Molly Moon & the Monster Music (20 page)

“Imagine the floom I showed you, Molly. Imagine it as large as a surfboard. Imagine it laid out before you now. Do you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now step on it.”

Molly tried but couldn't see herself actually on the stone board. Her grandfather put his hand under her elbow. “You need a little help. By making contact, you get help from me. Now you are on the board.” In her mind, Molly saw that she was. “You do not need to look at me,” her grandfather added. “I am on it, too. Are you ready?”

Molly kept her mind focused on the task ahead. She
concentrated on the white milkiness of the imagined surfboard under her feet. And then the darkness around the board began rushing, and the board began to tilt and move, as though the darkness all about were some sort of wave tunnel and they were riding through it.

Molly was nervous about falling off yet she knew this was unlikely, as under her elbow she could feel the firm grip of her grandfather's hand. The swirling wave tunnel swished about them faster and faster. The stone surfboard cut through it sharp and silent.

“Whoa!” her grandfather shouted.

Molly kept her focus on the board but at the same time turned to “look” at her grandfather, without opening her eyes. There he was behind her, in his tweed suit, staring out in front of him with an expression of glee on his face.

“Nearly there!” he exclaimed.

“How do you know?”

“I gave the board instructions, and now I can sense we are near,” he replied. “Ah!” He took his hand away from Molly's elbow. “Now, keep your eyes shut and listen; feel the air.”

Molly did as she'd been told. Gone were the sounds of birds and rustling grass. Instead there was the chirping of crickets. Molly could feel hot sun beating down on her head and shoulders.

“Open your eyes!”

M
olly was amazed. The landscape had metamorphosed. Now there was craggy granite all about, rocks that had been molded by the elements
so that they resembled animals and faces. Molly and Dr. Logan were standing on a hillside with dramatic views down toward an expanse of silvery-blue sea. The ocean disappeared into the horizon.

“Is this Sardinia? The place you made the coin?” Molly said in awe.

“Yes. Come with me.”

Molly stood up and wiped her eyes. “But I can't believe it. We've sort of teleported here. It's incredible.”

“Teleporting is one way of putting it,” the old man agreed. “I like to call it ‘space surfing' or ‘flooming,' but you can make up your own name for it if you like.” He pointed to the hilltop. “I hope she's in.”

Molly followed Dr. Logan up a dry, stony track. The path wove its way between hardy hedges and bushes and mountain flowers. Insects buzzed and grasshoppers leaped through the grass.

Then, for no reason at all, Molly felt her hair stand up on end and her stomach dip.

“Try to ignore it,” Dr. Logan said. “It's not pleasant, I know; trust me, in a minute it gets worse. Just think of straight lines and you'll be fine.”

“What is it?” Molly said, clutching her stomach. It felt as though it was doing somersaults.

“It's the scutem.
Scutem
is a Latin word. It means ‘shield.' She instills rocks with a sort of repelling power; then they become scutem. They put people off the place. I think those might have something to do with it.” He pointed to a rock that looked like an oddly shaped horse and another that could have been a fossilized gorilla. Molly frowned and concentrated on lines. Sure enough it helped. As soon as they'd passed the weird rocks the horrible feeling stopped.

Dr. Logan and Molly walked on through a stand of cypress trees. They came out onto a small, cliff-like ledge. It looked out over a valley that brimmed with green-leafed trees. To the left was a large cave. Above it, the crags had eroded to look like an eagle's head.

“There! That is where she lives.”

“Our . . . our . . . great-great-super-great-grandmother?” Molly asked.

“Yes—Fritha.”

The path toward the cave was gravelly and well trodden, with clumps of sweet-smelling herbs growing beside it.

“She's an herbalist, too,” Dr. Logan said.

They reached the cave entrance, where a bell hung. Dr. Logan pulled its string so that it swung
and rang out.

“Hello! . . .” his voice echoed. No one answered. “Oh dear,” Dr. Logan said. “I do hope she hasn't gone on a trip!”

“We could always zip forward a month or so if she has,” Molly pointed out.

Then she turned and looked along the cliff path. An elderly woman in a green cloak and a long burlap skirt was walking toward them. She carried a wicker basket overflowing with plant cuttings. Pausing, she put her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun and peered at Molly and her grandfather.

