Young Blood

Backstory

2012-06-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

I took two stabs at writing this. The first in October of 2006 was a pretty straight-up vampire story. The problem was it got very graphic and grim, too much for the kiddies. So in spring of 2007 I tried rewriting it again with less violence and more trippy supernatural stuff.

Five years after the Reverend Crane and his henchman Mr. Pryde died in the Fountain of Youth, tension is growing between amnesiac/de facto community leader Samantha Young and her best friend/seamstress Prudence. All hell breaks loose when Prudence comes into contact with an ancient spirit that uses her to wreak havoc on the island of Eternity. Somehow Samantha and her friends must find a way to stop an evil that can twist their very notions of reality.

Please enjoy "Young Blood"...

Epilogue: The New Reality

2007-06-15T09:25:00.001-07:00

Epilogue: The New Reality

Samantha crept along the rows of impromptu beds in the church. The other children lay stretched out on strips of cloth and blankets laid on the pews, some snoring and others breathing softly. For a moment, she stood at the front doors, watching.

Helena and Phyllis were curled up together, embracing each other in sleep. “You’re fat,” Helena had said without venom or mocking upon seeing Samantha again. This, Samantha supposed, was Helena’s way of welcoming her back.

Opposite them, Wendell lay entangled in a pile of papers. He’d spent the whole first day since they returned scrounging for paper, pens, and a straight edge. Sitting on the front steps of the church, he motioned to the dormitories and outlined for Samantha a grand new complex, one that would be safe from any future storms.

As he talked, she tried to picture it, but couldn’t, not yet. When she looked at the rubble, she still saw the old dormitories, still thought of sitting in the middle of the room, telling a bedtime story to the girls. The dormitory was the closest she knew to a home, the closest any of them could remember; she couldn’t imagine anywhere else yet.

“You should get to bed. It’s past your bedtime,” David hissed from the corner, cradling his left arm against his chest, still smarting from being beaten by a little girl.

“I’m sorry about your arm,” she said. “I could get some water for you—”

“I’ll be fine. I’m not touching that stuff ever again.”

She understood why he said this: he didn’t want to end up like her and Prudence or Rebecca and Miss Brigham. He didn’t want to end up weak and helpless. She wanted to remind him that no matter how little you were, you were only as helpless as you thought yourself to be.

“David, I thought tomorrow you and I could inspect the fields and the barn to take stock.”

“Fine,” he snapped. At some point she hoped he would come around and stop seeing her as a threat. He was the oldest now and she would need his help with the others to rebuild.

“Goodnight,” she said and then continued towards the front of the church.

On the front steps sat a crate padded with straw. Samantha bent down to study little Molly. The baby seemed to sense her there, opened her eyes—Miss Brigham’s eyes—to stare at Samantha.

“It’s all right, Molly. Go back to sleep,” Samantha whispered. She touched the red down on Molly’s head to reassure the baby.

Beside the box, Rebecca stirred. “Does she need changed? Is she hungry?” Rebecca asked with a yawn.

“She’s fine,” Samantha said. “Go back to sleep.”

Samantha had gone to Pryde’s hut to fetch Rebecca and Molly this morning. She found them sleeping in Pryde’s bed, Rebecca hugging Molly to her chest. All during the walk back, Rebecca never once let Molly go.

“I’m her mommy,” Rebecca said. “I’m going to take care of her from now on.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Samantha said. Rebecca was, after all, little more than a baby herself, every bit of five years old. But as the day went on, Samantha watched Rebecca expertly change, feed, and soothe Molly. By the time they arrived at the church, Samantha had little doubt that Rebecca had become Molly’s mother.

Still, as Rebecca slept, she looked like a child. Samantha pulled the blanket tight under Rebecca’s chin and then patted her curly hair. A pang of sadness pricked Samantha’s heart to think the Rebecca she’d known for the last five years was gone, as was Miss Brigham. She didn’t think they would ever come back to her; they were lost forever thanks to Kiaba.

A sharp cry shook Samantha from her thoughts. At first she thought Molly had woke up again, but then she realized the cry came from the front pew where Annie had slept for the last three days now, barely clinging to life.

Samantha rushed over to the pew just as Annie’s eyes opened. Taking one of Annie’s chalk-white hands, Samantha whispered, “You’re all right. You’re safe.”

Annie’s blue eyes seemed to glow like Kiaba’s for a moment. “None of us are safe. Not yet,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“You will see in time.” Annie refused to say anything moment, silence hanging in the air.

“Is there anything you want? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

Annie shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

Samantha didn’t know about this. Annie’s skin and hair still had an unhealthy blue tint as if she were dead. In time, maybe the color would be restored to her skin and hair and she could be a normal little girl again. But from what Annie had said, Samantha doubted this. Some wounds never healed.

After Annie turned over to go back to sleep, Samantha crept over to where Prudence slept at the foot of Reverend Crane’s podium. Though thinner, Prudence still snored as loud as ever, as if her body hadn’t adjusted quite yet.

Samantha considered waking Prudence something about Annie’s words unnerving her, but she didn’t. Instead, she lay down beside her friend, her sister. Through some kind of telepathy, Prudence’s hand reached out to take Samantha’s. The warmth and strength of her sister’s hand reassured her, lulling her into sleep.

Mom takes Samantha’s hand after they get out of the car, though Samantha insists she’s old enough to walk along the beach on her own. “I’m twelve, Mom, not three,” Samantha says.

“I know, honey. I worry about you is all.” Mom looks back to the car, where Dad is applying sunscreen first to his arms, and then to his chest. “Come on, let’s go find a place. Your father will be doing that for hours.”

“It’s not my fault I don’t have such a lovely tan already,” Dad says. With a hand turned white from sunscreen he blows them a kiss.

Samantha checks for any kids her own age around to see this embarrassing display. Even worse than the hand-holding and Dad turning himself into the Abominable Sunscreen Monster was Mom forcing Samantha to wear a black one-piece suit and a floppy straw hat. They might as well give her a sand shovel and pail while they were at it.

Before the trip west, she had ridden her bike to the department store after school. When she reached the section of bathing wear, she stared up at the mannequin in its red bikini, showing off its stone-gray skin. She imagines herself in the bikini, boys turning to look at her when she walks past.

Under the fluorescent lights of the dressing room, the bikini doesn’t look nearly as impressive. The top chafes her breasts while the bottom is tight. A stubborn roll of fat—Mom said it was baby fat that would disappear when she got older peeks over the bottom. A breeze from the air conditioning sends a chill through her exposed skin.

Her face turns as red as the bikini as she changes back into a loose T-shirt and jeans. Holding the bikini up, she shakes her head. She’s not pretty enough for something like this. Not like the other girls at school.

The bikini on its hanger trembles in her hand beneath the mannequin’s accusing gaze. Samantha will never have a body like that. She’ll never be pretty.

“The baby clothes are over there, Peepants,” Hannah says. Her friends shriek with laughter like a pack of monkeys.

“You would know,” Samantha growls, silencing the monkeys. For a moment she glares at Hannah’s smug face and then turns around, the hanger steadying in her hand. She marches up to the counter, feeling Hannah and her friends staring.

“Aren’t you a little young for this?” the old woman at the counter says.

Samantha says nothing. She fishes the money from her pocket, money she’s saved from her lunch and allowance for three weeks now for this moment; it doesn’t feel half as good as she imagined. Nevertheless, she tosses back her hair, keeping her nose pointed at the ceiling as she struts past Hannah and her chattering friends.

Unfortunately, Mom shared the old woman at the counter’s reaction when she caught Samantha modeling the bikini in the mirror. “Young lady, you are not going out of the house like that,” Mom said.

“But Mom—”

“I said no. End of story.”

Samantha took off the bikini and ran to the living room, where Dad watched television. “Dad, tell Mom I can wear whatever I want,” she said.

Dad’s face turned paler than usual at the sight of the bikini. “Sorry, kiddo, nothing I can do,” he said.

“You two always treat me like a baby. I hate you!” Samantha stormed into her room, using the bikini as a hankie for the rest of the night.

The bikini remains in a drawer back home while Samantha has to walk the beach holding Mommy’s hand in this stupid onesie with the stupid hat. Making the situation even worse, Mom wears an identical bathing suit and hat. The shrieking of Hannah’s friends echoes in Samantha’s ears.

None of the boys her age even give her a passing glance. She might as well be invisible. As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, some of the men’s eyes follow Mom as she walks by. She doesn’t pay them any attention.

They walk across the hot white sand until they find a relatively quiet spot near a cluster of rocks. Mom and Samantha spread out towels and lie down. While Mom reads a book, Samantha stares out at the turquoise water, watching a girl in a bikini like the one she bought splash a boy with tanned, rippling muscles.

“Mom, am I ever going to be pretty?” she asks.

“Of course you are, honey. When you get older.”

“How old?”

“That depends. Some girls develop faster than others. Your time will come.”

Mom turns back to her book, leaving Samantha to ponder the topic. Even if she’d worn the bikini, no one would have noticed her, especially not the one with the tanned, rippling muscles. To him, she was still a little kid playing in the sand with Mommy and Daddy.

To make matters worse, Dad plops down onto the towel next to her, his body greasy and smelling like a medicine cabinet. “Did you put the whole bottle on?” she asks.

“Can’t be too careful with this skin.” He spreads out on the towel, shielding his eyes with a straw hat. “If you smell boiled lobster, wake me up, kiddo.”

When Dad begins to snore, Samantha turns to her mother. “Can I go swimming?” she asks.

“All right, but stay where I can see you,” Mom says.

Samantha tiptoes across the hot sand in her bare feet, wishing they’d never decided to vacation in California. So far her parents have done nothing but treat her like a baby and she knows it will only get worse tomorrow when they go to Disneyland. She has a vague memory of going there almost nine years ago and asking Daddy to give her a piggyback ride so she could see over the grownups. He’ll probably try to do the same thing tomorrow, although she doesn’t need his help to see over the grownups anymore.

