In front of her, Prudence’s hair was plastered to her face by sweat and Wendell’s cheeks glowed red, but still they kept going. Each time the oars smacked against the surface of the water, Samantha imagined they said, “Almost there.” Almost there, to a world she could not remember.
The boat struck bottom with about twenty feet left. Samantha jumped over the side and ordered Wendell to throw the mooring line to her. She tried to tug the boat ashore, but it was too heavy. Without being asked, Prudence threw herself over the side to help Samantha pull the rope while Wendell got out to push the boat from behind. Together they dragged the Primrose onto a narrow band of dirt.
Once the boat was safely beached, the three children sank down onto the sand. “We made it,” Prudence said between gasps.
“Where are we?” Wendell asked.
“I’m not sure,” Samantha said. “We’ll have to find out.”
She looked up at the walls of rock overlooking the beach. In her hands she still held the mooring line for the Primrose. “You two stay here. I’ll climb up and drop the rope to you so you can follow,” Samantha said.
“Samantha, no, it’s too dangerous,” Prudence said. “We can find another way.”
Samantha gestured at the walls around them. “There isn’t a choice.”
“We can go farther along the shore,” Wendell said. “We might find a better place to land.”
“We might get blown back out to sea too,” Samantha said. She untied the mooring line from the Primrose and then started towards the rocks to find a place to climb. Before she could start her ascent, Wendell called for her to wait.
He pressed a hammer into her hands. “If you get stuck, you can use this to carve some handholds.”
“Thank you,” she said. She tucked the hammer into the waistband of her trousers and then kissed Wendell on the forehead. He wobbled for a moment as if he would faint, but then took a few steps back. Prudence hugged Samantha, tears in her eyes. “Don’t cry. I’m not going far.”
“I know. I just don’t want to lose you,” she said. “We can’t do this by ourselves.”
“You got this far, didn’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“Stop worrying. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.” Samantha tied one end of the rope around her waist and then started up the rocks. The first handholds were easy to find and in no time she had covered a quarter of the distance. She looked down to find Prudence knelt in prayer and Wendell watching her with fascination. She waved and then kept going.
She looks up at the mountain of rust-red stone. Her fingernails dig into the rock as she attempts to push herself up to the next handhold. Her right hand grabs a chunk of rock. The rock cracks, her eyes widening with terror as she watches it break away. Her left hand manages to catch part of another rock to keep her from falling. She tries to get traction with her feet to steady herself. The fingers on her left hand begin to lose their grip on the rock. She pushes down on the stone until her fingers bleed, but they continue to slip away. She claws wildly at the air, trying to grab onto anything. Before she plunges to her death, something stops her fall and guides her back onto the rock.
She looks to her left to see a man with mocha-colored skin and sparkling turquoise eyes smiling at her with the whitest teeth she ever saw. “I got you, kiddo,” he says. “You have to be careful on these rocks.”
Samantha nearly lost her grip on the rock from the memory. She shook her head and wondered who the man with the turquoise eyes was. Then she remembered what the mystery man had said about being careful. She would have to think about him later; for now she had to focus on finishing the climb.
Near the halfway point she was glad Wendell had given her the hammer. The rocks here had been worn smooth, leaving her with no choice but to carve her own holds. She kept her feet planted against the rocks while she stretched out with the hammer to smash the clawed end into the stone. Dust blew into her face, bringing tears to her eyes. After a few minutes of hard labor, she carved out a hold for her fingers.
The rest of the climb continued in this manner until Samantha felt too exhausted to go farther. She clung to the side of the wall, wondering if she should have listened to Wendell’s suggestion of finding another place to land. No, they had been lucky to find this point.
She finally reached the top of the wall to find a metal rail. Samantha pushed herself over the top to find an expanse of a hard, gray material beyond the rail. Asphalt, she recalled. This was a road! “We did it!” she called down to Prudence and Wendell, her words echoing along the walls.