Her face was like a turtle's, thick skinned and brown, and her eyes were green and sparkled in the Sardinian sun. Close up she smelled of bonfires. When she spoke she had an Irish accent.

“Dr. Logan? Is that you?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You've taken a long time to return. You were a young man yesterday.”

“I know. All the time traveling has aged me.” Dr. Logan turned to Molly. “You see, I was here yesterday. But then I went back to my time, and many years have passed. Molly, meet Fritha; Fritha meet Molly Moon. Molly is a descendant of ours and, I have to tell you, of all the people I have traced who
carry the hypnotism gene she is the most talented . . . since you, of course.”

Molly shook her head. “Maybe I was,” she corrected Dr. Logan. “But you forget—I've lost all my hypnotic skills since . . .”

“Ah yes, yes,” Dr. Logan remembered.

The old woman smiled, her tanned face creasing. She put down her basket and placed her hands on Molly's shoulders. “Pleased to meet you, girlie,” she said. She nodded at Dr. Logan. “Looks like you, too! Extraordinary!” Then she narrowed her eyes and spoke to Molly's grandfather. “So, what happened with the coin? Did it sort out lots of problems for ya? Judgin' from your ambitious talk yesterday, I expect you have a wonderful, harmonious society now that all badness has been hypnotized away.”

Dr. Logan looked down at the ground. “It didn't go quite to plan, I'm afraid,” he admitted.

Fritha frowned. “Ah, then we'd better go inside for a nice cup o' nettle tea.”

They followed Fritha into the first part of her cave. Here, some smoldering embers nestled in a dip in the cave wall. Fritha took a stick, one that was wider at one end like a baseball bat. She dipped this in the glowing embers and it lit. She then led them to a passage beyond, bearing her
flaming torch to show them the way.

“Pine sap,” she said. “It burns very well and doesn't go out. A man who comes to me for my headache cure pays me in torches that he has coated with the sap. They don't last forever, nothin' like your futuristic lightbulbs, Molly, but he brings me lots.” She rummaged in her pocket and handed Molly a strip of woody stuff. “He brings me pine root to chew, too. Full of vitamins. Try it.” Molly put it in her mouth. It was sweet in an earthy way. “Don't swallow it though,” Fritha said. Then she added. “That outfit you have on, Molly. It looks Japanese.”

“Yes.” Molly had forgotten that she was still in a kimono. “It's very comfy actually.”

The passage went on, around a corner and then deeper into the hillside. In one place there was a side cave. Molly caught a glimpse of chairs and a table there. Fritha took them toward a patch of light at the end of the tunnel. It grew bigger and bigger as they approached it. Finally the space opened up. They found themselves in a church-sized cavity, where stalactites hung from above and light poured in from a crack near the top of the rocky ceiling. At the far end, more light came into the cave from an opening to the outside surrounded by tall rocks where vines
hung down. Water, a natural spring, Molly supposed, came from a crack in this rock, collecting in a small pool beneath it, where it also drained away.

The place smelled mossy, but also of herbs. This was because in the center of the cave there were heavy wooden tables covered in plants—live and dried—and stones covered in moss. Mixed in with these things were white skulls of animals and glass vessels full of colored liquids. To the side of the cave was a fireplace set in a dried clay surround. A long narrow chimney carried smoke out through the roof.

Fritha set down her basket and put a cast-iron pot of water on to boil. “Hungry?” she asked. “I've made some soda bread.”

“No. No, thank you,” Dr. Logan replied and Molly echoed him.

Molly observed her grandfather's face. She could see that he was embarrassed by what he knew he had to ask Fritha. And, though actually he looked the same age as Fritha, he was acting a bit like a naughty boy who'd come to an adult to own up.

Fritha could obviously sense all this, too, for she began to chuckle.

“Oh, Doctor! Maybe it's better Molly explains what ya've come for. I have a feelin' it's about the
coin.”

“Are you reading my mind?” Dr. Logan asked nervously.

“Oh no! Let me make your tea, then Molly can tell me.”

Molly noticed Fritha's distinct Irish accent again. “Are you . . . are you Irish?” she asked.