The turquoise water feels like a bath, so warm and soothing. Samantha wades out until the water comes up to her breasts. Compared with the breasts of the other girls on the beach hers seem miniscule. Mosquito bites, Hannah called them, flaunting her enormous pair.

She paddles towards the couple frolicking in the water, hunching down so only her head is visible. The boy with the muscles chases the girl in the bikini, finally tackling her. They fall into the wet sand where they kiss while Samantha can only wish someone will kiss her like that someday.

The wave came up without warning, knocking Samantha from her feet. The current sucked her beneath the surface and then away from the beach. Her lungs burn, demanding air, but no matter how hard she paddles, she can’t reach the surface.

A hand grabs her by the back of the bathing suit, hauling her up to the surface. At first she thinks she must be dreaming because she sees herself dragging her back to shore. Then she comes to her senses and realizes it’s Mom.

Mom lays Samantha out on the sand, her voice sounding far away as she asks if Samantha is all right. Though Samantha wants to answer, there’s too much water in her lungs. She rolls over, spitting what feels like half the ocean onto the beach.

“Feel better?” Mom asks.

Samantha nods. This time she doesn’t mind Mom taking her hand to lead her back to the towels. Dad is still asleep, his chest turning lobster red despite the sunscreen.

Even with her eyes closed, Samantha feels people staring at her, laughing at her. “Can we go?” she asks.

“Of course we can, honey. Let me wake your father.”

“Why the long face, kiddo?” Dad asks her as they walk back to the car.

Before she can answer, Mom says, “I thought we should get back to pack for tomorrow.”

“Good idea. I was going to be broiled in a few more minutes anyway, right?” he says, nudging Samantha in the ribs.

“Right,” she says, smiling at Mom.

From a canvas bag in the car, Mom takes out a pair of jeans and T-shirt, hands them to Samantha. She changes in a cinderblock stall with no door while Mom stands guard by the sinks. “Thank you,” Samantha says.

“It’s all right, honey. All part of the job.”

“You do it really well.” Samantha emerges from the stall and stands beside Mom at the sinks. In the mirror she looks like a miniature version of her mother. If only she grows up to be half as pretty and smart, she’ll be lucky.

For the first time in nearly a year, she hugs her mother. Mom pats her hair and kisses her forehead the way she did when Samantha was little. “Don’t worry, honey, everything will be fine. I’ll always be here for you.” They remain that way for a minute until Mom says, “We better see what your dad is up to.”

They find Dad taking pictures of the beach with the camera. Before Samantha can object or hide her face, he snaps one of her and Mom. “There’s my two bathing beauties,” he says.

“Dad,” Samantha whines, stretching the word out.

“Sorry. How about one more?”

“Fine, but let’s do one of the whole family.”

“Gee, I’d love to, but I don’t really know how to work the timer on this thing—”

Mom snatches the camera from around his neck, kissing him as she fiddles with the buttons. She sets the camera on the car and then takes Dad’s hand, scampering over beside Samantha.

They stand on either side of Samantha, putting a hand on her shoulder. In their touch, she feels how much they love her. Despite all that’s happened, a smile comes easily to her.

Then the camera clicks, preserving the image of their love forever.

[END]

Chapter 39: The Other Side

2007-06-15T09:24:00.002-07:00

Chapter 39: The Other Side

A blinding light welcomed Samantha into the world, almost as if she were being born again. She felt as helpless as a baby again, lying on her back, unable to move. Maybe this was another of Kiaba’s illusions or maybe the portal had led to Heaven and she and Prudence were dead.

As her vision cleared, she made out a stone ceiling lined with stalactites dotted with green spots. The spots faded away, leaving only the stone ceiling of the cave. A white glow remained on the right side of her vision, though not as bright as the flash that had blinded her.

Her body felt heavy, as if it too were made of stone. With a grunt, she raised an arm to her face. From the effort this required, she expected to see one of Prudence’s stubby, pale arms, but was surprised to see one of her long, bronze limbs instead. The fingers at the end of the hand were thicker than she remembered, but not the sausage links Prudence sported.

Flexing the hand, she noticed the fine hairs on the back of her hand tinted orange in the fading light. She reached back with the hand to touch her hair, nearly crying when she felt a pigtail to the side. She swept the pigtail forward to see it wasn’t quite the black she remembered. Like the hairs on the back of her hand, there was an orange tint to the pigtail.

This discovery propelled her upright, where she found an even stranger sight: a potbelly jutted out from her midsection to hang over her narrow waist. The gut looked disproportionate with the rest of her, almost as if someone had pasted it onto her stomach. She tried to pull the fat away, but winced in pain. Like it or not, the potbelly was a part of her.

The hair and the gut didn’t make any sense until she heard a groan and found Prudence lying a few feet away. Except, like her, Prudence wasn’t the same. Her skin had taken on a dusky hue, like she’d gotten a suntan. And her auburn hair had darkened to a deep red, like fresh raspberries. While Samantha’s stomach had ballooned, Prudence’s had deflated, almost as if someone had taken Prudence’s extra weight and given it to Samantha.

Prudence’s eyes opened and then she went through the same ritual as Samantha, gazing at her hand, touching her hair, and then patting her stomach. This last act caused her to sit bolt upright. She looked over at Samantha, her mouth twisting into a gasp. “What’s happened to us?” she asked.

“I think when we came out together, it mixed us up,” Samantha said, putting a hand to her belly. She had the disorienting sense again of not being herself anymore. If this stomach and hair were part of Prudence, then was she really Samantha anymore or was she someone else, some mixture of the two? In which case, could she even call herself Samantha anymore? She sat down on the ground next to Prudence to consider all this.

“I feel so strange,” Prudence said.

“I know what you mean.”

“What do we do now?”

“I’m not sure.” The way Samantha mumbled this echoed Prudence’s voice. “Am I still me?” she said aloud.

“I don’t know. Am I still me?” They looked each other over, trying to decide.

“I still feel like me. Pretty much,” Samantha said.

“Me too.”

They stared at each other again until Samantha stuck out her hand. “Samantha Young. It’s good to meet you—”

“Prudence Gooddell. How do you do?” They giggled in unison at this. Then Prudence’s face turned serious. “How little do you suppose we are now?”

Samantha considered this. Her chest had flattened to a pair of bumps, meaning she wasn’t twelve anymore. But she wasn’t in the terrible twos again either, thank goodness. “I think I’m eight, no, nine. Nine and a half.”

“Are you sure?”

Samantha shrugged. On Eternity, age was a relative number. You’re only as old as you feel, she remembered hearing somewhere. Right now, she felt nine—and a half. “How old are you?” she asked Prudence.

“Eight, I guess. And a half,” Prudence said with a smile. A moment later the smile collapsed, tears coming to her eyes. “I’m sorry about making you little again. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s not so bad,” Samantha said, thinking of the playpen she’d nearly been trapped in forever. “It could be worse.”

“What about Miss Brigham and Rebecca. And Annie? Oh God, what did I do? I ruined their lives.”

Samantha reached out to hold her friend, Prudence’s head resting on her potbelly. “You didn’t do any of it. It was all her. None of it is your fault.”

“But I opened the box. I let her out.”

“She tricked you, just like she tricked me in the caverns. There wasn’t any way for you to know.”

“I wanted to believe her. I wanted her to be my mother so I wouldn’t be alone anymore.”

“You’re never alone, Prudence. You have me.” She touched the chain dangling from her neck. “We’re going to be best friends forever no matter what.”

“Really?”

Samantha looked down at her stomach and then the orange hairs on the back of her hands. “We’re better than best friends. There’s some of you in me and some of me in you. That makes us sisters now. And no matter what happens, we’ll always have that part of each other so we’ll always be connected.”

“Sisters,” Prudence repeated the word. “I don’t think I could ever have a better big sister than you.”

“And I couldn’t have a better little sister than you.”

They hugged for the first time not as friends, but as sisters. Samantha thought of the sister taken from her when Mom died, the sister who never had a chance at life. Samantha promised to be as good of a big sister to Prudence as she would have been to Mom’s baby.

“What happened to you two?” David said.

“It’s a long story,” Samantha said, letting go of Prudence.

David picked up a rock, motioning with it at Prudence. “What about her? We should finish her off now.”

“Kiaba’s gone. She disappeared in the fountain.”

Tightening his grip on the rock, David said, “How do we know that? Or maybe you’re really her.”

“She’s gone, David. It’s just us. Samantha and Prudence.”

“Right.” He stepped towards the girls until he loomed over them. Even when Samantha got to her feet, she found herself looking up six inches into his eyes. “Maybe you girls should take another dip in the fountain.”

As he reached out to grab her, Samantha seized his wrist, twisting it behind his back. The rock tumbled out of his other hand; he thrashed the now-empty hand around trying to free himself to no avail. Samantha pushed him down to his knees and then whispered into his ear, “Go on, say it.”

“Uncle,” he said.

She let him up. “Let’s go home,” she said, taking Prudence’s hand.

Wendell met them outside the cave, his jaw dropping with shock and cheeks turning red. “Samantha, what happened to you? You’re so…little.”

“I’m as old as you,” she said.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he stammered. His face reddened to the color of his hair. “I’m sorry. You two look very nice.”

“Thank you. Where’s everyone else?”

“In the church. I didn’t think you would come back.”

“I almost didn’t.” Samantha squeezed Prudence’s hand. Without her new sister’s help she never would have escaped from Kiaba’s domain, back to the real world.

“What are we going to do now?” Prudence asked.

“We should get out of here while we can,” David said.

“No, we’re going to stay and rebuild,” Samantha said. She put a hand on Wendell’s shoulder and again squeezed Prudence’s hand. “We can do it if we work together.”

Chapter 38: The Final Nightmare

2007-06-15T09:24:00.001-07:00

Chapter 38: The Final Nightmare

Walls of mirrors rose to face Samantha. In each one she saw a variation of Prudence. One Prudence was monstrously fat, another dangerously thin; one was taller than Samantha, another coming up to her waist; one was an old woman, another a baby. In all of these images she saw Prudence’s eyes glaring at her with hatred, her lips curled in a snarl.

