“Please?” another voice pleaded. Samantha turned her head a little and saw that the other toddlers had brought in their beds. “We can’t sleep without a story.”
This time a smile took root on Samantha’s face, erasing the pain from her back. “All right,” she said. “There once was a beautiful princess named Rebecca—”
“No fair!” one of the girls shouted.
“A beautiful princess named Rebecca who lived in a tower at the top of a mountain so tall it was higher than the clouds,” Samantha began.
Chapter 22: Chaos
Samantha awoke shivering and heard the toddlers whispering amongst themselves. “Where are the bells?” Rebecca said.
“What do we do?” Annie asked.
“I’m scared.”
“There’s no reason to worry,” Prudence said. “Reverend Crane wants to give us more time to learn our lesson for defying him. Everyone kneel down and we’ll pray like Miss Brigham taught us.” Samantha closed her eyes, pretending to sleep as Prudence led the others in prayer. After they finished, Samantha tried to get off the bed. She felt as though someone were stabbing her with a thousand pins all at once and collapsed back onto the pallet.
“What’s going on?” she asked through chattering teeth.
“The doors and windows are still boarded shut. We don’t have any food and it’s time for morning services,” she said.
“He’s going to let us out, isn’t he?” Rebecca asked.
“Of course he is,” Samantha said. “He has to at some point or nothing around here will get done.” The little girl accepted this explanation and went to sit with the others.
“Are you feeling better?” Prudence asked.
“A little. Can you put that blanket over me?” Prudence draped the blanket over Samantha’s back. She felt a sting for an instant, but then a surge of warmth. Prudence put a hand to Samantha’s forehead, grimacing when she pulled it back.
“You’re burning up. We have to get word to the reverend so he can cure you,” she whispered.
“I don’t think that’s a priority of his right now.”
“He wouldn’t let you die. That would violate The Way.”
“What about Helena?”
“She’s still asleep, but I think she’ll be fine. Her cuts aren’t as deep as yours.”
“Lucky for her.” Samantha took a deep breath that brought on a fresh surge of pain. “Have you tried banging on the door and screaming for help?”
“I wouldn’t want to upset the others,” Prudence said. She looked down at Samantha and then added, “But I can try.” She went to the window and beat against the boards. “Hello? Can anyone hear me? Help us, please! People are sick in here. We need medicine. Hello?”
The only answer came in the form of a dog growling. “We’re all going to die!” Annie said.
“I don’t want to die!” Rebecca howled.
“No one is going to die,” Samantha said. “We have to be patient. Reverend Crane will be here eventually.”
“Of course he will,” Prudence said with false confidence. “There’s nothing to worry about. Why don’t you girls tidy everything up so when he does come it doesn’t look like a pigsty?” The girls didn’t look convinced, but did as they were told, leaving Samantha and Prudence alone.
“What else can we do?” Prudence asked.
“Nothing. Try to keep everyone calm until he comes.” Prudence said something else, but Samantha didn’t hear her. She fell asleep then, lapsing into a vivid dream.
She finds herself sitting against a wall, her hands and feet no longer bound. The room is so dark she can’t see anything. A blinding light interrupts the darkness and a figure appears in the doorway. She tries to see who this person is, but a shadow masks his face. When she tries to ask, she finds her mouth too dry to make anything but a wheezing sound.
“Drink this,” a voice rumbles. He places a clay jar in front of her. She picks up the jar and puts it to her lips. The liquid inside tastes sweet, sweeter than anything she’s ever known. She drinks it all in one swallow. “Very good.”
The man takes the jar from her hands and leaves the room, plunging her into darkness once again. After he’s gone, she feels a tingle all over her body as if every limb has gone to sleep. She screams into the darkness—
Samantha woke up to the sound of a door opening. The door to the dining room yawned open on its own, a rotten egg smell wafting through the dormitory. “What’s that?” she asked.
“It smells awful,” Rebecca said.
