Restoring Harmony

by Joëlle Anthony

  Brandy had shown a stubborn streak I hadn’t anticipated by not talking to either me or Grandpa for almost two full days, but on the third morning, she woke up cheerful and herself, which was a big relief to all of us as we needed her happiness to buoy our spirits.

  The house was really getting cold at night. I’d gone upstairs to get my blankets because Brandy and Michael had begged me to sleep with them on the foldout couch in my grandparents’ bedroom and I’d finally agreed. I’d shared a bed with my sister ever since I was three, and I kind of missed having someone to cuddle with on cold nights.

  My grandparents were getting ready to turn in, and I’d left the kids in the living room to choose a story from a pile of really old picture books Grandma had given them. I’d just come out onto the landing when I heard Doug’s voice downstairs. I hurried over to the balcony that looked down onto them below.

  “But you want to live with Molly, don’t you, Brandy?” he asked.

  “I guess. But I miss you.”

  “I miss you too, but it’s better this way.”

  So Doug had come back and it looked like he planned to hand the kids over to me permanently.

  “Molly said you were gone,” Michael piped up.

  “I wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye,” he told them. “I want to hug you both, but you have to be careful. I’m still sore from my fall.”

  When the Organization had given Doug the first warning, he’d told the kids he’d cracked a rib falling off a horse, and of course, they’d believed him. Doug tried to squat down, but his face went ashen and he visibly clenched his jaw, a little moan escaping.

  “Maybe you’ll just have to hug my legs,” he said, straightening up. “It’s kind of hard to bend over.”

  The kids flung themselves at him, practically knocking him over, and wrapped their skinny little arms around his thighs. He blanched in pain, and for a second I thought he might pass out.

  “Easy now,” he said. “Not too tight.”

  “We’re only hugging your legs, silly,” Brandy said, giggling.

  “I know, sweet pea, but I’m sore all over.” He ruffled their hair with his big hands, and laughter floated up to me as I watched.

  “Okay,” he said after a while. “I gotta go. You two be good for Molly, and do what she says, all right?”

  “We will,” they said together.

  He motioned to a large envelope on the end table. “And don’t forget to give her the papers I left.”

  “We won’t,” they said.

  His voice got so soft I almost couldn’t hear him. “Tell her I’m sorry too,” he added.

  “Okay.”

  “Hey, Doug?” I called over the balcony. “Where are you going?”

  He looked up at me, and flinched from the sudden movement.

  “Mexico,” he said.

  “You’re leaving Brandy and Michael with me for good?” I asked.

  “Is that okay?”

  I couldn’t believe he was asking me that now when he’d obviously planned to just sneak away without them.

  “The Organization’s keeping me here now,” I said. “But if they ever let me go, I’ll have to take them back to Canada with me.” I wanted to make sure he understood he’d probably never see them again.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I know.”

  I did not want to be nice to him, but he looked so pathetic standing there. He’d chopped off all his long hair, probably so people would stop grabbing it in fights, and he was obviously in a lot of pain. “Do you need some money?” I asked.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “Well . . . be careful.”

  “You too, Molly,” he said. “Their birth certificates and stuff are in the envelope.”

  “Okay.”

  He rubbed the tops of their heads. “Take care of my kids.”

  “I will.”

  “I know.” He waved and was gone.

  If he was going to Mexico, he wouldn’t be back, so it didn’t really matter if we took them away from here or not. He’d entrusted them to me, and they belonged on our island farm now. Assuming we could ever get back.

  Brandy was curled up against me in the foldout bed and Michael had one leg over mine. I shifted trying to get more comfortable, but someone was standing over me with a candle, shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, Molly,” Grandpa said.

  “What?”

  “I did it!”

  “What’s going on?” Brandy mumbled.

  “Jack?” I heard Grandma’s voice say from across the dark room where she was tucked into her own bed.

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “I just wanted to tell Molly that I did it. The module works!”

  I disentangled myself from the kids and hunted for my jeans. “I want to see it,” I said.

  “There’s not much to it,” Grandpa said.

  “Can I come?” Michael asked. Brandy had already fallen back asleep.

  “No, you stay here.”

  He started to whimper and so I picked him up and put him into bed with Grandma.

  In the garage Grandpa had lit two whole boxes of candles in order to see what he was doing. Gleaming in the middle of the floor was the Studebaker, its hood propped open and a slight hum coming from it.

  I leaned in and inspected Grandpa’s handiwork. The Super Seven Solar Battery had been replaced by a red metal box with a curved top. The lid was hanging open, and I could see a mess of wires he’d pulled out of the wall, a hose made from one of Spill’s spare inner tubes, what looked like two circular saw blades, some string, and duct tape. Obviously whatever was really powering it was hidden from view. Even I knew you couldn’t build a power source from duct tape.

  “How fast do you think it will go?” I asked.

  Grandpa examined the pages that Spill had given us. “It says it will go seventy miles an hour, but I doubt the Studebaker will go more than about twenty because she’s made of steel.”

  “It’s amazing that you could build this out of scrap pieces.”

