“Futures 2: Molly” continues the story begun in “Futures”
Futures 2: Molly
Molly would tell you her story began in 1921, when she came to Elmwood. She didn’t want to remember that she was born in Virginia in 1907 and grew up there, until she ran away from home.
No, that wasn’t right, either. Molly didn’t run away from home. Virginia wasn’t home—it was something else, best forgotten. When she was 14 she escaped her father. She made her way north—she didn’t like to think how, and washed up at Elmwood.
Well, when she said she washed up at Elmwood, what she meant was that Elle and Elle’s father Al took her in. Why they did that Molly didn’t know.
She had jumped a freight. One of the boes in her boxcar was leering at her. Not wanting trouble, she jumped off at Elmwood, although there was nothing much there. As she walked into town along the right-of-way, she came to a school and heard the shouts of kids getting out for the day. Curious, Molly walked around to the front of the school. She was riveted by the sight of a tall teenage girl with green eyes and red hair. The redhead returned Molly’s stare. Molly, in her worn clothing, was embarrassed by the attention. The redhead was joined by a small, dark-haired, dark-eyed man. He seemed strangely interested in Molly. It was as if he knew her.
He asked, “Let me guess. Your name is Molly?”
It was not, but she decided that from now on it would be. “Yes…” she answered, shy.
“I’m Albert Gardiner, and this is my daughter Ellie. Do you have a place to stay?”
She did not. Although wary of Al’s unexpected generosity, a kid on the run had to take what she could get. And, this man, having a daughter her own age, felt safe.
#
He was. Molly lived with Al and Elle for two years. Molly and Elle shared a bedroom, and they became best friends. They also shared a birthday, June 7, 1907, or so Molly said when she learned Elle’s birthday.
Al was kind. Molly could not go to the school where Al taught music and where Elle was a student. She had no parent to enroll her, and the principal was a straightlaced man who was suspicious of this small, strange, dark girl who had blown into town one day. But Al made sure that Molly learned to read and write and do arithmetic. He was a patient teacher, and Molly, they found, learned quickly.
He also—this was such a gift—taught her music. At home he had a small upright piano. Piano was an acceptable skill for a young lady. Al sat Molly down and showed her how the piano worked. Elle could play a little, but music fit Molly like a second skin. She only had to hear a song or see the sheet music to play it. Al was a gifted musician and a brilliant teacher, but he said that Molly’s success was all her.
“Where I lead, Molly, you’re there three steps ahead of me. It’s a privilege to have such a student.”
Elle’s gift was mathematics. Al taught her. It wasn’t about numbers. Elle and Al would have discussions full of words that Molly knew, but in no order that Molly could make sense of.
Al: “All groups of prime order are simple.”
Elle: “Are there simple groups whose order is not prime?”
“Yes, there are, and the existence of simple groups of non-prime order is terribly important in algebra. The smallest is the alternating group of degree 5, which has order 60.”
They could go on like this for hours at a blackboard.
Al encouraged both girls to read. At first Molly followed Elle’s taste in books. Elmwood had an adequate library, and Al had a surprising collection at home, even including some works that were not suitable for young ladies. Al didn’t care—his library was open to both girls.
Elle read little poetry, but Molly developed a taste for it. Al introduced Molly to Edna St Vincent Millay. Molly read that some people thought Millay unsuitable for young ladies because she was rumored to practice Sapphic love. Molly asked Al what the word meant.
“Sappho was one of the greatest of Greek poets 2,500 years ago. She also played guitar and sung her poems to her own music.”
“Do you have a book of her poems?”
“No one does. Almost all Sappho’s poetry was lost. I can probably find you a translation of the Ode to Aphrodite, the only complete poem of hers we have, but I’m afraid it will disappoint you.”
It did.
“And what is Sapphic love?” Molly asked, realizing that Al had somehow failed to answer her question.
“Many of Sappho’s songs were about women who loved women. And so, people sometimes call that Sapphic love.”
Molly later asked Al, “You told me Sappho played guitar?”
“Well, she played a kind of lyre called a kithara. In modern Greek kithara is the word for guitar. So, I was simplifying a bit, but it’s almost true that Sappho played guitar.”
“Is guitar difficult? Could I learn it?”
“You will be a brilliant guitarist, Molly! I think I have an old guitar or two in the attic. Let’s find them, and I’ll teach you.”
From that day on Al gave Molly a guitar lesson every day, although before long their lessons just became a habit of playing together every day.
#
On her sixteenth birthday Molly left Al and Elle’s home to live in Miss Patterson’s Home for Young Ladies, a boarding house. If Molly, a young lady, continued to live with a widower and no other chaperone than his daughter, there would be talk. Al and Elle didn’t want Molly to go, but understood why she did.
Miss Patterson’s had a piano for the use of the young ladies, and Molly was sometimes permitted to entertain and instruct with suitable music—none of this jazz or ragtime!
