The Gnome

It was late. The Town Meeting had gone long, again. At least this time it was for a decent reason. As expected, most of the speakers veered to non-docket issues. Can’t blame them, we all wanted to call attention to the missing child. Three days in and the whole town had worked in shifts searching for the kid. The few leads we had were bunk, but we mustered on. Keeping up appearances was important for everyone, so we decided to have the scheduled meeting. There were more than a few tears, loads of questions but few answers. Being the newest and youngest member of the Select Board had its perks but instant knowledge of Mammoth, MA, history was not one of them.

Compared to the indifference of big city politicking, Town Meeting was often gratifying. Housed in the high school gym, there was room for all kinds of humanity. Ranting was welcome, but it grew a bit much for me tonight, so I went outside to enjoy the final vacation cig from last weekend. There is no smoking on school grounds; to burn one I had to sneak to the loading docks in the rear of the building.

Unseasonably warm weather was a welcome relief from the stuffy gymnasium. Darkness was held at bay by the many fluorescent lights of the exterior, so I know I was seeing clearly. I was about to light up amid the roll-away dumpsters when this little man comes up to me. Little man does not do it right. He was miniature, the little thing could sit in my hand.

With parkour deftness, he scaled the dumpster and was chest height in a flash. Wrinkles aside, his eyes told of many laughs laughed, but the bags under them spoke of lost sleep and hidden pain. He looked just like the thousands of figurines I’d seen on television and in gardens. Six inches tall, stout belly, round features, long white beard. But everything about him was pale, faded. I tried not to stare at his ragged, pointed cap, splotched with stains. This gnome had seen better days. Still, there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Got a light?” the gnome asked, pulling a small pipe from his pocket. His voice was gruff but soothing in a way. Gravelly and worn, surely could carry a golden tune.

“Certainly.” My Midwest sensibilities took over and I bent to offer him the flame. He accepted readily and puffed till the bowl of his pipe glowed a soft orange. Scents of cherry and oak hit the wind as the little man sat on the rim of the dumpster and blew smoke rings. I lit my cigarette and joined him. Too flabbergasted to make inquiry, we stood in silence, wreathed in smoke.

“For your trouble,” he handed me a cake wrapped in cloth, barely a mini-muffin to me. I obliged politely and stuffed his gift in my jacket pocket. I’d experienced enough weirdness to last a lifetime in the five years since moving to Mammoth. I learned to stop asking questions and start listening.

“You from here?” The tiny man blew an enormous smoke ring that paused above us.

“No, transplant,” I admitted.

“We have something in common.” The gnome took a long pull from his pipe and blew a smaller ring to the center of the initial ring still hanging in the air.

“Two things in common.” I tipped my cigarette toward him. He nodded slightly, then frowned.

“Three things,” the gnome spoke with a tremor. “The Child.”

I stopped smiling and set my eyes upon the bugger. The sickly gnome stay seated on the rim of the dumpster. “Where is she?”

“In the woods.”

“Where?!”

“There is a troll den near the reservoir.” His eyes were distant, searching.

“Which one?!”

“Ludlow. I can show you.”

My heart began to race. I thought of who to inform. Who should I go to with this information? Bev Archer was the only name that came to mind. She was a Mammoth native and had been the newbie on the Select Board until I came along. I texted her a pic and said we needed to talk immediately.

She texted back: “I know! Everyone knows! CCTV! Look up!”

A quick glance to the corner of the building confirmed the camera she referenced. Fiddlestix! I wondered how much time we had.

I looked to the gnome, his pipe was dimming to embers, and he’d placed the final spot of smoke in the center of his bullseye in the sky. Then he made a most awful sound, I can only assume it was crying. A howling grunt emanated from his throat, and he began to speak, choking on his words. “I’m sorry about the gem.” His ragged hat seemed permanently affixed to his skull as he hung his head. “We don’t have much,” he said as he lifted his face to me. Blood shot eyes spoke of substance abuse and uneasy dreams.

“What do you mean?” As I said the words the doors to the school burst open. Bev Archer and a few board members were tumbling out with eyes wide as boiled eggs.

Suddenly bright blue and red lights lit the scene and sirens stunned the lot of us. A pair of Mammoth City Police cruisers and an SUV surrounded the loading dock. There was a lot of shouting from all the newcomers. I stepped in front of the gnome and held up my hands. That did not deter the cops as they brushed me off and put the little man into a cat carrier. He didn’t resist at all, just looked to the distant north.

“Don’t hurt him!” I said, keeping stride with the officers.

Laughing the Sergeant stopped me. “Hurting him is not possible. Have you any idea the strength of these critters?”

“No.” I watched as they loaded the cat carrier into the back of the SUV along with two officers to guard him. “Does that mean you’ve encountered a gnome before?”

“Not personally, but I have read the histories.” He looked me over with suspicion. “Have you?”

“No.”

“Then I think it best if you leave this to the authorities.” He was about to turn toward his cruiser, but instead took a deep breath and stepped closer to me. “Convenient how this gnome chose you. Do you have anything you’d like to report?”

“That gnome knows where the kid is!” I tried not to shout. The officer saw that I was sincere and tried to calm me.

“We’re just going to ask a few questions,” the Sergeant assured me. Soft sobbing could be heard from the carrier as the officer opened his door. “We’ll give full report to the Select Board before any public release.” I looked to Bev. She had a look that said, What are we going to do?

“Great, we’ll be your liaisons,” I said with a fake smile. Before any protest could be made the cruiser was in gear and backing out of the garbage alcove. Luckily, I biked in tonight and had stashed my whip near the dumpsters during my pre-meeting smoke. In seconds I had my helmet, light, and camera on and was feeding Bev a livestream of the action as I pedaled.