“You girls stay here with Samantha. I’ll find out what’s going on,” Prudence said. She gave Samantha a worried look before leaving the room. The older girls were already pushing through the door, anxious to find the source of the smell.
“What do you think it is?” Rebecca asked.
“I don’t know,” Samantha said. The girls speculated among themselves with theories ranging from fish guts to manure. Prudence returned a few minutes later with a clay bowl filled with a thin gruel. She offered it to Samantha, who stuck a cautious finger into the bowl. The gruel tasted sweet, sweeter than anything she ever tasted.
In a panic she swatted the bowl away, shattering it against the wall. “What are you doing?” Prudence asked as the other girls began to cry.
“It’s poison! He’s poisoning us!”
“What? The reverend wouldn’t do that to us. He loves us.”
“Prudence, you have to believe me. You can’t let anyone eat this or something terrible will happen.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Please, trust me. Something bad is going to happen.”
“I don’t know—” Samantha crawled towards the edge of the bed. She swung her legs around over the edge and bent them until they touched the floor. Then, biting down on her swollen lip, she straightened in a blaze of pain.
She brushed past Prudence, limping into the dining room, where she found the other girls clustered around a metal pot filled with the gruel. They jostled with each other to stick their bowl into the pot. On the other side of the dining room, the boys gathered around a pot of their own, elbowing and shoving each other for position.
“Stop! You can’t eat this. It’s poisoned!” she shouted.
No one heard her. She charged into the group of girls, knocking bowls to the floor. Hands clawed at her, trying to force her back. “You can’t eat this. He’s trying to kill us all!” she screamed. Someone wrapped an arm around her throat and dragged her away from the pot. She elbowed her attacker in the ribs but the girl didn’t let go.
“Why should we believe you?” Phyllis growled in Samantha’s ear. “You’re the one who got us locked in here to start with.” The fighting over the gruel escalated into pushing and hair-pulling. Samantha continued struggling against Phyllis, but in her weakened state couldn’t free herself.
Then the grip around her neck loosened, replaced by a tender arm across her shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed,” Prudence said. “When everyone’s done I’ll bring you some food and you’ll see there’s nothing to worry about.”
“No, Prudence, you can’t. You can’t eat this. You have to believe me.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve tasted it before, in a dream. Or maybe it wasn’t a dream. It was so real, like I was really there.”
Prudence put a hand to her forehead again. “Samantha, you’re ill. You need some rest.”
“No! You can’t let this happen, Prudence. You can’t let him do this!” Prudence started to lead Samantha back towards the bedroom. Samantha looked across the room to where the boys had begun taking swings at each other to get their share of the food. In the midst of the fighting, little Wendell crawled along the floor with a bowl.
“Wendell, don’t!” Samantha broke away from Prudence and raced across the dining room, her pain forgotten. She reached Wendell as he raised the bowl to his lips. She dove forward, the tips of her fingers knocking the bowl from his hands.
“That was mine
,” Wendell said. “Get your own.”
She grabbed the little boy by the hand. “I’m sorry, but you can’t have any of that. It will kill you.”
“What do you know? You’re just a stupid girl.”
“Wendell, please, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.” She pinched his cheek, prompting a shy smile from him. “Let’s go.”
In a corner she found the other little boys cowering as they waited for the older ones to clear away from the pot. They refused to move. Samantha touched the shoulder of a black-haired boy. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“David,” he said.
“David, we have to go. You aren’t safe here.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“I know. We’re all hungry, but this food will hurt you.”
“You’re making that up so you can get it before us.”
“Please, David, you have to believe me. I want to help you.” He shook his head and then turned away from her. The fighting around the pots intensified; she saw a bloody gash across John’s cheek. There was no more time to argue. She picked David up, ignoring his kicks and screams. The other little boys followed her back to the bedroom, crowding in with the girls. She supposed it was too late for everyone else, including Prudence.