As a sixteenth birthday present, Al and Elle gave Molly a new guitar of her very own. She was often seen around town with it in a case on her back. Elle once joked, “It’s as big as you, Molly! You’ll overbalance!”
Molly grinned at her, and Al said, “Be careful, Ellie. ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce.’”
This made Molly and Elle laugh, but privately Molly thought, “It’s true. I am fierce.” She was still that girl who at fourteen had escaped her father and ridden the rails north. Molly was seldom fierce on her own behalf, but for Elle she would bite the world. People soon learned that Molly would defend Elle against any slight with wit and an all-too-plausible implicit threat of battle.
Al helped Molly find a job at a shop that sold musical instruments and sheet music. Many of the patrons were women, and Molly’s ability to dazzle at piano or guitar sold music and instruments. She was even able to make a little extra by giving the daughters of the more tolerant burghers of Elmwood lessons.
Although it was scary to be on her own, Molly knew that she would always have a meal and a bed at need with Al and Elle.
And besides, she was Fierce Molly! She would find a way.
#
Elle grew up to be a statuesque young woman with brilliant red hair and green eyes and, to the sorrow of half of her classmates, no apparent interest in boys. Molly was not surprised. She and Elle spent most of their free time together. Molly thought that as long as they had each other, they didn’t need boys.
Elle’s lack of interest in boys didn’t seem to bother Al. Molly knew that seemed peculiar to some of the women of Elmwood. Molly thought privately that the women of Elmwood were more bothered by Al’s apparent lack of interest in the women of Elmwood, but Elle was a good excuse for simulated concern.
No one worried that Molly wasn’t interested in boys. Al was Al, and for the rest, the burghers of Elmwood had little care for the little elf, as Molly once heard someone call her.
#
Al was odd. Elle, for whom Al was the standard by which men were judged, didn’t perceive Al’s strangeness, but Molly did.
He seemed to know absolutely everything. He taught Molly music and he taught Elle mathematics and physics more advanced, Molly thought, than American physicists knew. He knew all about and appeared to understand the work that Einstein was doing in Switzerland. He sometimes spoke of the future as if he had been there.
Al and Molly had a peculiar conversation about the Mark Twain book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. In it a Connecticut Yankee named Hank Morgan is hit on the head with a crowbar and finds himself in King Arthur’s court in sixth century England. He becomes famous as a wizard and a prophet, known as the Boss.
There is a long passage in which the Boss impresses local laborers by telling them how much more the wages of laborers will be in future centuries. Al was strangely scornful of the Boss’s prophecies.
“They’re so vague!” he said. “Let’s suppose you were a real visitor from the future—would you believe that the Boss knew the future, based on a few predictions of future wages?”
Molly answered, “No, of course not. I wouldn’t believe he could see the future no matter what predictions he made. It’s fiction. Time travel isn’t real, Al!”
“Really? Put aside your certainty, and think about it. Imagine you are a real visitor from, say, our day, to sixth century England. Is there absolutely nothing the Boss could say to you that would convince you he really knew the future?”
“It’s a bad example, Al. In that case I would know that time travel is possible, being a time traveler myself.”
“Come on, Molly! Where’s your imagination? It doesn’t need to be real. What could the Boss tell you from the future that would convince you he really knew?”
“I can’t imagine anything. After all, if he gets any facts right, it could just be luck.”
“That’s because there’s not a lot of information in a single fact. Anyone who guesses has a chance of getting it right. Especially if the person making the guess is a clever con artist watching your reactions.”
“So I guess it would take a lot of very specific facts,” Molly speculated.
“What about a poem?” Al asked. “What if the Boss recited Millay’s ‘Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare’ word for word—would that convince you that he knew the future?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t do that myself. It would be unfair to demand of the Boss that he know the poem and remember it perfectly. It just doesn’t seem the kind of thing the Boss would care about.”
“But I think something like a poem could be made to work. Something with as much detail as a poem, that everyone would know..”
“Ah!” said Molly. “A song? If the Boss could sing ‘If you knew Susie,’ or ‘Yes Sir that’s my Baby,’ and get the words and tune right, that would be pretty impressive, right? What’s more, anyone from 1925 would recognize it, even Hank Morgan, or someone like him.”
“I like it!”
“But, Al, you’re being unfair to the Boss. He doesn’t need to prove himself to another time-traveler, because there aren’t any others.”
“Well, you’re right, Molly,” Al agreed. “I am being unfair. I hereby apologize to the Boss and to Sam Clemens.”
#
Even stranger was the Dorothy Parker book. Dorothy Parker, like Edna St Vincent Millay, was a poet who was not considered suitable for young ladies. Parker lived in New York City. She published poems and stories in New York literary magazines. She was caustic and funny. She was even fired by Vanity Fair for making fun of important people. Yet some of her poems were terribly sad.
Molly couldn’t get enough of her.
Looking through Al’s library, Molly found a little book of poems by Parker called Enough Rope. The copyright notice was dated 1926—it was 1924 when Molly found the book.