  “But that’s the whole point. Anyone who can follow directions can build it.”

  When Grandma had been in the hospital, Grandpa had found an old Today’s Mechanics in the waiting room. In it was an article about how to build a self-generating power source that was capable of running any car. He’d wanted to try it on the Studebaker, but later discovered he was missing several pages. That’s where Spill had come in. He’d downloaded the rest of it from the internet.

  “We can’t risk taking the car out,” Grandpa said, “but I can back her up a little, just so you can see it works.”

  “Okay.”

  I climbed in and he backed up about two feet. It was sort of anticlimactic unless you thought about the fact that he’d made it run himself.

  “You did it!” I said, and scooted across the bench seat to give him a hug. Unfortunately, because electric cars are almost silent, I hadn’t realized that he hadn’t turned the module off. His foot slipped on the pedal, sending us backward with a bang right into the garage door. He put it in park, switched it off, and we jumped out. Randall was off duty and our night guard was out in the backyard by the fire, but he would’ve heard the thump for sure. I started pinching out the candles with my thumb and forefinger.

  “Leave them,” Grandpa said. “He’ll check the bedroom first, and if we’re there, hopefully he won’t come in here. Let’s go!”

  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I followed Grandpa anyway, racing through the house. I dove into the bed next to Brandy and heard heavy footsteps in the living room. I’d just pulled the covers up over us when someone shone a Crank Light in my face.

  “What’s going on?” I mumbled, faking grogginess.

  The beam danced around the room, settling onto my grandparents’ bed.

  “Nothing,” the guy said. “Just my nightly head count. Sleep tight.”

  The light preceded him out of the room, and I heard the French doors to the deck click shut behind him. I waited five minutes, climbed ou
t of bed, snuck back to the garage, and put the candles out. The car worked! Now we just had to get away.

  33

  October 1st-An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

  IT WAS REALLY HARD TO ACT NORMAL THE NEXT DAY, but we tried our best. I spent the morning stripping the garden of anything that was left, which wasn’t much. I had no idea if we’d be able to cook along the way, and I wasn’t counting on fresh water, so I had Grandma wash and prep everything we had left for the journey with the idea that we’d just eat it raw if we had to.

  When Randall came on duty, I went out and sat by the fire with him. I did a double take because over his lip was the very faint start of a thin moustache. With his felt hat and short stocky body, and now this, he was looking more and more like an old-time movie gangster.

  “How exactly do I spend a piece of gold?” I asked him.

  At first he didn’t answer, and I thought he was back to the silent treatment.

  “I guess I could change it for you at the market,” he finally said. “Why?”

  “I want to stock up on food,” I said.

  He nodded. “You ready?”

  “Sure. I want to busk too, though. Let me get my fiddle.”

  I ran inside and got Jewels and a couple of cloth bags, and then Randall and I walked down to the market one last time. Of course, he had no idea it was the last time. According to the plans we’d made, today Spill was supposed to send us the go-ahead message hidden inside an apple. My heart was racing, and I was glad for Randall’s silence because I wasn’t sure I could keep the nervousness out of my voice.

  He led me into the scary bit of the market, but everyone moved swiftly out of our way and no one looked directly at either of us. He went into a tent to change the gold and I stood outside. After a few minutes, he came out with my money and then he led me around to buy dried goods, bread, and cheese. When I asked a vendor how much something cost, they gave me a price right away. Not one person asked me “how much do you have?” like usual. And, after a glare from Randall, the bread vendor lowered his price considerably.

  “You ready to busk now?” Randall asked.

  The bags were overflowing, and it was so cold I knew I’d be fumbling around, sounding horrible, but I needed the all-important message from Spill, and I knew busking was how he’d get it to me.

  “Yeah, I’ll play for a while. Do you mind?”

  “It’s your life.”

  Ha! That was a joke. I took out Jewels, and once she was tuned and I was playing, Randall slipped away to talk to his pals. “I’ll be back as soon as you stop, so don’t get any ideas,” he said before he went. I made a sweet-and-innocent face, and he laughed.

  I played for almost forty-five minutes without anyone dropping any kind of fruit into my case. My fingers were freezing, and I sounded terrible. I had stopped playing to blow on my hands when a little boy came over and handed me an apple.

  This was it! Before I could even look at it, though, Randall was standing over me. “I’ll take that,” he said. “If you don’t mind, Molly.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  What could I say?

  “You ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I packed up Jewels, watching him out of the corner of my eye. I thought he’d somehow figured out that Spill and I were up to something. Was he going to inspect the apple? No, instead he bit into it. We walked back through the market and up the hill, Randall chomping on the apple the whole time. Spill had told me he was going to remove the core and place a note inside, and then slide it back in so the apple would look whole. I was sure that any second Randall was going to bite into something that shouldn’t be inside it.

  “Can I have the core when you’re finished?” I asked as casually as I could. “I’m saving the seeds.”

  “Gonna plant an orchard?” he asked, laughing.

  “Well . . . not really . . . but Grandpa and I are going to start homeschooling the kids,” I improvised. “I thought this would be a fun project, just to keep them busy, you know? We can try and sprout them.”

