by Georgia Byng
“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?”
Thirty-two
Molly 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 wonder 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.”
“Nothing?” Dr. Logan echoed. “What about eating, drinking, sleeping?”
“Well, could you make it so that he had those, um . . .”
“. . . impulses?” Dr. Logan supplied the right word.
“Yes, those impulses. We don’t want to kill him. It is very important that you make it so that me and Dr. Logan can be near it. I mean, we won’t touch it, but we need to carry it in a pouch or something. Can you make it like that, Fritha?”
Fritha began to undo one of the plaits in her gray hair and then retwist it as she thought. “Hmm. I like your cogitations, Molly. I reckon it could work. I rebuilt the smeltin’ furnace last night.” She pointed to the edge of the rocky light-well, where there was a strange-looking mound with bellows attached to it. “And I’ve got everythin’ I need to get to work. But”—she shook her head—“there is a risk. There is a chance that this coin won’t be perfect either. I mean, with a tall order like this, things can go wrong.” She clapped her hands. “But it is worth a try. Look, Doctor, I still have the wax left from yesterday.”
She brought a parcel of damp material over and unwrapped its contents. “This is modelin’ wax, Molly. I will make a coin that looks similar to the other coin—make it in wax. What image should I model on to it? Yesterday’s coin had a musical note. What do you think represents nothin’ness?”
“A circle?” Molly said. “Or . . . nothing?”
“I’d prefer an image. It’s better for carrying the power. So a circle it is. Dr. Logan, if you take Molly out of the other side of the cave to get firewood, I’ll model the coin.”
Molly was amazed by how swiftly Fritha seemed to have decided that the idea was a good one. “Do you think it’ll work?” she asked.
“Can a parrot be taught to ride a bicycle?” Fritha replied.
Dr. Logan and Molly left the old woman. Taking two wicker baskets they retraced their steps and set off to the woods.
Molly breathed in the pine smell and thought how lovely this place was and how intriguing Fritha was and she wished they could stay with her for days. Then she and her grandfather collected firewood. Molly noticed how old and stiff his body was and she made an extra effort so that he wouldn’t tire himself out.
It took them half an hour to fill the firewood baskets. By the time they had lugged them back to the cave, Fritha had finished making the wax coin. It lay on a table, on a clean piece of linen. It had sticks of wax stuck to its bottom edge so that on its side it looked like a coin with six roots, and another widening stack of wax stuck out from its top. Fritha was leaning over a wooden bucket stirring a thick sloppy mixture with a stick.
“What’s that?” Molly asked.
“Oh . . .” Fritha glanced up, her face red from all the exertion. “It’s a sort of clay soup. Then I’ll pat it about the coin while it stands on those wax legs. It’ll start dryin’ straightaway. Then I’ll put it in my bakin’ oven for a couple of hours. The clay will harden, and the wax will melt and dribble out. And then inside will be a cavity—a hole, shaped exactly like our coin. Clever, eh?”
“Then what do you do?”
“Then we will smelt the gold”—Fritha pointed to the mound at the edge of the light-well—“but we’ll have to use the other oven, the really, really hot furnace over there for that.”
Molly shuddered. “It would be nasty if you got burned.”
“It’s not the handlin’ of the molte
n gold that’s dangerous, Molly. I’m good at that. No, the dangerous part is imbuing the coin with the power that we want it to have. I obviously got it wrong last time. This time it needs to be perfect. No more evil coins.” She shook her head.
She looked at the firewood that Molly and Dr. Logan had collected. “Right, let’s start the big furnace. We’ll have to keep feedin’ her—a mixture of firewood and charcoal.”
Soon the furnace was going. Fritha showed Molly a small cast-iron dish with a lip for pouring on one side, like a little jug.
“This is the crucible. Cast iron takes a higher heat to melt than gold so that’s why we melt the gold in it.”
“How long will the furnace take to get hot enough?” Molly asked.
“Och, not long now. Now, let’s go and find our gold.”
Fritha bellowed the furnace fire a few more times and then she went inside. Molly followed her. They passed Dr. Logan, who was now dozing in a large comfortable armchair just inside the cave.