“Prudence, where are you?”

At last she came to a mirror showing Prudence the way Samantha remembered her from having been her. “There you are. We have to get out of here—” As she reached out towards the mirror, Prudence’s hand shot out of the glass, locking itself around Samantha’s wrist. No matter how hard Samantha struggled, the hand kept pulling her towards the glass.

Her left hand went first, the fingers swelling up into sausage links again. The rest of her arm turned pale and swelled with fat as it too was pulled into the mirror. “No! Don’t do this, Prudence,” Samantha screamed.

As though drowning, she kept her head back, screaming for Prudence to stop. Samantha watched her stomach explode into a sagging gut and her breasts sag. With a final scream her head disappeared into the mirror, her cheeks puffing up and a double chin drooping beneath her jaw.

She sits in the dining hall, staring into a bowl of soup. Nearby, Helena and Phyllis snicker about something, no doubt it’s about her. Adjusting herself on the bench, she tries to keep her belly from overhanging the table, but this makes it hard to get the spoonfuls of soup into her mouth without spilling onto the front of her dress.

“We should make you a trough,” Helena says.

She doesn’t say anything, continues to stare into the soup bowl as if she can see the future in the broth. All day Samantha’s ignored her, ever since Prudence caught her bathing in the stream. She didn’t understand why Samantha got so angry until she asked Miss Brigham later.

“Samantha’s growing up. She’s becoming a woman, dear,” Miss Brigham said.

Now everything makes sense. Samantha is too old to need Prudence anymore. She doesn’t want to be around the children. And so Prudence is left to stare into her soup bowl, seeing a future just as empty.

The door to the dining hall opens and she looks up to see Samantha coming towards her. Samantha with her tiny waist and giant breasts. The way she walks, so confident and strong, already marks her as more of a grownup than Miss Brigham. She is a woman.

In the dregs of the soup, Prudence sees her reflection, a child’s reflection. She stuffs half a slice of bread into her mouth, washing it down with the remains of the soup. She can’t look up from her food as Samantha approaches.

“There you are! I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day,” Samantha says, her voice containing an adult purr.

“I’ve been busy,” Prudence mumbles.

“I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean anything. I don’t know what came over me.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’m sorry.”

“No, Prudence, you didn’t bother me.”

“It’s all right, Samantha.” Prudence looks up and sees those grownup breasts mocking her for still being a child. She motions to Samantha’s chest. “You’re too big to be around the rest of us anymore. I understand.”

“I’m too big? You’re the one who’s too big,” Samantha says, her eyes flashing the way Prudence remembers from the moment before Samantha broke her arm five years ago.

If she wants, Samantha could kill Prudence in a single stroke with her bare hands. She’s so strong and beautiful and brave and smart and Prudence is none of these things. She’s still a timid, chubby little girl, practically a baby by comparison.

Samantha stomps over to the counter to grab the pot of soup. She hauls the pot back to the table, thumping it down in front of Prudence. “Here, I thought I’d save you a trip or three. Go on, eat up. You’re a growing girl.”

Laughter rings out all across the dining hall. Helena and Phyllis laugh like a pair of hyenas. The others join in, even Rebecca and Annie chuckle behind their hands. Then she looks up to see Samantha’s triumphant grin and understands: she has no friends here, not anymore. She’s better off living in the forest like a savage.

She pushes away from the table, bolting into the dormitory, the laughter following her. The laughter seeps through the pillow over Prudence’s head, ringing in her ears. Even with her eyes shut, Samantha’s grin continues to haunt her.

With this final betrayal, she knows there’s no place left for her in Eternity. She gets to her feet and runs towards the front door as fast as her legs can go. The doorway is filled with a blinding white light, almost like Heaven—

The glass shattered around Samantha. She hit the ground with a groan, remaining there for a moment. When she holds up her hand, she’s ashamed at her relief to see her own thin, bronze digits.

Around her, the mirror images of Prudence glare at her more vehemently. She shared their revulsion at what she’d done to Prudence, her best friend. In that moment of not just looking like Prudence, but sharing her thoughts as well, Samantha understood what had driven her friend away. Not only the mean-spirited trick in the dining hall or the incident at the stream but a rift that had grown between them as Samantha grew and Prudence remained the same, left behind, all alone.

Samantha got to her feet, searching the mirror images for her friend. The images reached out towards her with their fat or thin; long or short; wrinkled or smooth arms, trying to pull her into the mirror, to trap her forever. Steering clear of these arms, she continued down the corridor. At the sound of Prudence crying out, Samantha broke into a run.

“Prudence, where are you?” she called out.

The farther she ran, the louder the crying became and with it, she heard a second voice: Kiaba’s trying to soothe Prudence. “Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll be fine. I’ll be right here with you. Can you be a big girl for Mommy?” Kiaba said.

“I don’t want to go. It’s scary,” Prudence said between sobs, her voice tiny and weak.

The reason for this became clear when Samantha came to the end of the corridor to find Kiaba standing over a redheaded toddler that could only be Prudence. The little girl cried into the hem of her dress, looking up on occasion at a portal swirling with rainbow-colored light. The sight of this sent caused her to cover her eyes with the dress again.

“What are you doing to her?” Samantha said.

Kiaba turned to face Samantha; her eyes turned red as she spoke. “Looks like someone has been a very bad girl and crawled out of her crib. Mommy’s going to have to teach you a lesson.”

Samantha’s entire body twitched as she fought the influence of those glowing red eyes. She wasn’t powerless this time. She could save Prudence from Kiaba. The words of her parents echoed in her ears.

“Your tricks aren’t going to work anymore,” she said.

The glow faded from Kiaba’s eyes. Her tongue flickered from her mouth. “Very well then. No more tricks.”

Before Samantha could move, Kiaba was on top of her. Her clawed fingers grasped Samantha’s arms like steel. She pinned Samantha to the ground as if she were no more than a toddler. Samantha thrashed around in Kiaba’s grasp to no avail.

I’m not powerless, she thought, but this did no good. Kiaba’s tongue lashed out like a whip against Samantha’s cheek. The fangs in her mouth seemed to glow in anticipation of sinking into Samantha’s neck. Samantha shook her head violently to keep those fangs at bay.

“You fool, it’s pointless to resist. This is my realm. No matter how old you think you are, you’re as weak as a baby here. As weak as your friend.”

Prudence cowered in the corner, the hem of her dress still pulled over her eyes as she sobbed.

“Let her go and take me instead,” Samantha said.

At this, Kiaba laughed. “I don’t think so. Your little friend is so much easier to manipulate. For a thousand years I waited and all I had to do was pretend to be her mommy and she freed me. As I disposed of you and your friends, she cowered just like she is now. She’ll stay like that for the rest of her pathetic little life.”

“You’re wrong about her. Prudence is the bravest girl I know. I didn’t understand how brave until you showed me what it was like to be her. She faced ridicule every day and never ran—until her best friend betrayed her.”

As Samantha spoke, Prudence lowered the hem of her dress, their eyes meeting. “Smanfa? You’re so big.”

“Prudence, you’re big too. Not just your body, but your heart. I’m so sorry for what I did. You’ve been my best friend, the closest to family I have left. I love you.”

“That’s very touching. Now say goodbye.” Kiaba’s fangs plunged into Samantha’s neck.

Life began slipping away from her. She could feel herself getting smaller, just like Annie. She reached a hand out towards Prudence, watching it shrink away.

“No! Leave her alone. She’s my friend,” Prudence shouted. She ran towards Kiaba, with each step growing larger, into the girl Samantha remembered, her best friend. With a scream, she leapt at Kiaba.

The fangs pulled out of Samantha’s neck as Kiaba turned to face Prudence. They collided with a thunderclap, Prudence knocking Kiaba backwards, into one of the mirrors. The mirror images of Prudence poured out of the broken glass, surrounding Kiaba. They swarmed over her, ignoring her attempts to knock them away.

The army of Prudences carried Kiaba through the glass, her screams fading to nothing.

In the remaining mirrors, Samantha saw herself back in the terrible twos. “I’m little again,” she said and began to cry.

Prudence knelt down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter how big or little we are. We’re always going to be best friends,” she said.

From her chubby neck, Samantha saw the silver chain of the necklace she’d taken from Pryde’s cellar. ‘Best Friends Forever,’ the necklace’s inscription read when paired with its mate, like her and Prudence. Only together were they complete.

She held out a hand for Prudence to take. “Let’s go home,” she said.

Prudence took the hand, enveloping it in hers. They walked towards the portal, pausing at the edge of it to wonder what would become of them on the other side. No matter what happened, Samantha knew Prudence was right: they would always be best friends. Prudence gathered Samantha into her arms and then jumped into the portal.

Chapter 37: The Rising

2007-06-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

Chapter 37: The Rising

Her eyes opened to face an alarm clock studded with teddy bear stickers. Looking around the room, she saw the same pink walls and the same vanity as the illusion in the caverns. But there was one important difference: her legs hung over the end of the pink bedspread and her boobies pressed her black T-shirt.

In the vanity, she saw herself as a twelve-year-old again, not as a little girl, not as Prudence. From this vantage point, the bedroom seemed so tiny; she was afraid of bumping her head against the ceiling. It seemed hard to believe the bed could have once contained her.

On the edge of the vanity she found the picture of her and her parents taken on their trip to Disneyland. The photograph looked exactly as she remembered it from Pryde’s cellar. She touched the faces of her parents, wondering if this might not be a dream this time.

The last thing she remembered was tumbling into the Fountain of Youth with Kiaba. As a toddler, it wouldn’t have taken Samantha’s body long to disintegrate in the fountain waters. In which case, she was probably dead. But was this Heaven or Hell?

The bedroom banged open, Kiaba standing in the doorway. Not Kiaba as Mom, but in her true form as depicted in the native drawings with the body of a woman and the head of a serpent. The serpent’s forked tongue lashed out as she laughed. “This isn’t Hell, but for you it will be close enough,” she said.