She untied the rope from her waist, tying one end to the guardrail and dropping the other down to Prudence and Wendell. The rope reached only three-quarters of the way so that they would have to climb up to meet the rope. Samantha shouted instructions down to Wendell, but couldn’t be sure if he heard or not. After a minute of arguing with Prudence, he began scurrying up the rocks, heedless of the danger.
One of his hands slipped halfway up the rope; Samantha pressed both hands to her mouth to keep from screaming. Wendell clung to the wall with one hand for a moment until he swung himself back to the handhold and continued up to the rope. He tied it around his waist and then waved to Samantha. She began to haul him up the wall, the coarse rope burning through the fabric of her coat to cut into her hands. By the time Wendell reached the top, her hands were bleeding and her coat was shredded. Wendell gaped at her before squeaking, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Help me get Prudence up.”
“We should leave her there with the boat,” he said. “She’s too heavy to pull up.”
“We can’t leave her there. If you’re not going to help, then get out of the way and I’ll do it myself,” Samantha said. She took off her shirt to wrap around her hands. Again Wendell seemed ready to faint. Then he shook himself back to full alertness and gave his jacket to her.
“Here, use this,” he said. She took the jacket, putting her shirt back on. Wendell took off his vest to cover his hands. They waited for Prudence to climb up to the rope. She paused with each step, looking back down as though considering whether or not to stay behind as Wendell had suggested.
“You can do it, Prudence,” Samantha called down. Prudence continued her slow climb up, finally reaching the rope. She secured it around her waist and then motioned to Samantha and Wendell. They began hauling her up, Wendell’s face turning as red as when they had rowed ashore.
Once Prudence reached the top, she collapsed into Samantha’s arms, sobbing and surrounded by an odor Samantha knew all too well from childhood. She stroked Prudence’s hair and whispered, “It’s all right. You made it.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” Prudence said. “You should have taken someone brave.”
“No, Prudence, don’t be silly. You’re fine. You did it.” She untied the rope from Prudence’s waist and then helped her friend stand. They took a few cautious steps along the gravel at the side of the road.
“What is this?” Wendell asked.
“It’s a highway,” Samantha said. “If we follow it we’re bound to find a town somewhere.”
Prudence screamed and threw herself to the ground. Samantha turned around to see an automobile rumbling down the road towards them. “That’s an automobile,” Wendell said in disbelief. “They do exist.”
Samantha squinted to make out the broad, silver front-end of a pick-up truck with a yellow bowtie glinting in the sun. The truck slowed as it approached them, finally pulling off onto the shoulder. The driver’s side door opened and a man stepped out. Samantha bit down on her lip to keep from screaming at the sight of a ghost.
The man who emerged from the truck looked exactly like Jonas Pryde, except he wore a denim jacket, flannel shirt, and a dark blue cap with a red ‘B’ stenciled on it. Otherwise he had the same stern face, gray eyes, and shoulder-length gray hair. But it couldn’t be Pryde. She had seen him disappear into the Fountain of Youth nine years earlier. Who could this man be?
; At the sight of Pryde, Wendell sagged to the ground next to Prudence, who whimpered like an injured puppy. Samantha reached to her waistband for the hammer. Whoever this was, she wouldn’t let him hurt Wendell and Prudence, not without a fight. The man flicked a cigarette from his mouth and blew out a cloud of smoke. “You kids shouldn’t be playing by the road,” he said in the same gruff voice as Pryde.
“We’re not playing. We’re on our way to town,” Samantha said, her voice trembling.
“In that case, why don’t I give you a ride? If your friends don’t mind riding with my tackle.”
“Thank you for the offer, but we’ll be fine.”
“It’s five miles to town. It’ll take you all day to get there.” The man reached into a pocket for a red-and-white package with the word ‘Marlboro’ printed on it. He took out another cigarette and lit the tip. “I ain’t going to hurt you.”
Something told Samantha she could believe this man. She couldn’t explain it, but something in his eyes seemed different from Pryde. Softer. “All right,” she said. “Thank you.”