After Samantha settled back onto the bed, her wounds bleeding again, Prudence knelt down beside her. She held out a bowl of water. “I believe you,” she said. This made the musty water taste sweeter than the liquid in her dream.
Later, after she told the other children a bedtime story, she heard screams coming from the dining hall.
Chapter 23: The Morning After
The screaming continued through the night, growing more plaintive as time wore on. Prudence went to the door once, but Samantha told her, “There’s nothing we can do for them now.”
The other children, unable to sleep with the wailing going on around them, sat in the corner farthest from the dining room. “What’s going on?” Rebecca asked.
“I wish I knew,” Samantha answered. During the night she added a scream of her own, her back tingling like someone had sprayed it with acid. Prudence knelt down beside her and then her eyes widened in disbelief. “What is it?”
“The cuts on your back. They’re disappearing,” Prudence said. “It’s like magic. How is this possible?”
Samantha thought about it and then saw the stain left by the bowl of gruel she’d thrown against the wall. Of course, she’d tasted from the bowl. She remembered the scrapes on her arm and the clear liquid the reverend had used to make the cuts disappear. Last, she thought back to her dream and the clay jar she’d drank from. “It is magic,” she said.
By morning Samantha could get out of bed without pain, the marks from the whipping erased by the gruel’s secret ingredient. She went to the door and motioned for Prudence to follow. “Are you sure it’s safe to go out there?” Prudence asked.
“Something odd is going on here. We have to find out.” Samantha glared at the children in the corner. “You all stay here and wait for us to come back. Don’t move a muscle.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Rebecca said. “I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be scared about. Nothing out there is going to hurt us. We’ll be back soon.” Samantha opened the door and then stuck her head out to look around. She saw nothing in the dormitory.
As she crept towards the dining room, she heard a whimper coming from a nearby bed. Samantha started towards the bed, pausing as the whimpering changed to sobbing. Someone lay curled up on the bed, the blanket covering her. Samantha reached down, pulled back the blanket, and then jumped back.
“Mommy?” Helena asked. But this was not the Helena from the night before. This was a toddler no more than three years old with white-blonde hair and apple cheeks lined with tears. Helena still wore her nightgown, but now it dwarfed her.
“No, I’m not your mommy,” Samantha said. “Helena, don’t you remember me? It’s Samantha.”
The girl’s crying intensified. “I want Mommy!”
“I know you do. We’ll find her,” Samantha said. She reached out to pick Helena up, the smell of urine on the girl’s nightgown giving her pause. Helena had wet the bed. “You smell like pee,” Samantha said. She regretted her spiteful comment when Helena’s cries became ear-splitting screeches. “I’m sorry! You smell very nice. Come on, let’s find Mommy.”
Helena buried her face against Samantha’s neck, her sobs fading to sniffles. Prudence kept her distance, as though worried Helena might be contagious. “What happened to her?” Prudence asked.
“I’m not sure, but it was something in that food.”
“You mean they could all be like this?” Samantha nodded. She and Prudence approached the dining room door with caution. Then Samantha reached out to turn the doorknob and nearly dropped little Helena in shock.
The situation was worse than Samantha had feared. Some of the children, having gorged themselves on the gruel, had now become infants unable to escape from their own clothes. Samantha’s stomach twisted at the sight of three bloodstained piles of clothes with no one in them. “I don’t believe it,” Prudence said. “He killed them. Reverend Crane killed them.”
“They weren’t supposed to eat so much. There were supposed to be more people eating from these pots,” Samantha said.
“This is horrible. Why would the reverend do this to us?”
“I don’t know, but we have to find out.” At that moment, they heard the doors to the dining room being unlocked. “Run!”
Samantha and Prudence scampered back into the dormitory, crouching behind a bed. The door opened at last. “Oh my, what a mess,” Miss Brigham said. “And look at all these darling children lying around as they please.”
