The Mole Cure

by Nancy Farmer

Nancy Farmer’s name might not be familiar to all of our readers, but those of you who keep up with fiction for youngsters will recognize her as the author of The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, The House of the Scorpion, and most recently, The Sea of Trolls. The Land of the Silver Apples, a sequel to The Sea of Trolls, is due out in August. Longtime readers might remember her first appearance, in our pages, “Origami Mountain,” back in 1992. Her new story was originally written for a YA anthology, but the editor said it was “too **** gross for children and makes me want to sandpaper off my skin.” So consider yourself warned, children—this story might literally make your skin crawl.

“I’m late for work,” said Laura.

“Look at this one.” Tony pointed to a spot on his cheek.

“Oh, no! I don’t have time for this.” His wife attempted to get out the door, but Tony stopped her. He turned to get a better view in the mirror. This was difficult in the light of a twenty-five-watt bulb, but Tony was accustomed to dim light. The heavy curtains in the apartment were drawn and the blinds were down. An air purifier in a corner sucked up germs, pollen, and dust mites.

“It’s a freckle,” Laura said.

“No, it isn’t,” said Tony, annoyed by her lack of sympathy. “That’s a classic irregular, pigmented lesion, number 4A.” He pointed at the mole chart hanging next to the mirror.

“Wow. Spectacular. Listen, I’ll be late tonight. Could you pick up a pizza?” Laura dodged around him and a huff of air followed her out the door. The apartment was equipped with a positive air pressure system, like the ones in top secret government labs, to repel West Nile virus, anthrax, bird flu, and Ebola.

Tony studied mole number 4A. He knew it was plotting to kill him. It was one of the bad ones that would turn into cancer the minute it got a shot of cigarette smoke. Actually, they were all bad ones, like gang members waiting on the street corner for the nerd to come out.

Tony couldn’t open a magazine without reading about something lethal—radon in the basement, mad cow disease, cosmic rays tearing through bone marrow. When he was little he’d chewed on a crib covered in white lead paint. (Thanks, Mom.) He’d gone to a school with asbestos in the walls. But nothing worried him as much as the moles.

Red, mouse-brown, charcoal, and black, they covered Tony’s body. Everyone said they were freckles, but he knew better. They only looked like freckles when doctors examined them. The rest of the time they lounged insultingly on his skin, waiting for him to make a mistake. Give us sunlight, baby, they crooned, some of that sweet, sweet ultraviolet.

Tony dressed slowly, sipping a bottle of triple-distilled water. He wore a long-sleeved shirt with air vents in the arm pits that looked like little screen doors. He put on a wide-brimmed hat, dark glasses, and an air filter over his nose that made him look—Laura said—like a human fly. He covered his hands with the kind of sunblock astronauts wore in outer space.

It was a beautiful spring day outside. A haze of fungus spores floated past the air filter, hoping to gain access to his lungs and grow like kudzu vines. Tony sat on the shady side of the train. The seats farthest from him filled up first and then, like antelopes being herded toward a pond they know contains a crocodile, the latecomers edged into the seats next to Tony. He read an article in a health magazine about a boy who was paralyzed from the neck down by a tick bite.

There was a law against smoking in offices, but Tony’s boss paid no attention to it. None of the worker bees was going to turn him in. “Fine day,” he said, blowing smoke over the mole on Tony’s cheek. Tony felt the mole tingle in response. “Dark in here, isn’t it?” His boss lifted the blind and sunlight poured in, bathing Tony’s back with sweet, sweet ultraviolet.

Tony sat quite still. He heard a tiny cheer. The moles had the ball and were headed for a touchdown. The fans went wild. The star player, a muscular melanoma, was cutting down the opposition like a scythe.

Tony let the blind down with a crash.

“You know,” said his boss, “I’ve been worried about you. You sit in here all day muffled up like the Invisible Man. You never come out for a coffee break.”

“Coffee gives you heart trouble,” said Tony.