“Your illusions can’t hurt me,” Samantha said.

“Fool, this is a world of illusions. This is my domain. I control everyone and everything in it—including you. Now, let’s get you ready for your play date,” Kiaba hissed, her eyes flashing red.

Samantha watched her reflection in the vanity shrink back into that of a small child. As her body compacted, the lean muscle turned to fat, her cheeks puffing out as though she wer holding in a breath. The black T-shirt drooped down to her knees, then faded to canary yellow, gradually taking the shape of a frilly dress. Her ponytail split into two pigtails, each tied to the side of her head by a ribbon matching the dress. Her parents squatted next to her tiny self in the photograph.

“I don’t care what you say. This isn’t real. None of this is real,” Samantha said, her voice so high and thin.

Kiaba came to stand next to her in the vanity. She pinched one of Samantha’s pudgy cheeks until Samantha cried out. “Seems real enough to me. You’ll find that’s all that matters here, as your little friend Prudence has already found out.”

“Prudence? What have you done to her?”

“You’ll see.” Kiaba grabbed Samantha by the hair, dragging her out the door. At the end of the hall, she opened another door to reveal a nursery with toys scattered about the floor, a playpen in one corner, and a crib in another corner. A little girl’s humming came from inside the playpen.

Kiaba picked Samantha up as if she weighed nothing and then dumped her into the playpen. There she nearly tumbled into a chubby redheaded toddler playing with a pair of dolls. The girl looked up from the dolls at Samantha.

“Are you here to play with me?” she asked.

“Prudence, is it you?”

“Yes. Are you Samanfa? Mommy said she was bringing a girl named Samanfa to play with me.”

“I’m Samantha, but Prudence this isn’t right. She’s not your mommy. We’re not little girls. You’re ten years old. Don’t you remember?”

Prudence shook her head. “I’m not ten. I’m twee and a half years old.”

Kiaba reached into the playpen to tousle Prudence’s hair. “That’s right, sweetie. You’re twee years old. Poor Samanfa here is still going through the terrible twos. She’s a baby.”

The walls of the playpen swelled around Samantha. When she tried to stand up, her legs wobbled beneath her. “No,” she said. “Not two. Twelve.”

“Of course you are, sweetie. If you don’t mind, Prudence and I have to leave here.”

“But I want to play with Samanfa,” Prudence said, her eyes welling up with tears.

“You can later, sweetie. I promise.” Kiaba picked Prudence up as easily as she had Samantha. The little girl kicked her legs and screamed until Kiaba whispered something soothing in her ear.

Samantha threw herself against the bars of the playpen, but lost her balance and fell down. “No go. She bad,” Samantha shouted, wishing she could get out more than one syllable words.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m not going to leave you here all by yourself. Your mommy will look after you,” Kiaba said. She pinched Samantha’s cheek again before leaving.

The nursery turned dark until a blue glow appeared through the bars. Samantha peeked out the bars to see a flicking image of an automobile chasing another one. A television. Somewhere overhead, she heard her mother’s voice.

“That’s what I told him. I said—”

“Mommy! Mommy, help!” Samantha said. She banged her tiny fists against the wooden bars of the playpen.

“Hold on a sec,” Mom said. Her face appeared over Samantha’s head, a tube of ash dangling from her mouth. “What is it?”

“Mommy, get me out.” Samantha got to her unsteady feet, holding up both arms for Mom to pick her up.

“Look, kid, I’m not letting you out of there to cause more trouble. Stay in there and shut up.”

“Mommy, please. Let me out. Let me out!” Samantha coughed as Mom blew a cloud of smoke into her face. “Please.”

Mom’s head disappeared. Samantha heard her say, “No, it was nothing. Just the stupid kid wanting to play. I swear, sometimes I wish I could drop the little brat off with her father. Let him deal with her crap. Anyway—”

Samantha didn’t listen to any more. She sank to the padding of the playpen, crying as she had in the fountain cave only for real this time. Kiaba was right: this wasn’t Hell but close enough to it. The thought of spending all of eternity in this playpen with Mom ignoring her was worse than any punishment the devil could ever conceive.

No matter how many times she told herself this wasn’t real, she didn’t get any bigger. She remained trapped in the playpen, trapped in the terrible twos, trapped in her mother’s neglect. As time went by, she rolled over onto her side, but couldn’t sleep, afraid she might dream of something worse than this.

“Samantha,” whispered a girl’s voice from outside the playpen. “Can you hear me?”

Samantha crawled over to the edge of the playpen, where she saw a toddler with platinum hair and a powder blue dress. “Annie? It you?”

“That’s right. It’s me.”

“You get me out?”

“No, I can’t get you out of there. You’re the only one who can. You can get out of that playpen any time you want if you believe you can.”

“But she say—”

“Kiaba has no power here. Only the power you give her. She did this to you because you believed she could. You gave her the power.”

Samantha considered this. She had already tried telling herself it wasn’t real and it hadn’t worked. “What I do?”

“You have to believe you have the power. Only then will you stop being two years old and rise from there.”

“I can’t. Too little.”

“You’re only little if you believe you’re little. Go on, stand up. You can do it.”

Samantha wobbled to her feet. Nothing happened, no matter how hard she tried to tell herself she wasn’t a baby. Her legs buckled, sending her tumbling to the floor again. She buried her face in her hands as she sobbed.

“Don’t think. Believe,” Annie said.

There was no hope. She couldn’t ever get out of here. Kiaba would take Prudence and escape back to the real world. She would capture David and Wendell and then she would find Rebecca and Miss Brigham. They were all counting on her to stop Kiaba and she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything now but sit in this playpen and cry like a baby. That’s all she was now, a baby like poor Miss Brigham.

With this thought, she tipped over onto her back. When she tried to sit up again, she found she couldn’t. She’d shrunk into an infant. She called out for help, but only a high-pitched squeal came out.

Mom’s face appeared over her again, a cloud of smoke making Samantha cough. “What do you want now?” She reached in to scoop Samantha out of the playpen. “Well, you don’t smell like you need a diaper. Hungry?” Mom took her into the kitchen, retrieving a bottle. “There you go, kid, bon appetit.”

As Samantha sucked greedily from the bottle, she thought about what Annie had said. When Samantha believed she was nothing more than a baby, she became one.

After Mom burped her, she dumped Samantha back into the playpen. Something new waited for her there: the photograph of her and her parents. In this version, her mother cradled her in a pink blanket, her father beaming down at Samantha with pride.

Her parents had loved her. But they were dead, killed while she slept in the backseat like the baby she was right now. She couldn’t do anything to save them; she was powerless. A helpless little girl.

The image in the photograph changed back to that of her as a toddler, her parents squatting beside her. She sat up in the playpen and grabbed the picture, hugging it to her chest. Why did they have to die? Why couldn’t she have done something to help them? If she had woke up, she might have seen the car before her father. She might have warned him before it was too late. She might have done something to save them.

Mom loomed over her in the playpen. “Samantha, honey, what are you doing in there? You’re too big for that.” She picked Samantha up, grunting as she lifted her out.

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” she said.

“For what?”

“I didn’t save you. I didn’t stop it. I should have.”

Mom knelt down to look Samantha in the eye. “Sweetie, there’s nothing you could have done. It was an accident.”

“No,” Samantha said, stamping her foot. “It’s my fault. You were there because of me. We left early because of me. If we hadn’t—”

“You can’t blame yourself, honey. We chose to go there to spend time with you, because we love you. You didn’t make us do anything. None of this is your fault. Your father and I are grownups, like you will be someday. Grownups make their own choices. Do you understand?”

“It’s not my fault,” Samantha whispered. There was nothing she could have done for her parents. It was an accident. There wasn’t anyone to blame.

As she embraced her mother, she felt herself growing. By the time she pulled away, she was twelve years old again. “But I miss you so much,” she said.

Mom reached out to tuck a sweep of hair behind Samantha’s ear. “I know, sweetie. We miss you too, but we’ll see each other again. Until then, remember how much we love you.”

Dad appeared at her side. He put a hand on Samantha’s shoulder. “It’s true, kiddo. Your mom and I are crazy for you. But more than anything, we want you to be happy. So you go out there and make us proud.”

The three of them hugged and then Mom and Dad each kissed Samantha’s cheek. As she stood up, the house faded away to a tunnel of white light. She raced down the tunnel to find Kiaba and Prudence, pausing once to look back at her parents. They waved to her, slowly dissolving into nothing.

Chapter 36: Extinction

2007-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Chapter 36: Extinction

The howling came closer, growing louder and louder. The dogs were returning. Rebecca listened, her entire body starting to shake. They were coming back. Coming to get her.

Molly must have sensed Rebecca’s fear; she began to kick, her wails drowning out the beasts. If the monsters didn’t already know where Rebecca and Molly were, they soon would.

“There now, Molly, hush,” Rebecca whispered. She picked Molly up off the ground, holding her close. Rebecca’s face turned pale, her smile coming out as a wince instead. “Everything will be fine.”

At this, Molly settled down, making a cooing sound. Her tiny fingers stroked the side of Rebecca’s nose, wiping away a tear. Until then, Rebecca hadn’t realized she’d been crying.

She wiped her eyes and then rocked Molly back and forth, whispering that everything would be fine. But Rebecca knew this was a lie. The howls were right outside the tree branches now.

“Oh no, they’re here!” Rebecca hissed. “We have to be very quiet, Molly or else they’ll hear us.” Molly belched in reply.

One of the beasts stuck its nose into the branches. A snort came from its nose, followed by claws raking at the branches. When the beast howled, Rebecca had to put both hands to her ears. Before long, the monster would make its way through to devour her and Molly.

They couldn’t stay here any longer, but she couldn’t just crawl out with them standing right there. “It’s going to be all right,” Rebecca said, trying to reassure herself as well as the baby. “No one is going to hurt you.”