Samantha left Helena on the bed and leaned against the doorway to the dining room. The person she saw was Miss Brigham and yet she was not. This woman—a girl really—had a body thinner than Samantha’s, red hair in braids to her waist, and a face studded with even redder pimples. She knelt down to pick up one of the infants.
Phyllis, who had so effectively held Samantha back the night before, could no longer take more than two steps on her own without falling down. She made her way two steps at a time to Miss Brigham and asked, “Are you my mommy?”
“No, dear, my name is Molly Brigham. I’m here to take care of you since your mommies and daddies left.”
“Left?”
“Yes, dear, that means they are gone and they are not coming back. Oh, I’m so terribly sorry about that. I know how awful you must feel.” Phyllis had already started to cry, wailing even louder than Helena. This set the other children to crying as well until Samantha had to put her hands to her ears to block out the noise. Miss Brigham patted little Phyllis on the head. “I know. It’s very sad, but you mustn’t worry. We’re going to get on very well, you and I. We’re all going to be one big family, just as the reverend said.”
Miss Brigham stood and began to go around the room. “Let me see, fifteen, sixteen, twenty. There’s so many more here than I thought. I don’t know how I’m going to manage. But how wonderful the reverend thinks I can handle this on my own. I’m going to make him so proud of me. Then he’s sure to fall in love with me and we can get married. It will be so grand.”
Samantha listened to all this with another knot tightening in her stomach. The reverend had somehow turned wise, noble Miss Brigham into a bubbly, scatter-brained teenager. He had killed her not in body, but in spirit. It was Samantha’s fault for snooping around in the cellar.
She came around the corner, surprising Miss Brigham. “Oh my, you put such a fright into me. Who are you?”
“I’m Samantha. Samantha Young. Don’t you remember?”
“My dear, how could I remember you? I only just got here. Unless we met somewhere before this, but I think I would remember someone with skin like yours and such lovely dark hair. It’s so much nicer than this awful red hair, don’t you think?”
“I’m terribly sorry, but you must be confusing me with someone else. What a pleasing thought that someone out there might look enough like me to be confused with me. I should like to meet her sometime. Perhaps you can introduce me.”
Samantha grabbed Miss Brigham by her narrow shoulders and shook her. “This isn’t you. You’re a grown woman. You saved my life! Can’t you remember that?”
“Listen, Samantha Young, I have had quite enough of this. I don’t know why you’re even here. Reverend Crane told me all the children here would be no older than three. You’re much too big to be three unless you’re some kind of giant. You aren’t a giant, are you?”
“No, of course not. I’m not sure how old I am.”
“You should feel lucky you aren’t thirteen like me. Thirteen is such a frightful age. I have these awful spots all over my face. I should rather be twelve again, but I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that. At any rate I shall have to talk with the reverend about you for I specifically remember him saying—”
Samantha took the baby from Miss Brigham with one hand and used the other to punch the teenager on one pimpled cheek. Miss Brigham tottered for a moment and then collapsed to the floor. “What did you do that for?” Prudence asked from the doorway.
“We can’t let her tell the reverend he didn’t get everyone. Come on, help me find something to tie her up with.”
“Tie up Miss Brigham? We can’t do that!”
“We don’t have any choice.” Samantha searched the room until she found John, Helena’s former boyfriend, nestled snugly in his shirt, sucking his thumb. She took the britches he no longer needed and used them to tie Miss Brigham’s hands. Another pair of pants went around her ankles and then a sock into her mouth.
“What do we do now?” Prudence asked.
“We wait,” Samantha said.
Chapter 24: Escape Plan
After Samantha and Prudence rounded up all the children remaining in Eternity, they discovered they were now the oldest. They also found themselves as caretakers for ten infants and nine toddlers with no memories. Plus they still had another dozen toddlers in Rebecca, Wendell, and the others waiting in the bedroom.
Children of Eternity Omnibus Page 10
