Aunt Veronica stomped up the stairs, slamming the door behind her. As soon as the door closed, the little blonde girl introduced as Helena came forward to pinch Joey on the cheek. “You’re such a darling little baby. We’ll have lots of fun with you.” The girls snickered and then grabbed both his arms. While they tore at his clothes, he prayed what he’d told Aunt Veronica worked.
Chapter 32: Eternity
Samantha awoke to a child’s scream. She sat, her eyes flashing open. As in the Savannah hotel, she ran a brief inventory to make sure she hadn’t changed into a little girl overnight. I’m still me, she thought with despair.
She leaned back against the brass headboard, pressing a hand to her throbbing head. She hadn’t suffered from a hangover in years; she’d forgotten how bad they could get. Miss Brigham only added to it with her bright, “How are you feeling, dear?”
“Like I got hit by a truck,” Samantha said. She rolled out of bed to search for the bathroom. She found it an instant before a sour concoction rose up in her throat. After she finished vomiting out the entire bottle of whiskey and then some, she collapsed next to the toilet.
“Do you need a doctor?” Miss Brigham asked.
“No. I’ll be fine in a few minutes,” she said. The words reminded her of what she’d told Andre that morning in the mountains. Only then her sickness had been caused by something much better. She put a hand to her barren, forty-year-old stomach. My baby, she thought. I killed her.
She had to bite down hard on her lip to keep from crying in front of Miss Brigham. The poor woman probably had seen enough already to convince her Samantha was nothing more than a washed-up, useless wreck. “What time is it?” she asked.
“Half-past noon,” Miss Brigham said. She still wore the gray dress, but sometime in the morning had taken off the apron and bonnet. She could almost pass for someone from the 20th Century now, Samantha thought. “Do you need anything, dear?”
“Some aspirin would be good.”
“Aspirin?”
“Pills. Don’t they have headaches in Amish country?”
“Well, yes, I suppose, but the reverend always says prayer is more powerful than any drug.” Miss Brigham’s face reddened after she said this as if on the verge of tears herself.
“I don’t think God looks too favorably on hangovers.” Samantha got to her feet and checked the old-fashioned medicine cabinet over the sink. It was empty save for a tube of toothpaste older than her. She could check at the front desk, but talking with the old lady would give her more of a headache.
She stretched out on the bed again, throwing an arm over her eyes. She could sense Miss Brigham fidgeting at the edge of the bed, working up the courage to ask something. “Give me a few more minutes,” Samantha said.
“Yes, of course. I don’t mean to pressure you, dear.”
“And can you stop calling me ‘dear’ like you’re my grandmother? I’m older than you in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I very much doubt that, miss.”
“Call me Samantha.” She took the arm away from her face to study Miss Brigham’s wrinkle-free face. “You don’t have aspirin, but you have plastic surgery? Come on, how old are you really? Twenty-six, twenty-seven?”
“Three hundred sixty-three as of last week.”
“I guess that explains the outfit.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Sure I do. And I’m sure where you came from there was a jolly old fat man and a bunch of elves making toys.”
Miss Brigham couldn’t keep from crying this time. She sank onto the bed, her shoulders heaving with sobs. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me. He told me they wouldn’t. When I said I’d tell he laughed in my face and told me they would lock me away with the crazy people. I suppose that’s what you’re going to do now. It’s what I deserve.”
Samantha rolled across the bed to sit next to Miss Brigham. “I’m sorry to make fun of you. I’ve had a rough couple of days. I didn’t mean to take it out on you,” she said.
Miss Brigham dabbed at her tears with a sleeve. Her sobs eased into dry hiccups. “I’m the one who should be sorry to lose control like this.” She looked over at Samantha with red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t know what to do anymore. Not long ago everything seemed so wonderful and now it’s all a terrible mess.”
“I’ll do what I can to help you. I promise.” She tousled Miss Brigham’s curly hair. “Come on, let’s get some lunch. I’m starved. Then you can tell me all about it.”