“Yes, wee girl, sure I am.”

Molly thought. “Did you come here by . . . boat? I mean, Sardinia's a long way from Ireland.”

“How did you get here?” the old woman asked.

“We . . . we . . . er . . . did the space-surfing tunnel thing,” Molly replied.

“Exactly how I got here meself. My grandfather used to bring me here when I was a child. Then back home to Ireland for the summer there. Ya see, this cave is special—an' the weather's a hundred times better than back home, wouldn't you agree?”

“Very sensible,” Molly said admiringly. “Where did you get your floom from?”

The old woman put her hands on her hips and considered Molly. “Aha. So that's what you've come for?”

She pulled the scarf from around her neck to reveal a collection of stones and crystals and a couple of coins that hung there on a chain. Among them
was a white disc just like Dr. Logan's. “I may be old, but I'm afraid I can't give you mine, Molly. I may need it still.”

“Oh no! I don't want that,” Molly assured her. “I was just wondering about the flooms. I mean, where do they come from?”

“They find their way to their owners. Just as the time-travel crystals do. All charms seem to work like that. That's all I know. I found mine here in this cave.” She poured some hot water into the teapot. “One day, if you ever get one, maybe you can travel back in time and trace it back to its origin. Then you'd know where it came from for sure.”

“I don't think I'll be doing that. I've lost my powers,” Molly said.

The old woman's eyebrow arched. “Oh yes,” she said, glancing at Molly. “You said. And how did that happen?”

M
olly told Fritha about her time with the coin.

Fritha was silent for a moment as she stirred the nettles in the teapot. Then, “Oh dear,” she said. “I had a feelin' it was goin' to be trouble.” She poured the tea into china cups. “Do you like these?” she said, distracted. “I got them from a palace in the seventeenth century. They're French. Where was I? Oh yes, the coin. I feared as much after you left, Doctor. Had nightmares about the coin last night in fact. We had great intentions, but were too ambitious. I won
der where I went wrong. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't have eaten those wood mushrooms yesterday. I was sure they were safe but they made me a bit odd. Maybe that's why the coin was bad. But I can't make it vanish, if that's what you were hopin'. The best thing is for you to get it off whoever has it now, take it far into the future, and dispose of it there. Drop it in the sea, somewhere deep, or take it into space. You can't melt it down. It won't melt, you know.”

Dr. Logan sighed and took his tea. “Getting it is the problem. Might you be able to change the coin's . . . erm . . . ‘rules,' as it were?”

The old woman shook her head. She beckoned for Molly and Dr. Logan to follow her outside. “Can't reverse the rules,” she said, sitting down on an old tree stump.

Molly and Dr. Logan sat down. For a moment they looked about them, watching small birds flit around the top of the ivy-covered light-well, where they had built their nests.

“I'm a fool,” Fritha said. “I'm so sorry. What a mess. I should never have made it. I can't think how to help.”

Dr. Logan sipped at his tea. “There must be something we can do. The problem is getting the
coin back.”

Molly sat with her cup and saucer on her lap, watching the birds, two brown birds in particular. All of a sudden, their similarity to each other gave her an idea. “I know what we can do,” she said. “Make another coin.”

“Another coin?” Dr. Logan and Fritha said in unison.

“Yes, another one. One that has the same pull as the first—that looks almost the same—but that is different.”

“Oh my word!” Dr. Logan exclaimed. “I'm not sure we should make any more coins, after the last one.”

“Och, they're not always bad, Doctor,” Fritha said indignantly. “Honest. Go on, Molly.”

Molly elaborated. “Well, the one thing Mr. Proila might give up his coin for is another coin that is just as powerful. Make a coin that has the same sort of magnetism, or greater magnetism than Mr. Proila's. But this other coin would need to
do
something to him so that he gives us the music coin, or loses it.”

“That's a bit too precise an instruction to put in a coin,” Fritha said.

Molly shrugged. Everyone was quiet, thinking
hard. Molly glanced up at the birds again. It was then that she noticed a small bluebird sitting there doing nothing. She almost spilled her tea as a brilliant idea hit her. “I know what would work perfectly,” she said excitedly. “The other coin should just make Mr. Proila want to do
nothing
.”