“Look, I’ve been talking to Laura. We both think you need a vacation.”

“Are you firing me?” Tony asked.

“No, no. I’m doing you a favor. Go out and play. Take Laura to the beach. Soak up a little UV.”

Tony looked at him as though he were crazy.

“That’s an order,” said his boss. “One month minimum. Oh, and when you come back, lose the air filter.”

Tony knew they were talking about him in the office as he gathered up his stuff. He decided to walk home, not caring where he went so long as there was enough shade. Trucks exhaled diesel around him. A man with a leaf blower chased a cloud of pollutants down a walk. But after a while he found himself in a quiet, tree-covered neighborhood.

The shade was deep and satisfying, and the walls covered with ivy echoed the cool green of the branches overhead. A bronze oval, almost hidden in leaves, said Dr. Molnar’s Mole Cure.

Mole cure.

Tony had never heard of such a thing. He tiptoed to a window draped with dark velvet curtains and peered through a gap. He saw heavy, antique furniture. There were walls lined with bookshelves and a ladder to reach the upper levels. A small table held a flowered teapot and cups. It was like something from an old movie, and Tony liked it in spite of the dust mites and allergens that probably lived there.

He rang the bell and the door flew open as though the man on the other side had been waiting for him. “Naughty boy! I saw you peeking,” cried Dr. Molnar. He was small, with glistening black eyes and black hair that lay flat against his scalp as though painted on.

“I—uh, I read your sign,” said Tony. “It’s kind of small, if you want to attract business.” He worked for an advertising firm.

“It is … exactly … the right size.” Dr. Molnar paused for emphasis. “Too large and you attract the wrong sort. My sign is only visible to the truly needy.”

“Truly needy?” echoed Tony, wondering who the wrong sort was.

“I have seen people in the throes of divorce, who have lost jobs, who are contemplating suicide. They come to me, imploring me on bended knee to remove the parasites that have sucked the joy out of their existence. Those parasites.” The little man waved his hand at a chart that Tony recognized as the same one that decorated his wall. Only this chart was much larger. Mole number 4A lounged in the middle like the centerfold for Mole Monthly. “The procedure is painless, of course,” continued the doctor. “This way, please. I need to examine you.”

Tony was accustomed to doctors trying to evict him from their offices and so he was flattered, if alarmed, to see Dr. Molnar’s enthusiasm for his skin. “Such vigor! Such variety!” the little man cried, dancing around. “I have rarely seen such a marvelous collection. We must begin at once.”

“Wait a minute!” Tony backed away. “I need to think about this.”

“Let me show you something,” said Doctor Molnar, propelling him back to the elegant study and whisking a heavy silk cover from an object in a corner.

It was a mirror. The oval frame was wreathed in serpents that twined about one another with the occasional flash of a jeweled eye. The glass itself was backed with gold, not silver like an ordinary mirror, and Tony’s reflection was darker. He caught his breath. By some trick of light the moles had vanished! His skin was perfect, as he had only imagined it in dreams.

“You see?” the little man said. “I got that mirror from a Transylvanian gypsy. He said it was used to detect vampires, but I discovered that it also doesn’t reflect moles.”

“So moles don’t go to heaven,” said Tony, obscurely pleased by the idea.

“That could be you,” Dr. Molnar said, resting his soft little hand on Tony’s shoulder, “free of the invading army that has dominated you so long. You see, moles aren’t what people think. They don’t merely sit around like bumps on a log. They insinuate themselves into every activity and make you behave in a way that is beneficial to them, not you. First and foremost, they do not allow you to take risks, for that might damage their comfortable existence. Mole hosts live in an atmosphere of fear.”

“Mole hosts?” murmured Tony, finding himself ensconced in an extremely comfortable armchair. He had no memory of sitting down.

“You fear pizza because the salt might raise your blood pressure. Coffee might give you heart palpitations. Don’t go into the basement—it’s full of radon. Don’t go outside. Jet planes could drop blue ice on your head. All these fears exist to make you passive and safe.”

