“Wh-what do you mean?” Molly stuttered, her stomach tightening. “This doesn’t sound good, Mr. Black.”
“Call me Theobald.”
“Theobald,” Molly said. “How are things going to get worse?”
Black crossed his arms. “That book held more than just lessons about the advanced hypnotic arts.” He shook his head worriedly. “It held half of a very important key.”
“A key to what?” Micky asked.
Black put his hands to his temples and began to massage them.
“A key that is, I’m afraid, the key to the weather.”
“The weather?”
“Yes.” Black sighed. Outside the hotel window, the trees swayed. A strong wind now accompanied the storm. Black shook his head again. “I can’t believe this is happening. I hoped it wouldn’t. But it is happening. I’m afraid Miss Hunroe and her friends may soon have the power to control the weather all over the world! And by the looks of it”—he pointed to the thrashing branches of the trees outside—“the trouble has already started.”
Leonard stood up. “I’m v-very sorry,” he stammered, his eyes wide and nervous. “But I kinda think I better be getting out of here.” He touched AH2’s shoulder, as if testing whether he was real or not. “It’s all getting a bit too weird.” He eyed Molly and Micky. “I think I need to see a doctor!” With that, he backed himself toward the apartment door and in the next second had opened it and was gone.
Sixteen
Outside the French window, yet another flash of lightning lit up the hotel’s winter garden. Hail began pelting down, ricocheting off the mossy paving stones and hitting the statue of the winged cupid in the center of the pond like ice bullets.
“This is only the beginning of it,” Black declared, sinking his hands into his trouser pockets and gazing up at the sky. A twig struck the window.
“I don’t believe it,” said AH2, staring at Molly. “You’re not an alien! You’re a hypnotist. I saw. I saw you when you took my head over.”
Black threw a glance back at AH2. “Is he safe, Molly?”
Molly considered AH2. He was a fanatical person, but he was also very clever. If things were about to get more dangerous, he might be just the person to have on their side. After all, he had been in Molly’s head, so he understood things. And she had been in his head and trusted him.
“He’s good,” she said. “Brainy, too. His name is Malcolm Tixley.” She nodded at their new friend. “You might be able to help us, Malcolm,” she said. Then she turned to Black. “So, Mr. Black, you’d better lay it out for us.”
As if addressing the clouds that hid the sun, Black began. “Hypnotism, Volume Two: The Advanced Arts. Where shall I start? Let me give you its story first. It was written and made by your great-great-grandfather Dr. Logan. It was kept in the library at Briersville Park. Logan died. And the book stayed in the family for years. Secretly. Then it was stolen. Stolen by a family of hypnotists called the Speals.”
“Speal said it had been stolen from them!” Micky exclaimed, moving closer to the fire to keep warm.
“Well,” carried on Black, “the Speals kept the book for a while. They were responsible for the terrible storms in England in 1953. Then the book was rescued back by the Logans. Again it stayed in Briersville, this time safely hidden. But next, a bad Logan cropped up—your uncle Cornelius. I knew him at school. That’s where I come into the story. Miss Hunroe knew Cornelius as well, you see. We were all at school together, a long time ago.”
“Ah! That must have been why Cornelius was so excited when Miss Hunroe arrived at Briersville that night,” Molly said to Micky. Black nodded.
“When his father died, Cornelius got the run of Briersville Park. I heard of his inheritance and guessed that he would have found the book. I knew it would be a disaster for either him or Hunroe to have access to the book. So…” Black stopped and looked awkwardly at the twins. “So I stole it.”
“You stole it?”
“Well, I had to.” Black paused and fiddled with a button on his shirtsleeve. “I had it for years, and no one guessed that it was me who had stolen it. So it was safe with me. In the fabulously secure casino building of my brother’s. Lily said you saw the book. Well then, you must have seen the three flat colored stones in the corners of its front cover.”
“And we saw the fourth stone,” Molly said, popping a chocolate into her mouth. “Speal had it. It was blue. She treated it like some sort of super-precious thing. Mmm. Toffee.”
“Ah, so that is where it has been all these years. Well, Miss Speal is right. That blue stone is very precious. And that’s why the book is extra precious. The stones on its cover are the key. Each one of those stones can help change the weather on its own. If I was holding a stone now, for instance, I could change the weather near here. A stone on its own has limited power. All four stones together can make mammoth-scale, worldwide weather changes happen, but to do this the holder of the stones has to be in a very special place.”
“Where?”
“And you think that is where Miss Hunroe is going right now?” Micky guessed, opening a smart leather-covered atlas that lay on the table.
“I am sure of it.”
Black played with the heavy sashes that tied back the curtains as he spoke. “I think that Miss Speal has been manipulating the weather with the piece of blue stone for a long time. We’ve had monsoonlike downpours in London lately, and do you remember that mini cyclone that went over Primrose Hill?” As he spoke, a massive blade of lightning jagged across the dark sky. “Now Hunroe has the whole book and, so, all the weather stones. She has the power to cause typhoons, hurricanes, high seas, tidal waves, tsunamis, and droughts. She could drown millions in an afternoon. If she decides that the rain should stop, crops die, and then millions of people have nothing to eat. She could cause millions of people to die slowly, of starvation.”
Black sounded so serious that Petula whimpered and hid her nose in the crook of Molly’s arm.
“Wow, just think of the good things you could do with the weather stones,” Micky interjected. “You could make it rain where there were droughts. You could make a jungle grow in the Sahara Desert! These stones sound fabulous, Mr. Black.”
“Don’t they? But remember, there is a flip side to the power of the stones. They can be used for enormous good or enormous evil.”
“And you don’t have a set of time crystals?” Molly asked him, eyeing his vast collection of pendulums. “Because if you did, well, I could easily sort this all out.”
Black shook his head. “Sadly, I’ve never had my own.”
“Hmm.” Molly sighed, thinking how simple everything would be if she could use her time-stopping or time-traveling skills.
“I wonder whether Hunroe knows how to use your crystals,” Black said. “I don’t think she could, or she would have used them by now.”
“Maybe, then,” Molly mulled, “we should just call the police and have her arrested. Then I might get my crystals back. And then we could sort everything out.”
“She’ll be long gone from the museum by now,” Black said knowingly.
“How are you so sure that Hunroe wants to do bad things with the weather?” Micky said. “I mean, I know she’s not exactly a cuddly doll, but maybe she’s simply hoarding the book and the stones like an evil squirrel might.”