Prudence leapt to her feet and took Samantha by the shoulders. “Samantha, we can’t go with him!” she said.
“He’s not going to hurt us. If he wanted to do that, he could have run us over already.” Samantha motioned to the hammer in her belt. “Everything will be fine. Trust me.”
Prudence considered this a moment and then nodded. She helped Samantha carry Wendell to the bed of the pick-up truck. Prudence rode in the bed with Wendell while Samantha climbed in the passenger’s seat next to the man. He stuck out a calloused, greasy hand and said, “Judah Pryde.”
“Samantha Young,” she stammered in disbelief. Judah Pryde put the pick-up truck in gear and started down the road. When he reached out, Samantha’s hand went to the hammer, but he only snuffed out his cigarette.
“What’s the story with your friends? They Amish or something?” Judah Pryde asked. Samantha looked at him blankly. “Those old-fashioned clothes. They in one of those religions that don’t believe in technology and all that?”
“Oh, Amish. Right. Yes, that’s what they are.”
“Thought so. Don’t remember seeing any of them around here before, though. What happened to their buggy?”
“We don’t have one. We walked from,” Samantha paused to scramble for a lie, “from up the coast.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how’d you get hooked up with them? You don’t look like no Amish.” Judah Pryde patted his pocket to pull out another cigarette, but didn’t light it. “I don’t mean on account of your skin. Your clothes don’t look like theirs so much.”
“They’re my cousins. Distant cousins.”
“Where’re you and your cousins heading?”
“We’re just visiting.”
“You have someplace to stay?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you’re welcome to stay with me for the night. I got plenty of room. Save you money on a motel.”
“Thanks, but—” Samantha stopped as she thought about the last thing Judah Pryde had said. Money. She had the bag of jewelry tucked into her coat, but they couldn’t pay for a place to stay with watches and bracelets. They needed currency. Dollars. Until she could figure out how to get some, Mr. Pryde’s offer would at least give them a roof over their heads instead of freezing to death outside. “We’d love to spend the night.”
“Good.” Judah Pryde now lit the cigarette in his mouth. “You know, I got a son about your age,” he said. Samantha shivered at the thought of another, albeit smaller Pryde. She kept this thought to herself as Judah Pryde accelerated around a curve, the point where Samantha and the others had come ashore disappearing from view.
Chapter 7: The Discovery
Joseph Pryde eased across the snow on his skis. Not many people enjoyed cross-country skiing, but from his experience as a long-distance runner he appreciated the discipline and patience needed to trek across mile after mile of snow. The lack of popularity was an added bonus, as it meant no one else was around to disturb him.
Today was anything but a leisurely jaunt, however. Joseph had waited two weeks for this. Now with sunny skies and spring temperatures, he had the perfect weather to photograph the site.
A small article in the Seabrooke Weekly three weeks ago announced a developer had purchased a large parcel of land outside town. The land would be turned into time-share condominiums to make Seabrooke “New England’s Aspen.” While the rest of the community celebrated the jobs this would generate, Joseph mourned the loss of a hundred acres of virgin forest.
He became determined to photograph as much of this landscape as possible before the bulldozers arrived to tear it down. He hoped to put together a retrospective for the school newspaper—where he served as an assistant editor—that might rally support for saving the forest. To this end, a digital camera dangled around his neck.
Joseph stopped among a grove of trees to snap a few pictures of the majestic old evergreens. Mom used to take Joseph for walks in this very same forest. She let him run through the brush until he tired and then carried him on her shoulders. He closed his eyes as she’d instructed him to do and listened to the sounds of the forest. He heard nothing but the rustling of branches. Soon even those sounds would be gone and another part of his mother would be dead along with the trees.
