Molly came to a small, ramshackle square lit up by night stalls selling sweets, fruit, and flamboyant, multicolored paper lanterns. People were gathered for Diwali, the November festival of light. The crowd looked expectantly up at the full moon and the black-and-blue sky. All at once there was an explosive light. Great blossoming, gunpowder fireworks splintered the night. Molly stopped to catch her breath, wondering where she could get a drink of water.
Then memories began to form. Memories from her ten-year-old self. They were in the fort ahead.
Molly cautiously approached the darkest corner of the square.
Here there were piles of rags on the pavement, the rags of poor people huddled together. Molly crept past them up the winding street toward the fort.
Inside the fort the ten-year-old Molly was sitting in a room with the three-year-old. Neither was hypnotized now. Both were wearing blood-red gowns. Molly’s hands were shackled together, but her blindfold was off. Little Molly was clutching the windowsill, looking up at the sky and the fireworks exploding in it. “Day are sooo pretty, aren’t day, Molly?” she said.
The baby, in a fine white dress, lay quiet in a cot. Waqt, dressed in a silver cloak, hovered outside their door like a ghost. His bearded priests surrounded him like a flock of black ravens. Then one of them swept into the room, scooped the baby from its cot, and carried her outside into the courtyard. The child was placed on a purple cushion on a large, flat, cracked rock. The full moon hung above.
“I don’t fink da baby likes da fireworks,” said the three-year-old Molly, coming to sit by her older self.
Waqt’s final inauguration ceremony commenced.
Two servants brought him the heavy velvet bag holding his collection of crystals. As the sky burst with blue and red and silver light, Waqt ordered the priests to lay the crystals in a circle around the flat rock and the tiny sleeping child.
Molly stole up to the fort gate. A dozy guard leaned against the wall, half asleep. She slid by him through the shadows and made her way past fragrant flower-covered walls toward the second fort gate. The guards here were in a small hut playing dice, too absorbed to notice the girl slinking by.
Finally she could see the glow of torch flames that emanated from the fort’s inner courtyard. She slipped along an arched walkway and made her way toward the light.
Nearby was a platform for mounting elephants. Molly climbed onto this and then struggled farther up until she lay flat on the wall behind. Below her the ceremonial area was lit up like a stage. Hundreds of crystals lay in a ring around a rock that the baby Molly lay on, and now the priests were chanting. They were marching on the spot, lifting their knees high and bringing their peacock-headed batons down on the ground with heavy thuds. The noise reverberated around the stone courtyard, but the baby slept on peacefully.
The fireworks stopped. Waqt stood, as tall as a lamppost, with his hands raised to the moon. And then, as the chanting reached a peak, and the marching and thudding got faster and faster, the light of the moon suddenly shone directly down on the center of the ring of crystals, onto the cracked rock and the still-sleeping child.
Waqt gave a horrible yell that was echoed by eerie screeches from each of the priests. Frightened by the racket, the baby woke up and began to cry. The priests, like a hollow tunnel, echoed her wail.
Molly wasted no time. Dropping down from the wall into dark shadow, she crept along until she was behind Waqt. He was now collecting his biggest, most precious gems. They seemed to be lodged in the crack of the rock. He picked each one up and, with a ridiculous flourish of his right arm, plopped it into his bag. Around him the priests collected the scores of remaining crystals and brought them to him. Molly inched closer. Her mouth felt as dry as a parrot’s.
Finally the bag was full again. Two servants bore it away to a stone shelf behind Waqt, close to where Molly was hiding. She watched and waited. Her heart beat like the wings of a powerful butterfly trapped inside her chest. Her ears rang with the adrenaline that rushed through her blood. She was so tense, she could scarcely move. But she had to get to that shelf.
The ten-year-old Molly cowered on a bench at the far side of the courtyard, frightened and lonely. The three-year-old sat on her lap, her face buried in her chest. “Why did day make dat baby cwy?” she asked. “Molly, I don’t like dose old men. Day’re scary.” The words to the rhyme she’d sung when she’d been six swung in the ten-year-old’s head.