As if sensing the meal awaiting it, the animal clawed harder at the branches, wriggling it way through the narrow opening towards Rebecca. She felt around her with one hand for anything to use as a weapon. The sharp end of a branch poked into her hand. She snapped off the twig, holding up a makeshift spear no longer than Molly and not much thicker than the girl’s hair. The baby hiccupped at the sight of the weapon, but Rebecca didn’t have time to find anything better; she could already feel the beast’s hot breath like a summer breeze.

A yellow eye appeared at the edge of the branches, a set of jaws dripping with foam snapping at the baby. Rebecca snatched Molly back in time, prompting the baby to wail anew. This only increased the monster’s bloodlust. It wiggled its body from side to side in a mad frenzy.

“Get away from us!” Rebecca shouted. She closed her eyes as she lashed out with the stick. The dog yelped with pain.

Rebecca opened her eyes to see her stick embedded in one of the beast’s. The monster continued to yelp even as it tried to bite Rebecca and Molly. There was no stopping it.

Then Molly raised her right arm, one tiny finger pointing to Rebecca’s left. She squinted at the direction the baby indicated, seeing an opening in the branches formed by the beast’s frantic jiggling. “Thank you,” Rebecca said.

The opening was a tight squeeze for Rebecca. She pressed Molly as tightly as she could against her. Behind her came the sound of the wounded monster breaking through the last of the branches. Before long, it would be on Rebecca’s heels, its jaws clamping down on her ankles to drag her back for the kill. She crawled faster through the opening, branches tearing at her.

When she saw daylight, she lunged forward with all her strength, only for something to yank her back by the scalp. A branch had become entangled in her curly hair. With each movement of her head, she felt her scalp burn with pain.

As she swatted at the branches around her, hoping to free herself, she felt the dog’s hot breath again. The animal’s remaining yellow eye appeared. She imagined it smiling with triumph at her predicament. I’m going to die, she thought.

With a last frantic swipe, the branch embedded in her hair snapped, pitching her forward just in time for the beast’s jaws to snap at the air she’d vacated. Rebecca rolled to the ground, the daylight momentarily blinding her. They were free!

She didn’t have any time to celebrate, though. The second beast, drawn by the commotion, charged towards her. Rebecca ran as fast as she could back into the forest, the monster gaining with every step. As before, she was too little and too chubby to outrun the creature.

And as before, she knew the only hope of escape lay in wading into the deepest brush. She turned left, into a group of bushes. Molly whimpered as a thorn cut her right cheek, leaving a bloody streak. “You’ll be all right,” Rebecca said in between gasps for air.

The brush thickened as she’d hoped, but the beast kept pace with her. The world around Rebecca turned hazy as sweat mingled with the tears in her eyes. There was no escape.

Rebecca plunged through a thicket of trees to emerge near a cliff. The beast emerged from the trees, approaching them leisurely to savor its upcoming meal. Worse yet, the second one appeared next to it, the branch sticking out of its eye.

They were trapped. Even the beasts knew this. If they could, Rebecca imagined they would laugh at her foolish attempt to escape. The outcome of this chase had never been in doubt. She was just a little girl with a helpless baby; there was nothing she could do.

Below came the sound of the sea, waves crashing against the rocks. She turned to look down at the steel-gray ocean churning violently, like a pot ready to boil over. Then she looked back at the dogs. Maybe there was something she could do.

Rebecca smiled down at Molly and said, “Don’t worry, everything will be all right. Be a good girl and stay quiet.”

She set Molly down behind a rock. Molly wailed and kicked her tiny limbs until Rebecca put a finger to her lips. Molly watched then as Rebecca ran off, shouting, “Come and get me!”

The dogs followed her. Ignoring little Molly beside the rock, they charged after Rebecca. She waited for them at the edge of the cliff, her body shaking with fear and anticipation. If this didn’t work—

The beasts stopped a yard from her, clawing the ground like bulls readying to charge. The monster with the damaged eye snarled at its partner, no doubt demanding the right to take revenge on Rebecca. The other took a step back in deference.

Howling one last time, the beast leapt at her. At the last moment, she rolled to the side. The monster’s claws tore at the ground as it realized its plight and tried to stop its momentum. But it couldn’t. The dog plunged over the cliff, disappearing into the ocean below.

Undaunted by its partner’s demise, the second monster closed in on Rebecca. Of course it wouldn’t be so stupid as to try lunging at her like the other one. It took a step towards her, approaching with caution.

There was nothing around her to use as a weapon, not even a stick this time. In desperation, she scooped up a handful of dirt. She threw it into the beast’s face. The monster howled, weaving around like a drunk as it tried to clear its vision. Its eyes focused on her a moment before its back paws slipped over the edge of the cliff. The monster’s front claws dug into the ground, frantically trying to gain purchase, but inch-by-inch it lost the battle. With a final howl it tumbled through the air to be swallowed by the sea.

When the howl faded, Rebecca heard Molly wailing from her hiding place. Rebecca rushed over to the baby, checking her to make sure she was unhurt. Then she scooped Molly up, pressing her close. “I’m here now. I’m never going to let you go.”

Molly cooed and reached out to touch Rebecca’s nose. Rebecca kissed her on the forehead and then tickled Molly’s belly until she giggled. Rebecca pressed Molly to her chest again and then set off through the forest. When Molly whimpered at the darkness from the trees, Rebecca rocked her and hummed a lullaby.

They found the hut Prudence had mentioned easily enough from there. Molly shivered at the sight of it. “It’s all right,” Rebecca said. “No one will hurt us now.” Rebecca opened the door and then knelt down next to a bed to pull up a trapdoor. She descended a narrow staircase, clutching Molly even tighter. Molly continued to shiver.

At the base of the stairs, they found piles of clothing scattered around. Rebecca sniffed the air, realizing that sometime during the excitement Molly had soiled herself. “Let’s see if we can’t find you something to wear.”

Rebecca leaned down and picked up something off the floor, a white gown. She pulled the gown over the squirming Molly and then said, “You look so pretty. I’m going to take good care of you from now on. I’m going to be your mommy.”

At this, Molly cooed, reaching out to touch Rebecca’s nose. She kept her hand there all the way up the stairs until Rebecca sat down on the bed. Then Molly’s hand dropped; she fell asleep in Rebecca’s arms. Rebecca watched her sleep, a smile coming to her face. They’d made it. Together.

Chapter 35: Final Plea

2007-06-15T09:16:00.002-07:00

Chapter 35: Final Plea

The clay box grew heavier the farther Samantha went. Her arms wobbled, her legs trembled, and her back ached. Each step forward became a challenge, a contest of wills she refused to lose. She couldn’t lose this battle or all would be lost.

Adding to her difficulties were more of Kiaba’s mind tricks. At present, the skin on her arms had turned wrinkled and she swept her tongue around her mouth to find her teeth missing. A little boy ran up to her, chirping, “Do you need any help with that, Grandma?”

“I’m fine, dear” she said, her voice quavering. “Go play.”

The boy wasn’t real. She wasn’t his grandma or anyone else’s. She was twelve years old, not ninety. No matter how Kiaba tried to convince her she was a baby or an old woman or anything else, she knew who she was, inside and out. This was only an illusion; it couldn’t hurt her unless she believed it.

After a moment the boy faded away and Samantha found her skin returned to its normal smoothness, though still the same pale color as Prudence’s with the same lining of fat. The clay box dented her bulging stomach, a lip of flab helping to steady the load like a third hand. At least this fat was good for something.

The river churned beside her, the water growing angrier the farther she went. A wave rose from the water to the top of the cavern, threatening to swamp her as it had done to her canoe on the sea. She closed her eyes, reminding herself it wasn’t real, just another trick to distract her.

“Samantha,” Mom’s voice called out, echoing through the cavern. “Where are you, honey?”

“It’s not real,” Samantha reminded herself.

“Samantha, honey, time to come in. Dinner’s ready.”

Her stomach growled at these words, more than willing to forget about the task at hand to eat something, even if the something turned out to be an illusion. “It’s not going to work,” Samantha called out.

Mom appeared at her side, touched her hair. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. Your father is inside with your sister.”

“You’re not real. Go away!”

“Samantha Young, that is no way to talk to your mother. You come with me this instant, young lady.” Mom’s hand dug into Samantha’s arm, the fingernails bringing a very real pain.

She shrugged off this pain, forcing herself to continue forward. Her parents and sister might wait for her inside, but they weren’t real. They were illusions.

“They don’t have to be,” Kiaba whispered. “They’re only illusions if you choose them to be. As long as you believe they’re real, they are.”

“No, they aren’t. They aren’t my real parents or my real sister. They’re only how I imagine them to be.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Samantha shook her head. “Good or bad, when I do remember them, I want them to be how they really were.”

“I can show you how they really were. I can tell you everything that’s trapped inside that little brain of yours.”

“Everything you say is a lie. Nothing you could tell me would be true.” Samantha took another step forward. “You aren’t going to stop me.”

Mom’s fingernails disappeared, leaving Samantha alone once more. She trudged on with the clay box, up the path leading to the Fountain of Youth. Her aches magnified with the uphill climb. Sweat poured down her face, stinging her eyes. Her breath came out in wheezes as her chest tightened. None of this was an illusion, she knew.

At the top of the path, she collapsed gratefully to her knees. She set the box on the ground to wipe the sweat from her forehead. Before she could reach for the box again, a pair of bronze hands reached through the opening to snatch it away.

Kiaba’s face—Mom’s face—glared at her through the opening, her eyes glowing red. “So much effort wasted. Did you really think you could outrun me?” She jammed a finger into Samantha’s gut. “You couldn’t outrun a dead snail.”

Samantha wanted to respond, but was huffing and puffing too hard from the exertion to form words. All that exertion for nothing. She had weathered the pain and Kiaba’s illusions only to lose everything. She had failed everyone.

The bronze hands grabbed her by the remains of the sheet, pulling her through the opening. As a final insult, Samantha didn’t fit, her gut catching halfway through. Kiaba peered down at her with a smile. “We should leave you like this until you’re skinny enough to slide through,” she said. “But then you’d miss all the fun.”