Miss Brigham nodded. She plodded behind Samantha like a child as they went down the hall to the dining room. Samantha’s head still beat like a drum and now with the smell of food her stomach threatened revolt again. The sooner she listened to this crazy woman’s story and sent her packing, the sooner she could go back to sleep.
The old woman met them in the dining room. “Good afternoon, ladies. I don’t recall seeing you for breakfast this morning. I trust you’re feeling well?”
“I have a little headache, but otherwise I’m fine,” Samantha said. Samantha wondered if the old lady ever slept.
“For lunch today we’re serving baked chicken with a blueberry glaze and a chef’s salad. We have water, lemonade, coffee, or tea to drink.”
“Coffee. Black,” Samantha said.
“Lemonade sounds delightful,” Miss Brigham said.
“I’ll have someone bring it posthaste. Have a seat ladies and enjoy your meal.”
Samantha chose a table in the corner, farthest away from the old woman’s prying eyes. All around them sat men in business suits and women in summer dresses while she still wore the same grungy denim jacket, jeans, and T-shirt from Savannah that could probably stand on their own by now and Miss Brigham looked as if she’d come from a funeral. “Miss Pestona sure can pick them,” Samantha said to herself.
“Do you know her too? She’s a very nice woman.”
“I don’t know her as well as she’d like,” Samantha said. “I didn’t think you were from around here.”
“No, but the reverend allows me to come with Mr. Pryde every so often to purchase odds and ends we need. Miss Pestona’s shop has such an amazing variety. I could spend days looking at it all.”
“Mr. Pryde? You mean, Judah Pryde?”
“No, Jonas Pryde. Do you suppose they’re related?”
Samantha considered this. Miss Pestona had mentioned that Jonas Pryde was Veronica’s grandfather. He had disappeared during World War II, though. Between this, Miss Brigham’s clothes, and the dispute over her age, Samantha knew something very strange was going on. “I think you better start telling me why you’re here,” she said.
Miss Brigham leaned forward and said in a low voice, “I come from an island off the coast called Eternity. There are fifty of us who live there: Reverend Crane, Mr. Pryde, myself, and the forty-seven children. They’re wonderful children. The most well-behaved children anyone could ever know. I feel like they’re my very own. In a way they are. I’ve been taking care of them for three hundred fifty years now—” Miss Brigham stopped, her eyes squinting at Samantha with concern. “You don’t look so well, dear.”
A cold sweat had broken out across Samantha’s face. Her entire body shivered as if with a fever. “You mean there really is an Eternity?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “There really is a Fountain of Youth?”
“How do you know about that?”
Samantha didn’t answer her. She bolted from her chair, slamming in the waitress carrying their drinks. The waitress screamed as hot coffee stained her blouse, but Samantha paid little attention to this. She staggered back to the room with Miss Brigham in pursuit. “Samantha, what’s wrong?”
“I need to lie down,” Samantha said. She dove onto the bed and wrapped herself in blankets, but still felt cold. It’s real, she thought. It happened. It’s going to happen again. Tonight.
Chapter 33: Legacy
Prudence awoke to hot breath on her face. A dog growled and then jammed its wet snout into her
cheek. She lay there with her eyes closed, praying for the animal to pass her by.
“You there, get away from her,” Molly said, but her voice sounded different, higher and thinner than usual.
The animal pulled its snout away from Prudence, its low growl turning to a fierce snarl. She opened her eyes in time to see the black beast that had chased her into the cave sink its teeth into the arm of a red-haired little girl who must be Molly. The girl’s scream confirmed it was Molly. “It bit me! It bit me! I’m going to die for sure. I don’t want to die!”
“I knew there was a reason I liked him,” Pryde said. The animal became tame at the sound of his voice, nuzzling its master’s leg.
Prudence didn’t understand what was happening. Reverend Crane had shot the horrible creature. She’d seen it die. And what of Molly? How had she gotten so young? Had Reverend Crane done it to her as he had Wendell? Where was the reverend? Where was Rodney’s body? Was she too late to save him?