The police station was just a mile or so from the school, but I could not keep up with the speeding patrol cars. They zoomed into the darkness, and I pedaled like a maniac trying to catch up. Fearful they would get inside the police station before I could get the camera on them, I did the unthinkable: I did not come to a complete stop at the stop sign before crossing the highway. Barreling over the highway I failed to see a pot hole and my tire hissed flat by the time I caught up to the officers.

To my great surprise the officers and the gnome were still outside the station. The back door of the SUV was open and there were a few older townspeople, some I recognized from the Mammoth Historical Society, in a semi-circle. The gnome had already started his confession. I could hear him shouting details about histories long past, regaling everyone with what I can only assume were half-truths. When I asked Bev about the fantastic nature of what the gnome spoke about, she confirmed everything he said, one way or another.

His name was Mosso Lundstrike. Mosso, he referred to himself a few times during his impromptu statement. Silly thing, how does a gnome lose its own treasure? Ever the lonely soul. He burrowed for food, he burrowed for friends. Come to find out, that gnome has all sorts of routes dug under the town. He was supposed to be protecting the Gem from us, but I'll see it crushed if I ever get my hands on that thing. What a lout. I cannot believe it was him peeing from the roof and calling it rain.

As per the gnome’s guilty conscious, he wasn't supposed to have the Gem in the first place. And then he goes and spends it? On what exactly, I did not catch. I know, I'm thinking the same thing: this town’s issues may have been due to that mischief maker. At least we know it isn’t the bears marauding again. This wildlife is going to kill us one day. Either him or it. Wait, is he a him? Do gnomes have that business? Who knows…

Regardless, it was quickly realized they couldn't hold him in the Police Department; the cameras and the paperwork would be a trail too easy to follow. Mammoth had enough heat already, no need compounding things with a haywire gnome. So, the obvious spot was the abandoned dorms of the old state school. It was close to the cop shop and far from the public eye. Some of those buildings had strong rooms from the cruel days of old. I knew a little about what happened here last century; I get the willies just thinking of those buildings. Now we were leading a misshapen crew and an unstable gnome to the heart of twentieth-century medical malfeasance.

We walked in silence to the old L dormitory. Dew had set in, and the warm night air gave us all a silent relief; at least the child would be warm tonight. Our flashlights bounced off overgrown bushes crowding the defunct pathway. Dorm L was reserved for the older set, boys 10 and up and adults, so the room would be well fortified. Farthest from the public entrance, closest to the powerplant. We passed a few of the other dorms, identical three-story brick behemoths. Weird I didn’t recognize it at the time, but now I see the gnome was leading us, not the other way around.

Deputy’s keys jangled on the steel door, and I held my breath. If it didn’t open, we could call the whole thing off. No such luck. A deputy went to find a fuse box as the rest of us were led by flashlights to the basement and the strong room. Once inside, the heavy smell of mold accosted us. Mosso, still bound in the cat carrier, was placed in the center of the room. They opened the door to the carrier, but he didn’t move. It was not clear if he was sleeping, but he hadn’t made a sound since his confession. Once the breaker was flipped the fluorescent charges awoke and we were looking at a windowless cinderblock room. Painted battleship grey, it had decades of stains on the walls.

"We need a better place to hold him, something less dismal.” They just sat there dumbfounded, except for Bev, who nodded heartily. “You said yourself, a gnome is nothing to trifle with.”

“We should find leather to bind him, handcuffs aren’t needed,” Bev insisted.

“Should we put pillows down, too?” Jayne Minty was from an old Mammoth family, always had a prime sense of himself. Never missed a chance to deface others.

“Yes,” I said to some guffaws. “And some drapery would go a long way.” If I knew anything, it was hospitality can be of intrinsic value. After all, the critter was not native here, we should make it welcome. I knew well enough a being of that sophistication. “If he can hide that stone from all of his kind, and keep up the other fronts, this thing is half devil.” The group agreed but still flinched at the notion of dressing up the place.

“Can’t do it,” Cal Simkin said. He always was a simp.

“Won’t do it.” Burt Ripple never had a dime on him.

“He will be more comfortable our way,” I insisted. “Mr. Lundstrike has already moved the needle on the whereabouts of the child.” I could see some of the older set agreed, but it was Minty that would state the official position. To my surprise, he was accommodating.

“Sure,” Minty smiled. “We will show him a real welcome.”

I should have known something was afoot, but with a tacit agreement I took my leave of the authorities and made my way home. Thanks to the flat tire on my bike, it was more than an hour’s walk. I was almost to my street when I heard the blast.

Long story short, I was right. And now we don't have the Gem, the Gnome, or the Child. Word is the little fella got so upset at the insult, that he manifested a BOOM. It was huge, an explosion so big, even the residents of Enfield heard it. His kind do this; it’s rare, according to the Inscription, but possible. Gnome blew his own self up, and the whole of Dormitory L. He left behind the most curious set of tunnels one could imagine. It is going to take weeks to get this all sorted. I told them we needed a better answer. I told them! I almost had him talking. I just needed a little more time.

Unfortunately, the time for talking has passed. From what Bev said the boys did a real job on the cell. Instead of making it homey and comfortable, they dressed it with their own underwear, strung them up everywhere. Soiled socks, overalls. The smells must have been awful for the gnome’s advanced olfactory. I don't blame the little guy at all. But what in the blaze is this maze of tunnels? The explosion left a crater twice the size of the dorm, and in it are more than twenty different-sized holes, one big enough for adults. We have only just begun to investigate the entrances and are volunteering in shifts to guard the holes. I drew first watch.

This may feel like desolate country, something foreign for you, wild, but I can assure you, this land has been full of life for ages longer than you can count. Just wish I would have seen this coming. Thing is, I just know he is hiding something else down there. Something bigger.

To Be Continued...

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