“Cat dander, rogue golf balls, runaway shopping carts,” Tony said, mentioning three of his favorite phobias.

“The ideal host for a colony of moles is a couch potato watching TV shows about global warming. But we’re going to fix that.”

Dr. Molnar poured Tony a cup of tea. It was excellent, flavored with an unfamiliar spice. A sense of well-being swept through Tony’s body, and his skin tingled pleasantly. A tape recorder clicked on nearby. How nice. Music, he thought. Tony drifted asleep as Billie Holliday sang the blues.

He woke up in the armchair. Darkness had fallen and he heard something large being moved on squeaky wheels in the next room. The doctor popped through the door like a squirrel that has just deposited a large cache of nuts. “Perfect! You’re awake on schedule. I find a slice of Sacher torte restores one’s spirits enormously.”

Dr. Molnar cut a slab of dark, moist cake glistening with chocolate. Tony ate ravenously, licking the chocolate from his fingers, something he never, ever did. Think of the carbohydrates! The trans-fats! He hadn’t even disinfected his hands!

Tony studied his arm in the mellow light of the library. “They’re gone,” he said wonderingly. “Not many, but some.” Here and there, among the brown, red and charcoal moles, were tiny pucker marks.

“I only take one type at a time,” the doctor explained. “Today I removed the slate blues.”

“There’s a difference?” Tony asked.

“Good heavens, yes. Moles are as various as dogs. You wouldn’t expect a chihuahua to behave like a chow.”

Something about the way Dr. Molnar spoke raised distant alarm bells in Tony’s mind. He imagined the little man calling moles like a pack of hounds: Here, Blue! Come here, Blue! Good boy! But the fee the doctor charged was laughably small, and Tony felt too contented to argue. The doctor paid for the taxi to take him home.

That night, Tony and Laura celebrated with a candlelight dinner. Because he had already abused his body with a carb overload, Tony agreed to have a sip of Laura’s champagne. He found it delicious and didn’t even get heartburn later.

“What drug are you giving me?” Tony was back in the armchair, cradling the cup of tea. It was his fifth treatment and the slate blues had been followed by the smoky topazes, the hairy browns, and port wines. The earliest pucker marks were filling in. Not only that, but several phobias had vanished. One of them, the belief that a black widow spider had spun a web under the toilet seat, had been with him since childhood.

Until now, Tony had not felt bold enough to ask questions and Doctor Molnar had not volunteered any answers. But today was different.

Tony had gone back to work. His new confidence had allowed him to leave the air filter at home. He even went to coffee break, although he brought his own bottle of triple-distilled water. No matter. His boss and fellow workers had welcomed him just the same.

“Actually, I use two drugs,” said Dr. Molnar. “One is a tranquilizer and the other is my personal discovery. My Ph.D. thesis was on slime molds. The slime mold is a single-celled creature dwelling in water throughout most of its existence. It lives like a hermit until it has used up the food in its neighborhood. Then,” the little man’s eyes glistened and for the first time Tony noticed how velvety they seemed, “it wants company. Naturally, being a mere speck, it cannot shout. Instead, it sends out a chemical message, a pheromone that says, yoo hoo, I am lonely.”

The way Dr. Molnar said yoooo hoooo was like a tiny wolf howl.

“The specks come together in their thousands,” he went on. “They make a multi-celled being called a slug. It has a head, a tail, a driving purpose. Out of the Many comes the One. It is one of the great miracles of nature.” Dr. Molnar was so moved, he wiped his velvety eyes. Tony had a sudden urge to get up and flee, but he had already drunk half the tea. The familiar sleepiness was beginning to overwhelm him.

“A slug is able to move great distances, but once it finds a new territory and food source, another miracle occurs,” the doctor explained. “The One becomes the Many again. The single cells wander off … to feed.” Dr. Molnar sat back, as pleased as a puppy that has just retrieved a tennis ball.

Tony struggled to stay awake. “Thish pheromone works on moles?” he slurred.