We are coming to rescue you, Mollys,
Rescue you, Mollys
Rescue you, Mollys…
She wondered whether the eleven-year-old Molly would ever appear again. In front of her the baby cried and Waqt stood with his hands outstretched.
Then, in the bright flash of a single firework, she saw a girl lying on the ground behind him.
Waqt dropped his hands and began to turn.
The last words of the rhyme rang in ten-year-old Molly’s ears.
“And when we come we need your help.” At once Molly saw that now was that moment. She jumped up, pushing the small Molly off her knees.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaqt!” she yelled.
Waqt stopped turning and stared at her. Now the ten-year-old shouted the first things that came into her head—it didn’t matter what they were.
“RED ROBES! PURPLE OLD MEN! STUPID OLD MEN! STUPID YOU!” She shouted at the top of her voice.
The eleven-year-old Molly wriggled on her stomach toward the shelf. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the commotion. She knew what was happening—she remembered making all that noise. This was her moment to snatch the bag.
Silent as a snake, her arm moved into the light and her ivy fingers entwined around the drawstring of the bag. Very slowly, so as not to attract anyone’s attention, she eased it toward her. It was heavy. Molly’s back prickled and her world swayed. Dragging the bag, she lurched away. The ten-year-old Molly shouted. And then there was silence as she was gagged.
“Don’t! Don’t do dat to her,” the three-year-old cried.
Beside the high wall Molly searched the sack. She pulled out some crystals—a green one, a red one, another green one. In the silvery light she saw that some were scarred and others weren’t. Molly’s hands were shaking and she nearly dropped the stones, then her fingers closed around a red gem with a large scar. Molly stared at it and drove her hypnotic will into it, thinking, as she did, how much she loved Petula and Rocky and all the other people who were close to her. Her love of the world radiated out of her and, with a red blink, the swirling eye on the crystal opened. Molly smiled with relief, thanked the crystal, and bid it shut again. Then she put it in her pocket with her green scarred crystal. She carefully hid the bag containing the rest of the crystals behind a rock.
Unaware of what had just happened, the Maharaja of Waqt continued to conduct his ceremony. A bell rang and the gagged ten-year-old and the three-year-old were summoned to the crystal rock. The baby Molly still cried intermittently on the cushion on the ground. Waqt stepped toward the three-year-old.
Little Molly stared in alarm at the giant maharaja and then rushed to hide behind the ten-year-old Molly. The ten-year-old shielded her, noticing at the same time that one of the men nearby wore a hood, and he held a glinting scythe with a curved blade.
Waqt turned for his bag of crystals. A scowl of intense confusion and anger crossed his face.
At that moment Molly stepped out of the shadows. Trying not to let her voice tremble, she said loudly and clearly, “I have your bag.”
For a moment the maharaja was surprised; then, he shoved his hands into his pockets and started laughing like a maniac. He pulled out two time-travel crystals.
“You fidiculous rool! Your plan, Molly, I’m afraid, is foiled, as all I need to do is go back in time. I will retrieve my bag before you have taken it, and I will make sure I kill your younger selves, too.” He squeezed his green crystal. And disappeared. Molly ran toward where Waqt had stood and squeezed her own green crystal. Suddenly she could see Waqt through
the blur of time.
They were both moving backward through time and Molly was traveling at exactly the same speed as he was, so they were visible to each other. Waqt’s silver cloak was ruffled slightly by the cool time-travel winds.
“Very accomplished!” he said. “A pity someone as talented as you cannot use your power usefully!”
“You mean, use my power for your ends?”
“Yes, Molly.” Waqt laughed. “You stunderhand me so well.”
Molly saw that at last a chance to trick the maharaja had arrived. Propelled by the urgency of the situation, her mind formulated a plan.
“But I have used my power for your ends!” she lied.
“Oh yes, Molly, I’m sure you have,” Waqt said sarcastically.
“I have been to the beginning of time and I got to the Bubble of Light for you!” Molly said.
Waqt laughed again. He seemed to find Molly very amusing.