  Randall took one last bite and then handed me the core. I tossed it in the bag with the food and kept walking like nothing had happened. As soon as I got home, I ripped the core to bits. The piece of paper inside was so small I was surprised Randall hadn’t eaten it. In tiny handwriting was one word:

  Tonight.

  Grandma seemed to understand the entire plan and the two of us made a big show of cooking dinner over the fire. I even played my fiddle until my fingers were so cold I had to quit. Randall sat in one of the chairs, bundled in his coat, laughing and singing along with us. Instead of relaxing me, his trust made me feel worse about what I was planning to do. After a while, we all went inside, leaving him there to stay warm by the fire. He was on duty until midnight, and by then it would all be over.

  I took Jewels to the garage, where Grandpa was making last-minute adjustments to the load. Brandy and Michael were perched on top of an enormous suitcase in the backseat, rolling the windows up and down. Grandma sat next to them, smiling like she was going out for a Sunday drive.

  We’d packed the trunk with food, several liters of water, and ancient camping gear from Grandpa’s attic. My bike was strapped to a makeshift bike rack attached to the rear bumper just in case we needed it.

  “Don’t you think we could just drive away?” I asked him. “Randall might not even hear us.”

  “Spill said not to take any chances.”

  “I just feel kind of bad about it. He’s so nice.”

  “Molly, you’re sympathizing with your captor. It’s a weird psychological phenomenon that happens to the best people, though, so don’t worry about it.”

  I didn’t really know what he was talking about. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. “Okay,” I said. “If you’re ready, then here goes nothing.”

  “We’re ready.”

  He grabbed a roll of duct tape and followed me back into the living room, where he picked up a book and sat on the settee, pretending to read. I stepped out into the cool October night with a pan of water in one hand and my other hand deep in my pocket.

  “I thought I’d make some tea,” I told Randall.

  He nodded. I came down the deck stairs onto the sunporch, where the fire was burning brightly in the fountain. Just as I got to the bottom step, I stumbled forward, the pan of water sloshing. Randall jumped from his chair and reached out to steady me so I wouldn’t fall into the flames. As soon as he had hold of my arm, I dropped the pan and plunged a syringe into his thigh. He leapt back in surprise, pulled it out of his leg, and rubbed the spot.

  “What was that?” He started shaking his leg. “What’d you do? My thigh feels funny.” He staggered a little and sat down hard in his chair. “Did you poison me?”

  “No! I wouldn’t do that,” I said. How awful did he think I was? I’d stabbed him with some of the leftover painkiller we’d given Doug when he’d been hurt. According to Grandpa, without the other dose to counteract it, Randall should be paralyzed almost immediately. “It’s just a serum that numbs the central nervous system. Your body’s going to stiffen up and you won’t be able to move, but that’s all. It’ll wear off in ten to twelve hours.”

  “Oh.” He looked relieved that I hadn’t killed him, but there was still fear in his eyes.

  I could see his body going rigid in the chair. It was working! I couldn’t believe how easy it had been. I really hated to do the next part, but Spill had made me promise. As soon as I could see that Randall couldn’t move, I reached inside his coat and pulled out his gun.

  “Molly, you don’t want that,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  Even his jaw was seizing up. That was good. Then he wouldn’t be able to yell for help at midnight when his replacement showed up. Spill had told us to bind him up and drag him into the house where he wouldn’t be found for a while. I called Grandpa, who came running with the duct tape.

  “Can you do it yourself?” I asked him. “
I’m shaking.”

  I’d been anxious before we started the whole thing, but now it was like every nerve in my body was pulsing with adrenaline. Had I really done this to Randall?

  “No problem,” Grandpa said. “I can handle him.”

  “You know, Molly,” Randall said as Grandpa struggled to unroll the sticky tape, “when you do something to someone, poison them, or inject them with paralyzing potion or whatever, never tell them what’s supposed to happen.”

  I wished Grandpa would just hurry with the tape. Why didn’t he find the end of it when he was inside?

  “Do you know why?” Randall continued through gritted teeth.

  “No, why?”

  “Because,” he said, just as Grandpa leaned in to tape his ankles together, “it’s easy to pretend it’s working, when it’s not.” Moving jerkily, like a robot, but still with more dexterity than I was expecting, Randall forced his stiffening arms to act and he had Grandpa in a choke hold before I could even move.

  34

  GRANDPA’S FACE WAS ALREADY TURNING PURPLE IN Randall’s grasp, and his glasses had clattered onto the patio. What was I going to do? Randall could snap Grandpa’s neck in a tenth of a second and then come after me and Grandma.

  “Let him go!” I screamed.

  “Here’s what happens next,” Randall said stiffly. His jaw was definitely tight, but we could still understand him. “You give me my gun, and I let him go. Then we all sit here quietly until my relief arrives. After that, we’ll decide what to do next.”

  When he mentioned his gun, I realized I was still holding it. I didn’t even hesitate. Instead of handing it over, I pointed it at him. “Let him go,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “Molly,” Randall said, “you can’t shoot me.”

  “I can, and I will.”