“With a little help. It needs a trigger.”

“Wha—what trigger?” Tony said with a tongue that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

“Music.” The doctor clicked on the tape recorder and Frank Sinatra’s voice filled the room. Tony’s skin tingled in response. Some of it tingled. He closed his eyes and let the drug carry him away.

The smooth purples were partial to Frank Sinatra, and when Tony awoke, all five of them had departed. That left only the bruise greens and speckled blacks. “I can’t warm up to speckled blacks,” said Dr. Molnar, frowning. “I suppose it’s because I don’t like Country & Western music. Speckled blacks won’t respond to anything else and they always seem, I don’t know, like they’d chew tobacco and spit. They’re essentially low-rent.”

Tony’s mouth was crammed with Sacher torte. He couldn’t seem to help himself after a treatment. He wanted more and more sugar and fat, as though he were making up for years of privation. Then his brain fogged up from the sugar high and all too soon he was on his way home in a taxi.

When he sobered up the next morning, Tony decided he wouldn’t go for another treatment.

His resolve only lasted five days. He was so close. There were only eight speckled blacks and a baker’s dozen of bruise greens. With them gone he would be perfect. One thing he was certain of: No more tranquilizers.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said the doctor when Tony posed his conditions.

“I’d like to see what happens.”

“The sight would be extremely disturbing.”

“Exactly what happens when I’m unconscious?” insisted Tony.

Instead of answering, the little man whisked the heavy, silk cover from the golden mirror. The serpents flashed their jeweled eyes and when Tony wasn’t looking directly at them, he heard a rustling and a dry flickering. He gazed at his darker self floating in a golden world, tranquil and perfect. And then he saw something he hadn’t noticed the first time. Dr. Molnar was standing beside him but he had no reflection in the mirror.

“We are not all evil,” said Dr. Molnar, “those of us who do not appear in the glass. We are not all vampires.”

Tony’s head was swimming. He felt the doctor’s soft, damp presence beside him. “What are you?” he whispered.

“Call me a shepherd,” said Dr. Molnar with an odd sort of dignity. “A shepherd of a rather unusual flock, but one that has been immensely kind to you. Remember how desperate you were when you first came here.”

“I remember,” Tony said unwillingly, staring at his golden reflection.

“I will treat you one more time,” the doctor decided, “on your terms. But I must take precautions. Which moles would you like me to remove?”

Tony chose the bruise greens because there were more of them.

Dr. Molnar ran straps across Tony’s chest and legs, his wrists and ankles. Tony choked down a moment of panic. Of course there were no such things as vampires. Of course the doctor had never been anything but understanding and kind. The pheromone in the tea rested heavily on his tongue, but without tranquilizers his mind stayed clear.

He heard a squeaking noise as something heavy was wheeled to the side of the armchair. He glimpsed an aquarium. Something clouded the bottom that might have been algae except that it flashed from side to side with breathtaking speed.

“Past your feeding time,” remarked Dr. Molnar. He opened a styrofoam container and tipped the contents inside. The darkness flashed over. The hamburger steamed and bubbled. An oily stain spread over the water, accompanied by an acrid smell.

Now Tony wanted to ask for the tranquilizer, but the thought of lying unconscious next to whatever-that-was stopped him cold. Dr. Molnar flicked on the tape recorder.

The bruise-greens, it turned out, were fond of Wagner. As the Ride of the Valkyries filled the room, Tony felt stirrings under his skin. In ten or perhaps twelve places he felt a twitching like an ant struggling up through sand. He sensed answering thrums from other places, of creatures half-awakened but too comatose to rise.

And he felt pleasure, a startling and fierce joy to be coming together. It was a longing so intense he wanted to cry. And now the ant struggled to the top of the sand. Tony looked down. A blob the size of a raisin was heaving on his chest. As the Valkyries rode the heavens, it wrenched itself loose and began streaming across Tony’s chest, trailing a long slime of obscene tendrils behind it. It was joined by another blob from the solar plexus. For an instant they reared at each other, writhing to the music, and then they flowed together. There was a single blob now, twice as large, and this was joined by a third and a fourth. From under his shoulder Tony felt a fifth struggle.