“And how, may I ask, did you namage to get to the Bubble at the beginning of time without thousands of stycrals?”
“I have, I have. Please believe me, sir. I will show you. I bathed in the light myself. Look at my skin.”
Waqt narrowed his eyes. Her dry skin had indeed disappeared. In fact, she did look younger than when he’d last seen her. Was he imagining it?
“Follow me,” Molly said. For a moment, Waqt stalled, and then, his curiosity overcoming him, he agreed.
Molly sent thoughts to her green crystal. “Pull him as fast as us,” she thought. “And move as fast as we can.” And the crystal sent out waves of lassoing energy and, just like the red bird, Waqt was pulled along. They were traveling so fast that it felt as though they weren’t moving at all. Light flashed about them and the sky above was pale, as all its colors meshed into one blurred gray.
Waqt laughed as they traveled. Then suddenly he dived toward Molly. His hand shot out to tug at the clear crystal around her neck. Molly jerked away as his fingers snatched at it.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” she said angrily. She thought with horror of the gun he’d said he always carried.
“You know, Molly, it is pimhossible to get to the beginning of time. You need thousands of stycrals to enter the Bubble and you need thousands to travel that far, too. Even I have never been there! The world alone was formed over bour fillion years ago, and time started billions of years before that. Fourteen billion years, to be precise. If you had the brains to do the math in your head, you would realize that with one of these ridiculous stycrals it will take you hundreds of years of trime taveling to get there. Where is your common sense?”
“How far back in time do you think we have traveled now?”
“By my experience”—Waqt sighed—“we are roughly at the year two hundred.”
“Shall we stop then?”
Impatience flicked across Waqt’s expression as his amusement began to pall. “You will see. We shall stop.”
In the courtyard at the fort the priests saw the maharaja disappear, and at once they became agitated. This sudden disappearance was a work of magic—it was a sign that the strange spirits they worshiped were present.
The ten-year-old Molly watched anxiously as the old men in robes hopped about like drunken crows. Then they came for her. Three of them raised the arms of their robes and, with purple wings, prodded her toward the center of the courtyard circle, where the man in the hooded mask stood holding the scythe. The blade gleamed, its razor-sharp edge expanding to heavy, bludgeoning iron. Molly thought of how a scythe was for cutting grass, not girls. She remembered the sacrificed goat. The blood. She’d never felt more scared. Her fear rose up bitter and metallic on her tongue.
The three-year-old Molly stood crying at the side of the arena.
And then the ten-year-old tried to run. Two purple-cloaked men caught her. Molly remembered seeing in a dictionary once that a group of crows is called a “murder” of crows.
Waqt sniffed and tried to look nonchalant as he stared about him. Where the early city should have been, there was sand and rock. And the river in front of them flowed torrentially.
“So, it looks like we have traveled to a ceriod before pivilization in India, I see.”
Molly could tell that he had completely misjudged where they were and he was trying to get his bearings.
Suddenly a huge rock a quarter of a mile away on the other side of the river rose up. It was the most enormous, terrifying beast that Molly had ever seen—some sort of giant crocodile dinosaur. It sniffed the air and pointed its beady eyes in their direction.
“Very primhessive,” he said, trying not to communicate his fear as he realized that they had traveled a hundred million years back in time, a distance that would have taken him three years. “But this is not the beginning of time, Lommy. This is only the Jurassic period. Every trime taveler has been here.” He eyed Molly’s green crystal. The dinosaur let out a horrible rumbling roar that reverberated across the rapids of the ancient Ganges.
“I tell you what,” said Molly. “You can make your own way back to our time if you like.” The creature slid into the river.
“No, I’ll travel with you, I think,” said Waqt, in a very controlled manner. He grit his teeth. He refused to let his rising panic overwhelm him. “Oddly enough, I like the company,” he said. “But let me see that stycral of yours.”
“Sure,” said Molly. She willed her green crystal to shut its eye before holding it up for Waqt to see at a distance. “Let me see yours.” He held his up, too. It had a small scar.