Reverend Crane appeared at the entrance of the cave. Molly ran into his arms, sobbing and cradling her arm. “That thing bit me,” she said. “It’s a horrible creature. I don’t know why Mr. Pryde wanted to bring it back to life. It’s ugly and mean. Look what it did to me! Am I going to die?”
The reverend smiled and tousled Molly’s hair. “You’re not going to die, my child. We have all the medicine you need right here,” he said, indicating the Fountain of Youth.
“The fountain? You can’t put me back in there. I’ll come out a little baby just like him,” Molly said. She pointed towards Prudence, who noticed Wendell lying unconscious nearby for the first time.
“Of course not, my child. We should need only a little to restore you to health.” Reverend Crane took a ladle and knelt at the edge of the fountain. Prudence tried to calculate if she could reach him in time to knock him in, but with Pryde and his animal between her and the fountain, she knew she couldn’t make it. She remained lying on the floor, surveying the cave for any sign of her husband. She saw only buckets and a pile of rags in the opposite corner.
Reverend Crane dribbled the glowing water in the ladle onto Molly’s arm. The girl’s body took on the same white glow as the water. She shrank an inch or two before Prudence’s eyes, the hem of her dress touching the ground. When the glow subsided, Molly looked at her arm that no longer bore any tooth marks. “How old am I?” she asked the reverend. “Am I a baby?”
“No, of course not, my child. You are a wonderful, healthy little girl of six years,” he said.
“Six? That’s not fair! It’s all his fault. Him and his stupid dog and now I lose two years. It’s not fair!”
“You’ll lose the rest if you don’t shut your mouth,” Pryde said. The dog at his side growled in support of its master.
Molly pressed herself against Reverend Crane, burying her face into his abdomen. “Now, my child, you mustn’t cry. Two years isn’t so bad. Not anymore. We have all the time in the world now, don’t you see?”
“But I don’t want to be a little girl. I want to be a grown-up. Like you,” she said.
“You will be, my darling. But there’s no shame in being a little girl. Not one as beautiful as you.”
“Really? You think I’m beautiful?”
“Of course I do.” The reverend held Molly out at arm’s length to look in her eyes. “Now, I want you to go outside and keep watch for me. Can you do that?”
“Why don’t you make him do it?”
“I have something else for Mr. Pryde to do. Can you do this for me, Molly?” She nodded and bounded out of the cave, keeping a safe distance from the snarling animal.
Reverend Crane turned to Prudence, his eyes meeting hers. “I’m glad you’re awake, Mrs. Gooddell. Now we can talk.”
“Where’s Rodney?” she said.
The reverend pointed to the pile of rags. “I assure you he’s quite dead now. Even this miraculous water has its limits.” He came to stand in front of her and took her hand. “I am deeply sorry for your loss, Prudence.”
She slapped him across the face. Pryde and the dog advanced towards her until the reverend held up a hand. “You killed him! You poisoned him and then you…you—” she couldn’t bring herself to describe what Reverend Crane had done to Rodney. “You bastard.”
“I am sorry, Prudence. I didn’t want it to come to this. Truly I didn’t. But sacrifices must be made if we are to establish the Lord’s kingdom here on earth.”
“You mean your kingdom,” she said. “Where you can treat all of us like slaves.”
“It is not for my own personal glory that I do this, but for His glory,” the reverend said. “He guided us here with his divine wind and then brought the girl to me with her incredible story when all hope seemed lost. I am following His plan.”
“Did His plan include murder?”
“My child, you should not be angry. Your husband and those with him have gone to be judged by the Lord now. Despite our recent troubles I know your husband is a good man. God will take pity on him and make a place for him in Heaven, where he will await you.”
“Let me see him now then. I’d rather die than be your slave,” she said.
“You speak too rashly, my child. In time you’ll come to accept your situation. You’ll see it’s for the best for all of us. We will create a paradise here, where no one grows old or dies, where everyone follows His way. Here we will purge all the ungodly influences to create a land that is pure. A beacon of light among the darkness spreading throughout His world. So that when the time comes for Him to destroy the sinners as described in Revelations, we shall be the ones saved and rewarded in His new kingdom for our devotion.”