By now Molly had begun to realize that Al had secrets. Having a few of her own, she didn’t ask him how he got a book of Parker’s poems two years before it was published.
#
So it went until the day that changed everything. For Elle, that day was their eighteenth birthday. For Molly it was the day before, the night she danced with Elle. Elle’s side of that story has already been told. But Molly knew, after spinning Elle in her arms, that she would never be the same again.
After dancing with Elle, Molly and Al sat down with their guitars as usual. But Al had got some sort of bee in his bonnet about the song they had danced to, “Poor Boy’s Delight.” He insisted that Molly learn it—not just that she learn to play it, but also to sing the words.
When Elle and Molly danced, they had made up their own words to fit the tune. Al insisted Molly learn the original words. But they fit almost as well as their own made-up words. The song was about a girl named Molly from Virginia asked to dance on a Saturday night.
He told Molly, “The song was written for you! It’s how I knew four years ago, when we met at the school, that your name was Molly.”
Molly laughed. It was such an Al thing to say. But she did as he asked. It was not difficult. By the time she left for her boarding house—Miss Patterson’s had a strict seven o’clock curfew for the young ladies—she had it down cold.
As she left, Al said, “Sing it tomorrow.” That was Al being strange again. Sure, if he wanted, she would sing it with him tomorrow.
#
The next morning, June 7, 1925, their birthday, was a Sunday. At Miss Patterson’s they had a prayer service every Sunday morning after breakfast. Then Miss Patterson insisted the girls sing Happy Birthday for Molly. This took time, because Miss Patterson insisted someone other than Molly accompany on piano, and the young ladies were shy. Thus, it was past ten o’clock when Molly walked into Al and Elle’s living room.
A strange sight greeted her. A sort of empty doorway stood against the far wall. It led nowhere but to the wall.
But there was something even stranger. On the coffee table in front of the sofa was a peculiar device. It consisted of two rectangular halves joined by stiff hinges along one side. Both halves were made of metal or of some hard stuff like bakelite. The heavy bottom half was about half an inch thick and sat flat on the tabletop. The lighter top half stuck up almost vertically from the hinges, and could be tilted—the hinges were stiff enough to hold it in place.
Lying on the bottom half was an envelope bearing Molly’s name. It contained a birthday card from Al and Elle. When she lifted the envelope she saw that the bottom half of the device was patterned with buttons that had letters and numbers on them like typewriter keys. The keys were not connected to any visible typing mechanism.
Curious, she touched a key and got the biggest surprise of her life. A bell-like sound came from the device. The top half lit up, and on the side facing her a picture appeared. It showed Al and Elle in this very room—the doorway to nowhere visible behind them. They moved, as if in a cinema, and—this was even stranger—they talked. Al and Elle’s voices came out of the device.
She watched as Al promised to take Elle to her mother. They sang to the door, a song that Molly had never heard. Something spoke the words, “Alberto Gonzalez, Elliotte Gardiner authenticated. ‘What a Wonderful World,’ Louis Armstrong, 1967. Target?”
Al answered “Seven June 2025.”
Wringing Molly’s heart, Elle said, “I can’t leave Molly behind.” Al promised her that if she followed him, she would not regret it. Soon after they walked through the door together. Shortly after that the picture on the device went away. It made a kind of a squeak, then a bright rectangle appeared. Printed in the rectangle were the words, “End of video. Touch any key to replay.”
Molly looked through the house, but Elle and Al were nowhere to be found. They seemed really to have left, although it was impossible to believe they could have left for 2025.
She touched one of the typewriter keys on the device, and the whole thing repeated.
#
Suddenly Molly understood. Not everything—most of this still seemed impossible. But she understood what Al had been telling her when they discussed A Connecticut Yankee and why he had taught her “Poor Boy’s Delight.” She knew what she had to do. Taking her guitar, she walked to the door and sang the song from beginning to end. She was hardly surprised at all when the door spoke, “Molly Johnson authenticated. ‘Poor Boy’s Delight,’ The Infamous Stringdusters, 2007. Target?”
Molly answered as Al had done, “Seven June 2025.”
The space in the empty door frame went black, and Molly stepped through the wall that was no longer there.
Her heart leapt, because there, right in front of her, was Elle’s back.
“Budge over, beanpole,” Molly said to Elle’s back.
Elle budged over and Molly stepped to her side.
#
Molly found herself in a place like none she had ever seen before. Besides Elle and Al there were half a dozen people, very strangely dressed. Everyone looked surprised to see Molly. Everyone but Al, that is. He grinned at her and lifted a hand as if to congratulate her.
A tall woman with Elle’s hair and eyes said, “What have you done, Al?”
He answered, “The right thing, Anne.”
All chapters
Afterword
The story will continue in “Futures: Alberto.”
The cover image is a phase portrait of
The portrait is rotated 30° clockwise.
A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.
Okay, with food on fire in my kitchen, I read this. And it's too interesting I have to come back when I really can.
I have to relax to get this in.
very beautifully written piece