“Your stycral looks as if it’s been through the wars,” he said, trying to work out how she had traveled so far so quickly. He felt his gun, tucked away in its holster under his cloak, and he wondered what to do. He needed Molly alive to get home. He’d never survive three years traveling back through the Jurassic period. As if in agreement, the crocodile dinosaur emerged on their side of the muddy river and gave a hideous screech.
Ojas’s words about Waqt echoed in Molly’s head once again—You will have to kill him, Mollee. You do realize that?—and Molly knew that she could put an end to Waqt here, now, if she just left him. He might be able to avoid this dinosaur by popping forward in time, but eventually, even if he was carrying his gun, he’d be eaten.
Molly couldn’t leave him without a hope, dumped in a distant time. She didn’t have that sort of cruelty in her heart. She looked down at her green crystal and made it open its eye. She bid its energy to lasso Waqt and they took off again.
The years whipped by. Molly glanced at Waqt. He was looking decidedly scared.
“I ron’t deally want to face all of eternity today,” he said wearily as they traveled.
“Are you sure?” Molly asked teasingly. “Or is it that you are worried that you’ll be so far back in time, you’ll never get back to your real time?”
Waqt grimaced. “You’re a nasty weece of perk, Mommy Loon.”
“I wouldn’t be too insulting,” said Molly, “or I might drop you here. And don’t even think of getting your gun out, because, remember, I’m your ticket out of here. This is about a billion years back.” Molly let them hover. Around their safe time-travel capsule was rushing water. Waqt shuddered. Molly continued: “I think this is a little too far back for us, really, isn’t it?” Waqt nodded weakly.
Molly looked down at her red crystal. Its eye was already open and ready. At once, with a swirl, they were shooting forward in time. The world flashed past.
When they were at a point about three hundred million years back, at a time when Molly knew the dinosaurs didn’t exist yet but that the world was full of plant life, she brought them to a standstill.
The world around was green with rich vegetation. As they landed, Molly began to walk away from Waqt.
“Why have we stopped here?” he asked nervously.
“This place interests me,” Molly casually replied. She walked to the top of a small, slimy, purple mound and glanced about at the green grassy plain that stretched away, left and right.
/> “Where are you going?”
“It is probably about nine years’ journey to our time from here, if you travel the old-fashioned way,” said Molly.
“You can’t heave me 1ere!” Waqt shouted. “No human, not even a slotten rave, could survive here!”
“You could, you know.” Molly leaned over and pulled a root vegetable from the earth. “This looks like a turnip to me. Some people swear by them. Mind you, you won’t be able to tofu them here. But I bet there are alfalfa sprouts and all sorts of healthy vegetarian things growing about.” Molly felt uneasy, for she knew she was about to seal Waqt’s destiny. She steeled herself to do what she had to.
Waqt guessed her mood, and his red eyes crackled. His head dropped like a bull about to charge, and his eyes sought hers. Molly looked over his head, avoiding his hypnotic eyes.
“I wouldn’t try that, if I were you,” she said sternly, “or I’ll just leave and you’ll never find out how the crystals work.”
Waqt sank to his knees and, in an insincere way, whined, “Please, just tell me, Molly, and I gomise I’ll be prood.” Molly tilted her head. This was the man who had killed Petula. How she hated him.
“I ought to leave you here to die,” she said, her voice hard as granite. “You killed my dog. You will never know how much I hate you for that. But I don’t want to be as bad as you. I’ll give you one chance. Look at your crystals.” Waqt stared dumbly down. “Those scars on them are like eyelids. You can make them open. And when they are open, the crystals will enable you to travel as fast as you like.”
Waqt’s cavernous mouth hung agape as he turned his two crystals over and over in his hand.
“How do you thet gem to open?” he asked, suspecting that Molly was playing some sort of a trick on him.
“When you truly understand how much I hate you for killing Petula, then the eyes of the crystals might open for you. Because, Waqt, only then will you have compassion for other people, for animals, and for the world. You will be able to hypnotize the crystals’ eyes to open when you have opened your own and have love in your heart.”