A strange emotion swept over him: Desolation, such horrible desolation as Tony had never imagined possible—howling outer darkness and loneliness and despair. It was so unnecessary, this pain. Beyond the loneliness was a togetherness where all was warmth and mingling. Tony struggled against the straps. Tears streamed down his face.

“Courage. It will soon be over.” The doctor sat by his side and watched the hosting of the moles.

Now ten, now twelve moles melted into one. The thirteenth, which had traveled all the way from Tony’s ankle, arrived and melted gladly into the mass. A respectable-sized slug reared itself on his chest. It drew itself into a finger and swayed back and forth.

Dr. Molnar reached down with a long pair of forceps and lifted the slug from its base. At once, it swarmed up the metal. “Naughty, naughty,” he admonished. He laid the forceps across the aquarium.

The surface of the water heaved into a glistening hump and drew the small slug into its embrace. Then it sank back and flattened into a shadow. But in that instant Tony had seen that it was huge. It was hard to say how huge because the creature flickered restlessly from one end of the aquarium to the other. And as it moved, it thrummed the sides of the glass in a hypnotic tattoo. It made a deep sound like the thump of engines in the bowels of a ship. Tony felt himself drawn to the rhythm in a curious way. He looked down and saw his arms had turned white from his efforts to get free.

Dr. Molnar turned off the tape recorder. In the sudden silence the thrumming boomed at its true level. It seemed to move through the earth and vibrate in Tony’s chest and shake apart the glue that held his cells together. It was atrocious and yet … somehow…

Fun.

The thrumming died away. There was only the restless flickering of the shadow as it prowled the tank. Dr. Molnar removed a pair of earplugs and laid them on a table.

A door opened. Tony saw several shapes moving around in the next room. One of the shapes approached him: A small, hunched man in a lab coat. It was difficult to tell what nationality the person was because his features were oddly blurred and his skin was a strange color. If Tony had to put a name to it, he would have called it smoky topaz.

The man spoke to Dr. Molnar, except that it wasn’t exactly speech. It was more like the ragged chirp of crickets in a meadow on a summer night. Dr. Molnar nodded and the man wheeled the tank from the study. The door closed.

“Not a nice experience, eh?” the doctor said, undoing the straps and buckles that held Tony to the armchair.

“Not nice,” Tony agreed. He stood up and vomited on the carpet.

Tony only returned to Dr. Molnar’s office once, or rather he returned to the area. It looked different with the fall leaves turning red and gold. He walked up and down, searching for a small, bronze plaque in the ivy, but he couldn’t find it.

Perhaps it was because he wasn’t needy enough, or perhaps he had become one of the wrong sort. He was still in possession of eight speckled blacks. That didn’t seem to qualify him for treatment.

Tony knocked on a few doors. People looked at him curiously and turned away when he asked for a mole doctor. And yet he was certain that somewhere, either on this block or the next, hidden behind a wall, the shepherd was still gathering his flock: Here, Blue! Come here, Blue! Good boy!

When enough of the Many came together, they became the One. He might have passed such a being on the train, holding onto a strap with a damp hand. Or shuffling along a sidewalk after dark, hunting for new territory with abundant food. When it found such a haven—a maternity ward? A playground?—did the One become the Many again?

Tony no longer drove everyone crazy with disinfectants and sunscreen. He took Laura to Hawaii and their lovemaking was spectacular. He was promoted at work. He was voted most popular employee by his peers. He was happier than he could ever remember being.

And if he had to leave the theater halfway through Walk the Line, no one commented on it. Or if he started scratching wildly during American Idol or locked himself in the bathroom and screamed when someone put on a Patsy Cline record—why, everyone is entitled to a few odd moments. By all reports, the rest of his behavior was without blemish.