Giselle glanced at the old, beautifully carved chest of dark wood, decorated in typical Schwarzwald ornamentation. “Just my hair. Whenever mother cut it off, she’d put the braids in there. Why?”
“Because . . . when I went to pay the dwarves for their work on the abbey, the Head Workman told me that ‘he’d taken the pay already from the usual place’ and that ‘he’d left payment for the surplus where I’d expect it.’ I never looked in that chest until I went to move my things out of the room to make way for Cody. Then, it was empty.”
Now Giselle was truly puzzled. “You mean, he took the payment in my hair? But—”
“Hush,” said Rosa, and got up from her seat to run her hands around the fireplace surrounding the iron stove. And when she got to the hearthstone, she exclaimed “Aha!”
Her hands glowed a golden yellow for a moment. Then the crack around the hearthstone glowed an answering yellow.
And the hearthstone lifted up, all by itself, and shifted to one side. And there, lying in the cavity, was a stout iron box.
“I don’t suppose you have a key to this, do you?” Rosa asked, as Giselle stared in astonishment.
“Mother didn’t leave many keys to things, and I think they’re all on the ring in my room,” she replied, and without waiting for an answer, she ran to the tower and up to her room. There in a keepsake box on her mantelpiece was the key ring Mother had always worn on her belt. Giselle took it and ran back down, handing it wordlessly to Rosa as the men watched in astonishment.
Or rather, Fox and Kellermann watched in astonishment. Cody was already well on the way to seeing two hats, and just blinked in amusement.
There was only one key on it small enough to fit the lock in the top of the strongbox. Rosa put it in, and then paused.
“I think you should be the one to open this,” she said. “If there is anything in there, your Mother left it to you. There might not be anything but air—but perhaps there will be a keepsake or—something.”
At this point Giselle was quite past any expectations of anything. She hadn’t expected them to get off so lightly in this fight, she hadn’t expected to get off at all for using her powers to take down Johann. So, without really thinking much of anything, except that perhaps Mother had some letters or special books in there, she knelt down beside Rosa, turned the key and lifted the lid.
And found her breath entirely taken away. “Oh dear Virgin Mother,” breathed Kellermann. Rosa could only gasp. And even Fox’s eyes had gone big and round.
“What?” demanded Cody. “What? What is it?”
Rosa and Giselle moved aside so he could see.
“Jumpin’ Jehova!” Cody gasped. “Gold!”
There was . . . a lot of gold. And a lot of silver too. The strongbox was almost full. If one didn’t know any better, one would have been certain these were genuine thalers and goldmarks, from the proper German mints. But they did know better, of course. These were dwarven counterfeits, made so that their bearers could easily spend dwarven silver and gold. They were absolutely the proper weight and the proper value of precious metal, and every one had been stamped with a perfect copy of the actual mold, probably taken from brand new coins; the dwarves never did anything having to do with gold and silver shoddily. They were meticulous craftsmen. But the only “mint” these coins had ever seen were . . . well, wherever it was that dwarves had their forges and workshops.
“How?” Giselle said, finally. “Why?”
Rosa sucked on her lower lip. “Well, I would have to guess, but I think I’m right. Your Mother had bargains with the dwarves as many Earth Masters do, but before she brought you here, her bargains were nothing special. Very likely she supplied them with exceptional vegetables, and probably amazing cheese and butter, all things that dwarves do not make and cannot get enough of. The bargain was good enough to purchase an old house in a bad neighborhood and abandon it, certainly. But nothing like this. No, I think that bargain changed entirely after you came to live with her, and your hair started to grow.”
Giselle wondered if she had gone mad. “What has my hair got to do with this?” she demanded.
Rosa chuckled. “Giselle . . . where, and how, is a