Samantha could do nothing but flail her arms as Kiaba leaned down towards her neck, fangs bared. The fangs tore into her neck and for a moment she felt herself slipping away, the life draining from her. A moment later Kiaba pulled back and then yanked Samantha’s diminished stomach through the opening.

When she got to her feet, the sheet slid right off. Kiaba stood at least three feet over her, grinning at her. “You make an adorable little girl, though not as cute as poor little Rebecca. Go on, take a look.”

Kiaba held out a mirror. In it, Samantha saw the same chubby little face as she’d seen in the water pitcher earlier. “This is another of your tricks,” she said. “I’m not little.”

“No more tricks, I’m afraid. We have to do something about your clothes.” Kiaba picked up the sheet, draping it over Samantha’s tiny body and fashioning a new gown that dragged on the ground.

Throughout this, Samantha bit down on her lip to keep from crying like the toddler she was now. That’s what Kiaba wanted, to further humiliate her. She wouldn’t get the satisfaction.

When Samantha didn’t cry, Kiaba grimaced. “Let’s do something about that hair too.” She pulled Samantha’s hair out of its bun, refashioning it into a pigtail on each side of her head. Once she teased the bangs along Samantha’s forehead, she held up the mirror again. “Aren't you just darling?”

Samantha couldn’t respond, still biting down on her lip. I’m not a baby, she thought, the words echoing Rebecca’s. In the mirror, her pudgy cheeks turned red, her eyes watering despite her best efforts.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, as soon as we get home, Mommy will find you a pretty new dress.”

“You’re not my mommy!” Samantha grabbed the mirror, shattering it over Kiaba’s head. She took the opportunity to run towards the Fountain of Youth, knowing it was her only chance to end this.

Kiaba roared with anger, a cut oozing blood from above her left ear. “You little brat! You’ll pay for that.”

Samantha reached the lip of the fountain when Kiaba seized her by a pigtail, yanking her hard to the ground. As she lay next to the fountain, she let herself sob like a little girl, like a baby. She curled up into a ball, her entire body shaking with grief.

Kiaba patted Samantha’s head and said, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I lost my temper, but what you did was very bad. You were a very naughty girl and you had to be punished.”

A pebble hit Samantha’s ear. Through watery eyes, she made out David squatting behind a rock ten feet away, a spear at the ready. But there was no way he could cross the open space between them without Kiaba noticing and stopping him.

Samantha looked up at Kiaba, forcing a smile to her face. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to be bad.”

“That’s all right, sweetie. Mommy will be fine. Let’s get you home.” She helped Samantha to her feet, taking her hand.

“Can you carry me, Mommy?”

“Sorry, sweetie, but Mommy’s too tired—”

“I want a piggyback ride! I want it!” Samantha stamped her feet and let herself cry again, watching David approach out of the corner of her eye.

“But sweetie, piggyback rides are for babies. You aren’t a baby, are you?”

“I don’t care. I want one!” She continued her tantrum as David leveled the spear and charged.

At the last moment, Kiaba turned, her eyes blazing red. She snatched the spear away, twisting it from David’s grip as though he were three years old too. Using the butt of the spear, she catapulted him back against the wall.

“Did you really think—”

Before she could finish, Samantha ran into her at full speed. Even as a toddler, she had enough weight to knock Kiaba backwards, into the Fountain of Youth. With her last effort, Kiaba seized Samantha by a pigtail, dragging her into the fountain as well.

The water greeted them with a flash of white light.

Chapter 34: Watchers in the Woods

2007-06-15T09:16:00.001-07:00

Chapter 34: Watchers in the Woods

The tree seemed familiar to Rebecca. She studied the wishbone shape of the trunk, certain she’d seen it or another just like it before. The root coming out from the ground looked even more familiar; she remembered tripping over one just like it not more than an hour ago.

“We’re lost,” she said, clutching Molly tighter to her chest. The baby’s face turned red again as though preparing to cry again. She’d already cried for the last hour, her screeching growing louder and more desperate the farther they went into the forest. “Don’t cry. Bad baby!”

This had the opposite effect Rebecca intended, prompting Molly to wail with even more fury. Her cries sent birds flying away from their perches. Rebecca set the baby on the ground, pressing both hands to her ears. Once again tears filled her eyes with the realization she couldn’t stop Molly from crying and she couldn’t find the cabin Prudence had mentioned.

This job was too big for her. That mean boy was right: she wasn’t more than a baby herself. Surely a big girl wouldn’t have gotten lost in the forest. A big girl could make Molly stop crying. That Rebecca couldn’t do these things meant she was still a baby.

If only Mommy were here, she would know what to do. Rebecca remembered holding Mommy’s hand in a forest similar to this. Mommy studied the overly familiar trees just like Rebecca had done. “Are we lost?” Rebecca asked.

“No, sweetie, we’re not lost.” Mommy bit down on her lip as she thought. “We have to head north to get back home.”

“Which way is north?”

Mommy pointed to the rock Rebecca sat on, a layer of moss cushioning the stone. “You see that moss there? It only grows on the north side of a rock. So that must be pointing north.”

“But it’s just a stupid rock. How does it know which side is north or south?”

Mommy tousled Rebecca’s hair at this and smiled. “Nature is a lot smarter than we think. Come on, we’re almost there.” Mommy took Rebecca’s hand again, leading her through the forest with a more confident step. A few minutes later they emerged from the trees to find home waiting for them as Mommy had said.

There weren’t any rocks nearby for Rebecca to study. She sank down onto the ground next to Molly, who continued her one-note song. “It’s hopeless,” Rebecca said. “We’re going to be lost forever and ever.”

Molly wailed in agreement with this. The baby’s howl was joined by another, deeper wail. Something about this sound caused Rebecca to shiver.

“You must never, ever go into the forest alone,” Mommy said. “There are terrible creatures out there who would eat you up in a second.”

Rebecca snatched Molly from the ground and got to her feet as two sets of yellow eyes appeared from the darkness. Their appearance stifled Molly’s cries, her diaper turning wet against Rebecca’s dress. The terrible creatures Mommy mentioned had found them.

Two pairs of white teeth similar to that evil woman’s fangs materialized beneath the yellow eyes. At this, Rebecca felt her underpants turning wet like Molly’s diaper. She knew she had to run, but couldn’t make her legs move. She was too scared.

A gentle coo stirred Rebecca from her stupor. Molly’s tiny hand reached out to touch Rebecca’s cheek. The baby’s green eyes pleaded with Rebecca to save her, to get her to safety.

Rebecca ran.

She didn’t know where she was going, nor did she care as long as those monsters didn’t catch her. Once she risked looking behind her and saw two black dogs, each as tall as her. They loped along with easy grace, each stride bringing them closer. No matter how fast she pumped her chubby little legs, she couldn’t ever outrun them.

There had to be some way to lose them. She looked from left to right, searching for somewhere to hide, somewhere safe. In desperation, she looked down at Molly, but the baby’s eyes were wide with terror now. No one could help Rebecca.

Unable to think of anything else, Rebecca turned left, plowing into the underbrush. She turned Molly to face her, pressing the baby’s face into her chest so none of the branches could poke out her little eyes. Behind her came the sound of the beasts in pursuit. They wouldn’t stop until they ate her and Molly like Mommy had said.

Ahead, Rebecca saw a tree wider than two Prudences listing to one side, a long black mark scorched into its trunk. The branches of the tree were piled on the ground in a dense tangle. An opening in the branches called to her like a doorway.

She took a look back, but the yellow eyes had not caught up with her again yet. Then she pressed Molly even tighter against her chest as she scrambled into the opening. Sharp ends of branches cut into Rebecca’s cheeks, arms, and legs, but she didn’t cry. She had to be a big girl now.

The tangle became denser the farther she went, the branches thicker. One as thick as Prudence’s thighs hit Rebecca in the back of the head. The world around her spun for a moment. She put a hand to the back of her head, feeling a trickle of blood in her curls. “We’ll rest here for a while,” she said to Molly.

The baby whimpered in agreement with this. Outside their impromptu shelter, Rebecca heard the beasts snorting. A set of yellow eyes peered into the branches, freezing Rebecca’s heart. The eyes disappeared after a moment, accompanied by another terrifying howl. The howl became fainter, farther away, until it fading into silence.

“They’re gone,” she said to Molly. “Go to sleep now. You’ll be safe. I’ll take good care of you.”

Rebecca watched the baby’s eyes close, her breathing turning soft. “I think I’ll take a little nap too,” Rebecca whispered, the world spinning around her again. As she closed her eyes, she felt Molly’s warm little body against her and felt safe.

Chapter 33: The Maze

2007-06-15T09:15:00.002-07:00

Chapter 33: The Maze

The strangest thing happened as she chugged through the underbrush: everything around her looked familiar, though she couldn’t remember ever being here before. The farther she went, the stronger this sense of déjà vu became. As she rested on a log, mopping the sweat drenching her face, she tried to figure out what was going on.

The only reasonable explanations, she decided, were that either she had been here before or some part of Prudence lurked in her mind, directing her towards the goal. This latter explanation chilled Samantha, her entire body shivering. Again she had the disorienting feeling of not knowing who she was, inside. Was she really Samantha or just ninety percent Samantha and the rest Prudence or were the percentages even more balanced? And if some of Prudence’s thoughts could still be in her brain, what about Miss Brigham or Rebecca? Were pieces of them infused into her mind as well?

“I am Samantha,” she said to try warding off the disorientation. The words did little to comfort her. Certainly Samantha had a controlling interest in her mind, but was she really Samantha anymore?

Putting a hand to her head, she tried to find some way of calming herself. After a few moments of reflection, she decided to focus on the task at hand. And for that she did need Prudence’s help. She needed to know what Prudence knew about unleashing Kiaba so they could figure out how to destroy her.

Samantha got to her feet and lurched forward once more. The déjà vu became even more intense, manifesting itself in a voice—Prudence’s voice. “Turn left here. Not much farther,” Prudence whispered.