“You’re mad! You kill a good man like Rodney and then claim to be doing the Lord’s work. What you’re doing isn’t the work of God. It’s the work of Satan!”
Reverend Crane raised his hand to strike her, but then lowered it. “It is a terrible pity to see what you’ve become,” he said. “I blame myself for turning you into this bitter mass of flesh. But just as He has shown me how to do His work, so too has he provided salvation for both of us.” The reverend put a hand on Prudence’s cheek. “Now I have the opportunity to atone for my sin and to make amends to you.”
“Nothing you can do will bring Rodney back to me,” she said. “You killed him and I will never forgive you.”
“I am not speaking of your husband. Perhaps you have forced yourself to forget, but I cannot. It was the moment that drove me into God’s arms and ultimately led me here. For that I thank you.”
Prudence’s stomach churned and her body shivered. Her chest tightened to the point she thought her heart might burst. Her breathing came out in wheezes. “What’s wrong with the pig?” Pryde asked. “You want me to get rid of her?”
“No, I will deal with her. You can dispose of the little one,” the reverend said. “He has served his purpose.”
“No!” Prudence shouted as Pryde reached for his knife. “You can’t kill him. Not Wendell too.”
“What do you care for this stowaway? He is rubbish. He was no stronger as a man than he is now as a boy.”
Prudence crawled over to Wendell’s side, laying Wendell’s head against her chest. “You don’t understand. I love him. You can’t take him away from me too. If you do, then you might as well kill me too.”
“Fine with me,” Pryde said.
“Hold,” Reverend Crane said. “We will spare the little one. Take him below and keep him there for now.”
“What about Fatty?”
“I will bring her down in due time.” Pryde tore Wendell from Prudence’s grasp, slinging the boy over his shoulder. Then he and his animal disappeared through an opening into the rock down to the caverns below. The reverend took Prudence’s arm, hauling her up to her feet. “Now, my child, it is time.”
“No, you can’t put me in there!” She struggled against Reverend Crane’s grasp, but couldn’t break free. He seized her by the hair to bend her down towards the Fountain of Youth. In the wate
r she saw herself at every stage, growing fatter with each passing year. Tears ran down the many cheeks reflected in the water. “Please don’t do this,” she said. “Don’t do this to me. I don’t want to be a child again.”
“I will offer you a choice,” the reverend said. “In this new kingdom I will need one such as yourself to look after the others, to handle the mundane details of childrearing. You, unable to bear children of your own, can have fifty of them to care for. Or you can become one of them.”
She studied the faces of herself as a little girl. If she turned down the reverend’s offer, these were the faces she would see in the mirror for the next three hundred fifty years. And yet to accept his offer meant aiding the man who had murdered Rodney. No, better to be an unwitting slave than a witting accomplice in the reverend’s evil. “I will never join you.”
“So be it,” Reverend Crane said. He grabbed the back of Prudence’s dress and dunked her head into the pool. The glow of the water blinded her and her lungs filled with liquid to muffle her scream. I’m going to die, she thought and was glad.
After a few moments she was thrown backwards, landing on her back. Air returned to her lungs and her vision began to clear. She held up an arm, but saw only the sleeve of her dress. Looking down, the rest of her body was almost invisible among the folds of the dress.
Reverend Crane smiled at her and then reached down to pick her up. He peeled the dress away from her so that she could see how tiny and thin her limbs had become. He pushed a wave of copper hair away from her face. “You’re as pretty as I remember you from that day,” he said.
He reached into a pocket for a mirror and held it up to her face. In the glass she saw reflected the face of a frightened toddler. The eyes she remembered from that day twenty years earlier.
“Prudence, what’s wrong?” Mother asks as Prudence stares into the mirror, trying to see if anything has changed.
She remembers what he told her. “Nothing,” she says. “I’m going to bed now.” She hurries back to her bedroom before Mother can ask anything else and throws herself onto the bed. With her face buried in the pillow to muffle any sound, she cries. The scene replays itself before eyes.
Children of Eternity Omnibus Page 79
