and talk quietly with each other. I kept my voice really low. I wouldn’t put it past the Mole to bug his own lair, just in case.
"What do you think?" I murmured. "Can we trust him? I get the feeling he’s not too tightly wrapped, to be honest."
"What did you expect?" said Molly just as quietly. "He’s lived down here in seclusion for God knows how many years, his only contact with the world what he sees on his screens and hears on the Net. Like Oddly John: if he wasn’t crazy when he came down here, he almost certainly is now."
"But he says he knows things."
"Oh, he does. But whether they’re real things, or helpful things…It’s up to you, Eddie, to get him to tell you what you need to know. I mean, the Mole’s a sweetie, but he literally doesn’t live in the same world as the rest of us anymore."
"Then why did you bring me down here?" I said just a little tetchily.
"Because the Mole genuinely does know some things that no one else knows."
"Whispering is very bad ma
"Sorry," I said. "We didn’t want to disturb you. I was hoping you might know some things I need to know."
"Try me," the Mole said grandly. "I am wise and know many things. Yes. Including a whole lot I’m not supposed to know."
"Do you know why I was declared rogue?" I said flatly. "Why the Matriarch wants me dead so badly?"
"Ah," said the Mole, his face dropping. He clasped his podgy hands across his protruding belly. "I’m not privy to our family’s i
"But I still don’t know why I was outlawed. After all my years of digging and probing and listening at electronic keyholes, I’m still no wiser. No. I can only assume…I must have been on the edge of discovering something really important, some deep dark family secret that the Droods have to keep hidden at all costs…I just wish I knew what it was. I’d sell it to everyone, just to make the family pay for what they did to me."
Another dead end. I scowled, thinking. "That reminds me a lot of what happened to the old librarian," I said finally.
"Ah, yes," said the Mole. "Poor old William. You know what happened to him?"
"Yes," I said. "Molly and I went to visit him this morning. He couldn’t tell us much."
"I’m amazed he told you anything," said the Mole. "I’ve been sending people in to talk to him for years, without success. You must tell me absolutely everything he said to you before you go, so I can record it. Everything, every word. Yes. I’ll study the recordings later, see if I can cross-reference any useful co
"Do you know what it was he found out?" I said. "What it was that drove him crazy? He mentioned the Sanctity and the Heart…"
"Did he? Did he now? That is interesting…Means nothing to me, though. No. I’ll have to think about that. Yes. Still, I can’t help feeling we’re probably better off not knowing. Look what knowing it did to a brilliant mind like his…" The Mole blinked rapidly several times, and then deliberately changed the subject. "I’m still working on a history of the Drood family, you know. From a safe distance. You’d be surprised how much information there is on the Droods out in the world, where they can’t suppress it. Oh, yes. I’m constantly finding out all kinds of awful things our family has done, Edwin, down the centuries. Oh, some of the things we’re responsible for…Terrible, terrible things! Yes. Just lately I’ve been concentrating on the real reasons behind certain important and well-known operations. For example, Edwin, do you know why our family is so determined to wipe out the Loathly Ones?"
"Well, yes," I said. "They eat souls."
"Apart from that," said the Mole. "The family needs to silence them so everyone else won’t find out that we were the ones who originally opened the dimensional door and let the Loathly Ones into our reality. We brought them here to act as foot soldiers against Vril Power Inc. during World War Two. Vril had grown powerful enough under Hitler to pose a real threat to the family. Had their own army and everything. Oh, yes, there were a lot of secret wars going on behind and underneath the real conflict, that the world never knew about. Anyway, the Loathly Ones did the job all right, but when the time came for them to return to their own dimension, as had been agreed, the Loathly Ones reneged on the deal and refused to go. They liked it here. The feeding was just so good…The family’s been trying to wipe them out ever since so no one will ever know we were the ones responsible for inflicting them on the world."
"Dear God," I said.
"Oh, that’s nothing!" said the Mole, leaning eagerly forward in his chair. "That’s nothing compared to some of the things I’ve found out! The family history that you and I were brought up on only records the official version of events, not the failures and foul-ups and the secret deals that went horribly wrong." The Mole paused, considering. "I have to say, I still believe that most of what we were taught was true…as far as it went…but you have to place it in the context of what it was all for in the end."
"So that we could be the secret rulers of the world," I said.
"Yes," said the Mole. "Sometimes I wonder…if perhaps there’s another context, beyond that, that I don’t know about yet. Some very secret reason why we have to be the secret rulers of the world, for everyone’s good. I’d like to believe that. Yes."
"Have you found any evidence for that?" I said.
"No," the Mole said sadly. "If only I could access the family library. All the reserved volumes and the restricted books. Learn the whole true history of the Drood family…But not even my resources can hack the Drood library. No. That’s why they’ve always kept everything on paper, because of people like me. And of course I’ve never been able to sneak a single surveillance camera into the Hall. No! No…"
"So you can’t tell me anything about why I was outlawed?" I persisted.
"You must know something," the Mole said sharply. "It’s always knowing things that make you really dangerous to the Droods. Knowing things they don’t want anyone else to know. Secrets that have to be kept inside their precious i
"But I don’t know anything!" I said. I could hear the desperation in my voice.
"They think you do," the Mole said simply.
We both looked around sharply as loud music blasted suddenly through the cavern. It seemed Molly had grown bored and wandered off on her own while the Mole and I argued over family history. She’d found MTV on one of the screens and jacked up the volume. "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin filled the air, the loud salsa beat echoing back from the stone walls. And Molly danced joyously to the music, stamping her feet and shaking her head and swirling her long dress about her. The Mole and I both watched, too entranced to think of protesting, as the wild witch danced to the music. It felt good to see such a moment of happy i