At this, Samantha jumped with surprise, looking about her for the speaker of these words. She didn’t see anyone else around except for her own shadow. For a moment she contemplated the unfamiliar, globular shape of the shadow and experienced another moment of self-doubt. “I am Samantha Young,” she said.

The forest faded to flat plains, along which Prudence urged her to lumber on faster. “I can’t,” Samantha finally said, her chest heaving and face drenched again. “I can’t go faster.”

“It’s not much farther. Hurry.”

Samantha grabbed a roll of fat pushing against the sheet. “You try to go faster with all this hanging off you.” Even as she said this, Samantha felt guilty. Prudence knew all too well the feeling of trying to run with sandbags tied around her biceps, thighs, and midsection.

Until waking up in the barn with Prudence’s body, Samantha had never really understood what her friend endured. Like everyone else, she assumed it was some kind of weakness, a lack of willpower or resolve to not overeat. Because of this, she never felt empathy for Prudence. Pity yes, but not empathy. Only now, with her body aching and coated with sweat while her stomach continued to howl did she feel that empathy.

With little chance of them switching bodies again without Kiaba’s interference, Samantha could be like this forever. From now on she might be the fat, shy friend and Prudence the courageous leader. She hoped Prudence would be more understanding than she had been.

The plains became flooded with water, the ground turning spongy beneath her feet. Any moment she expected to sink up to her gut in mud and be trapped until she died of starvation—an ironic death if ever there was one. But Prudence’s voice grew stronger, urging her to find the less treacherous places in the marshes to step in. Once Samantha’s foot sunk into the mud, but she managed to pull it out before sinking any deeper.

“We’re here,” Prudence finally said.

“Where?” Samantha didn’t see anything around her except for more patties of cattails surrounded by muddy water. “There’s nothing here. Is this what you wanted? To lead me on a wild goose chase so I couldn’t find it? You want her to win?”

“Step forward. Trust me.”

Samantha considered this. The voice urging her to step into the muddy water could easily be Kiaba trying to get Samantha to drown herself. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re trying to trick me. Well, it’s not going to work.”

“Samantha, please, you’ve come so far. One more step for me, your best friend. Please.”

The pleading in this imaginary voice convinced Samantha either she was going insane or Prudence really was communicating with her somehow. She took a deep breath and then stepped forward. The ground beneath her gave way, plunging her beneath the muddy water and into darkness.

She awakens to a damp washcloth on her forehead. Spots of light before her eyes take the form of a woman with red hair and green eyes. Miss Brigham. But she’s a baby now. Samantha sent her away with Rebecca—

Rebecca stands next to Miss Brigham, even younger than Samantha remembers, her brown hair straightened and pulled back into a tight bun like Miss Brigham’s. The little girl’s eyes go wide when she sees Samantha wake up. She presses against Miss Brigham’s leg like a frightened toddler, which is what she is, Samantha realizes.

Samantha opens her mouth to speak, but no words will come out. Her throat is too parched. On a stool next to her, she sees a glass of water. She tries to take this, but her arms are too heavy.

Miss Brigham takes the glass of water, leaning it towards Samantha’s lips. “Easy now, dear. You’ve had a terrible fever. I feared you wouldn’t make it, but here you are. Rebecca, don’t be afraid. You know Prudence, don’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Brigham,” Rebecca says.

The water courses down Samantha’s throat, freeing her tongue. In short gasps she says, “I’m not Prudence. I’m Samantha.”

“Oh my, you must still have the fever. Rebecca, dear, run and fetch Reverend Crane. I fear we will need more of his special medicine.”

“Reverend Crane? But he’s dead.”

“Dead? He’s not dead. Why, he’s as alive as you and me, dear. What a terrible thought. But never fear, Reverend Crane will be here very soon to give you more medicine. I hope it’s not too much or you might disappear.”

With this, Samantha looks down the pallet, managing to wiggle her toes. They’re so close, she knows she can’t be much older than Rebecca. If they gave her a dose of water from the Fountain of Youth, how small would she be then? She couldn’t let that happen.

Samantha tries to get out of bed, but Miss Brigham pushes her back down onto the pallet. “You have to let me go. You can’t let them give me any more. I don’t want to be a baby!”

Miss Brigham smiles at this, a haunting smile that chills Samantha. “It’s not so bad, dear, once you get used to it.”

Samantha screams and then opens her eyes to find herself still on a straw pallet. A hand touches her forehead. She turns to find Miss Brigham sitting beside the pallet, a smile coming to her face just like in the dream.

“Did you have a nightmare, dear?”

“I had a terrible dream. I dreamed I was Prudence, only I was a toddler and you were going to make me a baby—” She stops at the reflection in a pitcher of water: the reflection of a chubby toddler with red hair pulled into a bun. “But I’m not Prudence. I’m not little!”

“Well then, dear, who are you?”

“I’m Samantha. Don’t you remember Samantha?”

“Of course I do, dear. Samantha is right here.” Miss Brigham picks up something next to Samantha on the pallet. She holds up a doll with bronze skin and black hair. Miss Brigham presses the doll into Samantha’s hands. “There she is, right beside you as always. She was here the whole time.”

“But I’m Samantha. I’m not a doll. I’ve lived here for five years now—”

“That would be quite impossible, dear. You only turned three years old last week.”

“I’m not three. I’m twelve. This isn’t right. This is another nightmare. It’s not real. It’s not.”

Miss Brigham presses her down against the pallet again. “You mustn’t get so upset, dear. You’ll make yourself more ill. Try to get some rest and when you wake up you’ll feel like yourself again. And don’t worry, Samantha will be right here with you.” Miss Brigham leaves the doll in Samantha’s lap before sauntering out of the room.

Samantha picks up the pitcher of water with a tiny, trembling hand. Staring at the chubby little face looking back, she begins to cry. The face in the pitcher turns red, tears forming in its eyes as well as hers.

Those eyes she sees are brown. Samantha’s eyes. Not Prudence’s eyes. I am still Samantha. I am real. This is all a dream. A nightmare. It’s her. Kiaba, again trying to trick her with an illusion of herself as a powerless little girl.

“It won’t work. You can’t stop me!”

Samantha’s eyes shot open. This time she found herself in darkness. Only a distant spot on the horizon confirmed she hadn’t gone blind. Running her hands over her big stomach, she concluded she was still Prudence but not a toddler like in the nightmare.

“It’s not much farther,” Prudence said. “Through there.”

Samantha followed Prudence’s instructions through a dark corridor underground and to a narrow, ragged opening in the wall. The opening revealed a chamber similar to the native tomb on the beach, only there were no bodies here, just a simple clay box. The lid of the box contained the symbol of Kiaba—a woman with the head of a serpent. This is it, Samantha thought. The box where the natives had imprisoned her evil soul for over a thousand years.

“It will do you no good,” Kiaba hissed in Samantha’s ear.

Samantha looked about her, but again saw no one else in the room. She hefted the clay box, struggling with the weight of it. After a few steps, she sagged to the ground, needing to catch her breath.

“You can’t do it. You’re too weak. As weak as fat Prudence. And that fool Miss Brigham. And sweet little Rebecca. And of course brave little Annie. None of them could stand up to me and neither can you.”

Samantha said nothing. She hefted the box again and plowed on through the caverns, determined to make it for Prudence, Miss Brigham, Rebecca, Annie, and all the rest. So no one ever again would have to suffer like they had. And with this, she once more knew who she was.

Chapter 32: Order of Battle

2007-06-15T09:15:00.001-07:00

Chapter 32: Order of Battle

Once again Samantha found herself huffing and puffing along behind everyone else, Miss Brigham clutched to her sagging bosom. The baby had quieted the instant Samantha picked her up; the jiggling of Samantha’s double-chin lulling Miss Brigham into a peaceful slumber. This both pleased and dismayed Samantha. She was glad the baby wasn’t crying during their flight into the forest but felt uneasy about her fat being the reason for little Molly’s silence.

To get her mind off this, she considered the success of her plan so far. David and Wendell had created a distraction, allowing Samantha to retrieve Rebecca just in time. Another minute and Miss Brigham would have a twin sister. While Samantha would have preferred to rescue the other children before they could end up like Annie, at this point she didn’t have a safe place to hide twenty-five children. Better to focus on dealing with Kiaba once and for all.

Ahead of Samantha, Rebecca fingered the holes in her neck, the loose folds of her now-oversized dress flapping as she ran. The child still didn’t remember anything, though at least now she didn’t believe Kiaba to be her mother. Instead, she thought Kiaba had stolen her real mother away. This was a half-truth since the woman Rebecca described as her mother was actually Samantha. Samantha had comforted Rebecca, dressed her wounds, and kissed her goodnight for these last five years.

The thought of this nearly brought tears to Samantha’s eyes. These last two days she’d thought of nothing but leaving the island to escape from Rebecca and the other children, not fully understanding how they saw her. To them, she was the closest thing to a mother they could remember. Miss Brigham—before she became an infant wearing soiled diapers—had always been a teacher and a spiritual leader, but not a mother. Not that she didn’t love or care about the children—Samantha knew Miss Brigham loved all the children on Eternity, especially her—but her position always kept her at a distance. She was a favorite aunt who visited frequently, but didn’t stay around. That job had fallen to Samantha. Only now as she huffed and puffed through the forest did she understand how much she enjoyed the role.

Rebecca’s shoes, now a size too big for her feet, caught a rock in the path. Even without Molly in her arms, Samantha knew she couldn’t have caught Rebecca with her flabby biceps and sausage link fingers. Rebecca tumbled forward to the ground, where she remained, wailing almost as loud as Miss Brigham.

Samantha knelt down beside her to inspect the damage. Other than a skinned knee and a small cut to her palm, Rebecca wasn’t badly hurt. The hurt came more to her mind than her body, Samantha knew. Nevertheless, she tore a strip from her own ragged, dirty garment to dab at the blood. “You’ll be all right,” Samantha said. “It’s not too bad.”

The scrape on her knee and hand didn’t seem to bother Rebecca so much as the holes in her neck. “Why did she make Mommy go away? Why does she want to hurt us?” Rebecca asked.