“Let him rest. He came with me to get the gold yesterday, so he doesn’t need to see it.”
“See what?”
“The mineral cave.”
Thirty-three
Molly walked behind Fritha past the central herb table and past the fireplace to the entrance of another inner cave. Fritha lit a torch.
Steps had been hacked out of the sloped floor. They paved the way into a tunnel that went deep under the ground. The walls were damp and clammy, but the air was cool. Molly followed the old woman down, wondering what would happen if her torch went out.
Fritha turned to look at her and began laughing. “Don’t you worry, I’d feel me way back. I know this place like the back of me hand!”
“Have you read my mind often since I got here?” Molly asked.
“No, just the once, when I first saw you outside the cave. I wanted to check who you were. Though it was obvious you weren’t from this time because of your clothes. You were thinkin’ about how much I look like a turtle!” Fritha patted Molly reassuringly. “Don’t worry! I do!”
“So you’re a hypnotist, a time stopper, a time traveler, and a mind reader,” Molly said, smiling, as they walked. “Can you morph?”
“Of course!” Fritha laughed. “I’m a floomer, too. And a coin caster, a weather turner, a stoner.”
“A stoner?” Molly was puzzled.
“It’s like it sounds. I can turn meself into a stone. Don’t like doin’ it much. It’s a bit frightenin’. Turnin’ into stones always makes me feel like I’m a gravestone! An’ turnin’ into a chair or a table isn’t much better. It’s like morphing, but you turn into an inanimate object.”
“Was it in Dr. Logan’s book?”
“Oh, I don’t know, dearie. I didn’t learn things from a book. My grandfather taught me.”
“Dr. Logan said you were the best hypnotist ever.”
“Oh no. There have been others just as good as me. Me great-uncle, for instance, he was a genius. He found this place. He’s your relation, too.”
Molly followed Fritha down the passage. At one point it grew so narrow that they had to squeeze themselves through it. Eventually they reached a large cave.
Fritha lit some more torches. A high dome curved over them. A silvery pool, like a blob of mercury, lay before them. The nearest walls were streaked with gold and on the far wall were paintings of wild animals—bears, lions, and horses.
“Those are thousands of years old,” Fritha said. She directed her torch at the water. “And what do ya see there?”
Molly looked. Under the still surface, things were flashing and glinting. Gems and crystals. Dotted about were lumps of gold and silver!
“Choose a piece of gold. Go on, get a good lump, one that will do as I tell it!”
“What? Just fish it out?”
“Yes.”
Molly stared into the water. “Are those time-traveling gems and time-stopping crystals?”
“Yes. There are a lot here.”
“Where do they come from?” Molly asked, wondering for a moment whether she was actually awake. “How do they get here?”
“It’s a mystery.”
For a moment Molly stood stock-still, absorbing the magical atmosphere of the cave. Then, spotting a nice round lump of gold, she stepped into the cool water. She waited for the ripples to clear, then she bent down and scooped it out.
Fritha took a small stone bucket from the edge of the cave and scooped some water from the pool. “Good girl. Come on then.” She extinguished the cave’s wall torches. As the flames spluttered, the cave pictures flickered, so that the animals on the walls seemed to come alive. Molly took a last look at this amazing place before following Fritha out.
“Don’t you ever have problems with people finding the cave?” Molly asked as they retraced their steps.
“This is a remote place. Over the years a few people have found it—but as hypnotists have always been the guardians of the cave, none of them have ever spread the news o’ the place. I feel sorry for the ones I’ve had to deal with. They are so excited to find the gold. I feel mean, havin’ to blank their minds and take all their thrill away, but it has to be done.”
Molly held the lump of gold in her hand. It reminded her of the music coin.
“Beware,” Fritha advised. “The cave gold is powerful stuff. Don’t let it make you want it.”
“Right . . . OK.” Molly nodded back. “Definitely don’t want the same trouble as last time.” Fritha laughed. “You know, Fritha, that last coin sucked all my powers away.”