Joseph still remembered the night he woke up to the sound of Mom screaming. He raced down the stairs as fast as he could, finding her in the kitchen. A black woman held a knife to her neck. Joseph cried out. The stranger rammed the blade through Mom’s chest. Mom sagged to the floor. He stood in the doorway, too terrified to move. A policewoman took him by the shoulders. She looked into his eyes and said, “Mom’s gone to Heaven.”
Only years later did Joseph learn who had killed his mother, though he never understood why. Mom had been such a gentle soul, incapable of hurting anyone. She donated to every charity, took Joseph to church every Sunday, and never raised her voice and yet a maniac had murdered her that night.
Joseph shook his head, forcing himself to concentrate on the task at hand, gliding ahead on his skis until he reached a clearing. Sunlight reflected off the snow to blind him. He reached up to flip down the shades over his glasses. When the green spots cleared from his vision, he held up the camera to photograph the rugged stone walls of a hill.
As he zoomed in with the camera, he noticed something out of place with the rocks around the hill. The snow-topped boulders around most of the hill were all salmon-colored granite except for a round, gray boulder in the center. Someone would have had to push the rock there, but why?
Joseph skied over to the boulder for a closer look. He brushed snow away from the rock and then felt the smoothness of it with his bare hand. The finish was too smooth to have occurred naturally in this spot. Maybe if it had been sitting in water for a long time, but the closest source of water was the ocean; he couldn’t imagine anyone rolling the boulder out of the ocean and up the hill.
He braced himself to push away the boulder by stretching out his arms and legs as he did before a race. He spiked the skis in the snow to give his feet a bit more agility. Then he threw himself against the boulder with all his weight, flopping into the snow when his feet slipped.
The ‘boulder’ sailed away from the opening, landing about twenty feet away. Joseph picked himself up out of the snow and then strapped on his skis to investigate the rock. There was no way he could have moved a rock that size so easily unless he’d gained superhuman strength in the last two minutes.
He reached the rock and picked half of it up, the other half having shattered on an actual boulder. Inside the gray rock he found nothing more than white plaster. The rock was a fake! Curiouser and curiouser, he thought.
Joseph looked in the opening left by the rock and saw a long, dark tunnel slanting down. Time to go down the rabbit hole, he thought. Though he tried not to get his hopes up, he imagined finding a chest full of gold and jewels left by pirates long ago. Or h
e might find a crystal meth lab and get his throat slit by a drug dealer.
Either way, he had to go down to look before someone on the construction crews beat him to it. He took off his skis and reached down into his pocket for the penlight he always kept on hand. The blue light didn’t let him see more than a few feet ahead, but it was better than nothing.
He started down the tunnel, sweeping the light around for any sign of treasure or danger. He didn’t see anything but granite until he’d gone about a hundred feet. There along the left wall he found a white stick figure with a snake in either hand. He lifted his camera to take a picture for later.
The symbol had to be a Native American drawing, but there hadn’t been any tribes here in at least three centuries, since the first group of French-Canadian fur trappers came to found a settlement. No way any Native Americans had designed that false boulder, though. That meant someone else had discovered this place and put the rock there to keep others away. Joseph studied the drawing more carefully and wondered what could be so valuable to go to so much trouble. And if that person or persons found him down here, what would they do to him?
He pressed ahead down the tunnel, finding more drawings of stick figures. Most had a snake either in the hand or wrapped around the head, neck, or waist. A couple also had stick figures with lightning bolts in either hand. One particular image depicted a stick figure with the head of a snake. What did any of it mean? He didn’t have any idea. Chemistry and physics were his areas of study, not anthropology.
He paused at a set of drawings that were partially scratched out as if by an animal’s claws. The claws were too close together to have come from a bear. A wolf or badger maybe? He couldn’t be sure. He should go home and find Pop’s hunting rifle. No, he’d gone this far already. He may as well see what was down here.
There were a lot more drawings along the walls as the tunnel leveled off, some splattered with blood. At last he came to a circular chamber at the end of the tunnel. Joseph’s glasses fogged up at a surge of sudden warmth.
Children of Eternity Omnibus Page 36