Fritha stopped laughing. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
Back in the main cave, Fritha placed her stone bucket down by the furnace and tended to the furnace, feeding it more charcoal, while Molly gave the bellows a good working.
Over the next hour she and Molly took it in turns to keep the fire raging. Eventually Fritha was satisfied. Putting large thick cotton mitts on, she went to the other oven, lifted out the clay mold and carried it over to the furnace.
“Here is best. For the gold pouring,” she said, putting the mold on the ground.
Fritha gingerly picked up Molly’s chosen lump of gold and placed it in the iron crucible. Then, gripping the edge of that with a pair of pliers, she carefully placed the crucible into the furnace.
“How long will it take?” Molly asked.
“Not long. The furnace is like an inferno—that gold will melt like ice in the sun.”
While they waited, Fritha made more tea and woke Dr. Logan with a cup. He sat up and watched with interest as she got on with her task. She took the crucible out of the furnace.
To Molly’s surprise, Fritha didn’t pour the gold into the mold. Instead she tipped a small amount into the water she’d brought from the gem cave in the bucket. Instantaneously, steam rose and hissed as the drop of gold cooled. Fritha put the crucible back in the furnace. She then put her hand into the stone bucket and scooped out the now-cold gold and popped it into her mouth. She sat on a stool beside the furnace with her eyes shut, sucking the metal as though it were a hard candy.
After ten minutes of this, during which Molly and Dr. Logan kept completely silent, Fritha opened her eyes. There was no expression in them. She reached for the pliers and once more pulled the crucible out of the furnace.
She took the small lump of gold from her mouth and placed it in the pool of hot liquid gold in the iron crucible. Like butter melting in a hot frying pan, the lump disappeared. Now Fritha poured all of the gold into the mold.
“It’s full. That will do.” She looked up at the darkening sky. “You twos should stay the night. The coin will be ready by the mornin.’”
Thirty-four
“Wild strawberry jam!” Fritha said, dolloping some onto Dr. Logan’s and Molly’s plates at breakfast.
They sat at a table that was laid with china and silverware that Fritha had brought back from her trips to the future.
“Do you like the toast rack?” she asked. “Got it from a very mode
rn house in Paris in the 1970s.”
Molly nodded. “They’d call that groovy,” she said.
“Groovy,” Fritha repeated. Molly smiled.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the coin,” Dr. Logan said, munching away.
“How will ya carry it?” Fritha asked.
“I’ll take it,” Molly offered. “In something though. I don’t think we should touch it.”
“No. Definitely not,” Fritha agreed. “It’s made so that the person who touches it and holds it for more than a minute owns it. Very soon after that, they won’t want to give it up. If you carry it in this”—Fritha went to her table in the cave and rummaged about before coming back with a leather pouch—“you will be safe.”
After breakfast Fritha fetched the mold and placed it on the table. She took a little metal hammer from her pocket. Her eyes lit up. “I can feel it through the clay—do you?”
Both Molly and Dr. Logan put their hands up to the clay.
“Makes me feel a bit sleepy,” Molly said.
“It’s powerful,” yawned Dr. Logan.
“Good.” Fritha smiled. “I will say good-bye to you both now. Because in a minute you twos will have to move swiftly.” She came over to Molly and embraced her. “Sorry I made a coin that turned ya bad for a while, dearie—that drained ya of your powers. I’m afraid I’m not perfect and neither are me coins.”
Molly shook her head. “Don’t worry,” she said.
Fritha then took Molly’s face in her hands. “If you ever do get your powers back, please come and visit me again. It was lovely meetin’ you.” She kissed Molly on each cheek.
She turned to Dr. Logan and hugged him fiercely. Taking a bunch of dried herbs from her apron pocket she gave them to him. “You should take these for your heart. I sense it is weak.” Without waiting for a response, she went on, “And remember, you twos, the moment the coin is finished, we’ll put it in the pouch, then you must leave, before it tires ya. I will have to file off its rough edges.” She pointed to an antiquated filing wheel. “Then it will be done and away you go.”