“That’s hard to say, sweetie. Some people are just not very nice. Not like you.”

“Where did Mommy go? I miss her.”

“I know you do, sweetie, but she’ll be back soon. Until then you have to be strong for her. Can you do that?”

The little girl nodded. Samantha wiped Rebecca’s tears away. As she did so, Samantha looked for any sign of her friend in the girl’s eyes. She saw only those of a scared child. That would make what Samantha had to ask now much more difficult.

“What’s wrong with the baby?” David asked. He and Wendell appeared from the trees, looking haggard but uninjured.

“I’m not a baby,” Rebecca said, pouting like a baby.

“Why did you even bring her along? She’s going to ruin everything. She’ll probably tell her mommy on us,” David said.

“Leave Rebecca alone,” Samantha said. “Did you lose her?”

“I think so,” Wendell answered. “We hid over by Miss Brigham’s house until she went by and then came out here like you said.”

The mention of Miss Brigham caused the baby to open her eyes. Samantha stroked little Molly’s hair, trying to soothe her. The last thing they needed was for the baby to start crying and draw Kiaba to them. Miss Brigham’s face turned red, her eyes filling with tears. At the last moment, Samantha averted a disaster by shaking her head back and forth, letting the flap of skin under her jaw dance around until Miss Brigham fell asleep again.

“That’s disgusting,” David said. “I don’t know why we’re following you. Even if you are Samantha in there, you’re still Prudence outside.”

“What’s outside doesn’t matter,” she said. Until waking up in the barn she would have taken David arm to pin it behind his back. Instead, she took a step towards him, her gut pressing against his waist. With little effort, she used her bulk to nudge him back a step.

“We don’t have time for this,” Wendell said. “We have to get out of here before she finds us.”

“You guys know where to go?” Samantha asked.

“We know,” Wendell said. David grunted in agreement.

“Good. I’ll meet you there with her. Now Rebecca,” Samantha said, pausing to kneel down in front of Rebecca again, “I need you to look after Molly.”

“But she’s a baby and she stinks,” Rebecca whined.

“I know, sweetie, but someone has to take care of her.” Samantha brushed curls away from Rebecca’s face. “This is an important, big-girl job. Can you do it?”

“I’m a big girl,” Rebecca said with pride.

“Good. There’s a cabin across the island, all the way to the sea almost. Take Molly and wait for us there.”

“But I want to help you rescue Mommy.” Rebecca started to cry again. “You think I’m a baby. That’s why you don’t want me around to help.”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately? You are a baby,” David said. Before Samantha could react, he ripped the bow out of Rebecca’s hair, throwing it to the ground. He smiled as her tears became sobs. “You can’t trust this weak little baby to do anything. She’ll get lost.”

Samantha glared at him, resisting the urge to flatten him as she’d done earlier. “You and Wendell go get started. Rebecca and I will handle this.”

“Come on, Wendy, let’s leave the babies alone.”

“Don’t call me that!” Wendell hissed as he and David tromped back into the trees.

Samantha set Miss Brigham on the ground, hugging Rebecca to her chest. “It’s all right, sweetie. He doesn’t mean to say such terrible things. He’s upset about losing your Mommy, like we all are.”

“It’s not fair. Mommy’s gone and everyone hates me and treats me like a baby. I’m not!” She stamped the ground for emphasis, her eyes flashing with a fire Samantha recognized as the old Rebecca.

“I know you aren’t, sweetie. But this is a very important job. We can’t let anything happen to Molly or else Mommy will be terribly upset. Do you understand?”

“I guess so.”

“Good girl.” Samantha picked up the bow, tying it back into place. At this, Rebecca’s face brightened.

“I won’t let Mommy down,” Rebecca said.

Before Rebecca could take the baby, Samantha sniffed the air. “We better change her first.” She used more of the remaining sheet to fashion an impromptu diaper. Watching Miss Brigham flail around as she was changed brought tears to Samantha’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Then she set the baby into Rebecca’s arms. The little girl set out, waving one last time before disappearing in the direction of Pryde’s cottage. Samantha waited until they were gone before setting out on her own mission.

Chapter 31: Rebecca Realizes

2007-06-15T09:14:00.002-07:00

Chapter 31: Rebecca Realizes

Rebecca didn’t understand why everyone hated her. Bad enough stupid little Molly kept crying no matter what Rebecca did, but then that fat meanie Prudence came into Mommy’s house to scream at her. Even worse, that little bully Wendell hit her on the head, which still ached this morning when she woke up to find the soft pillow that was Prudence’s tummy missing.

Before she could even look around to find out where the fat meanie had gone, a boy grabbed her by the front of her pretty dress. The boy had dirt and blood smudged all over and he smelled terrible, worse even than the barn. His fingers dug into her skin while his eyes narrowed into slits.

“Rebecca?” he said.

Her mouth didn’t work with this terrible boy squeezing her, so she nodded her head slightly. At this, he threw her to the ground, where she landed on the sand next to Molly. The baby’s eyes opened and a wail so much larger than her body came from her lips.

“Look what you did. You woke her up,” Rebecca said.

“Rebecca, what happened to you?”

“A mean little boy hit me on the head and then dragged me here and then I woke up and you scared me,” she said. “I want to go home to Mommy. Will you take me back?”

“Mommy? You don’t have a mommy. None of us do. Not even her. Which one is she?”

“That’s Molly. You’re as bad as that meanie Prudence, trying to confuse me about Mommy.”

The boy grabbed her again, this time kneeling down and nearly crushing her shoulders with his hands. “What did she do to you? Don’t you remember anything at all? Don’t you remember us? You have to remember something.”

Tears came to Rebecca’s eyes as the boy’s hands gripped her shoulders tighter. “You’re hurting me,” she said.

“Damn it, Rebecca, you have to remember! This isn’t you. You aren’t a baby—”

“I’m not a baby,” she said, stamping her foot. “I’m six years old. I’m a big girl.”

“Six? Rebecca, you’re nine. Don’t you remember? We had a big birthday party for you three months ago. I gave you a new broom because you kept saying you needed one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m six years old. Mommy told me so. She threw me a party with a big cake and balloons and lots of nice presents, not some silly broom.”

The boy looked down at the ground. When he looked up again, he had tears in his eyes. He roughly shoved her forward so that their lips met. No matter how she tried to squirm out of his embrace, he kept hold of her, sucking the life from her.

He finally pulled away, leaving her gasping for breath. “Do you remember that?” he asked.

She shook her head and began to cry. “Leave me alone,” she said between gasps.

“Fine. If you want to be a baby, go ahead. I didn’t care about you anyway. You’re just a stupid girl like all the rest.” He scooped Molly of the ground, shoving the crying baby into Rebecca’s hands. “You two babies deserve each other.”

The mean boy stormed away, leaving Rebecca cradling Molly in her arms. The baby’s face had turned red and a terrible smell came from her diaper. “I’m not a baby,” Rebecca said. “I’m not like you. I’m going home to find Mommy.”

She left Molly screaming in the sand with her soiled diaper and then stormed away in the opposite direction of the boy. She didn’t care about him or his gross kisses. She just wanted to go home and snuggle up to Mommy like she had Prudence the night before. She wanted to feel Mommy’s warmth against her, comforting her with its promise of safety. Nothing bad could happen with Mommy around.

The fields were so large and the stalks of grain reaching up to her eyeballs to keep her from seeing anything. She wandered among the rows of wheat, thinking back to what Prudence and then the boy had said. She knew they were wrong. Mommy was her mommy. Rebecca knew that as well as she knew her own name. She remembered Mommy saying how much she loved Rebecca. She remembered Mommy kissing her goodnight on the forehead. She remembered Mommy singing to her when she fell and skinned her knee. These weren’t things a stranger would do; these were the things a mommy did. Her mommy.

At last she stomped out of the maze of wheat, sighing with relief to see Mommy’s house at the base of the hill. She skipped towards the house, thinking of how happy Mommy would be to see her again. Mommy would hug and kiss her and say how terribly worried she’d been. She might even scold Rebecca for running off, but Rebecca would tell her what had happened—how the mean little boy had hit her—and then they would kiss again and Mommy would put her to bed and promise everything would be all right from now on. And Rebecca would know then everything would be all right because Mommy said so.

Rebecca opened the door to find Mommy asleep on her mattress in the corner of the room. Mommy snores sounded like a fierce animal growling. For a moment Rebecca considered leaving again, but she didn’t want to go back to the beach with those awful people.

So she climbed into bed, pressing herself against Mommy and then shivered. Mommy’s skin felt like ice to the touch. She didn’t feel warm and soothing like Rebecca’s dream or even the fat girl’s tummy last night. A horrible thought struck her: maybe Mommy had been so stricken with grief at Rebecca’s disappearance that she’d died. Could dead people snore?

In a panic, she shook Mommy until Mommy at last rolled over. “What do you want?” Mommy said.

“Mommy, it’s me. Rebecca.”

“So what?”

Rebecca started to cry again. She described Wendell knocking her on the head and the other boy yelling at her and her escape. “Didn’t you miss me?”

Mommy patted her on the head. “Of course I did. You’re my sweet, sweet little girl.” Mommy’s fingers brushed curls from the right side of Rebecca’s necks and then stroked the skin there. “So sweet.”

“Mommy, what are you doing?”

“I think you would look even cuter as a baby. A tiny, tiny little baby.” Mommy’s eyes glowed red.

A wave of nausea swept over Rebecca. She imagined herself becoming smaller and smaller, until she was a baby like Molly in a stinky diaper and crying all the time. “I don’t want to be a baby, Mommy. I want to be—”

She broke off as Mommy leaned forward, sharp fangs positioned over Rebecca’s neck. Rebecca screamed, kicking and clawing at Mommy, who gripped her even tighter than the mean boy on the beach. “Mommy, please, don’t.”

The fangs bit into Rebecca’s flesh. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. She couldn’t move as the fangs plunged in deeper. Her dress became looser and before long she imagined she would be a helpless baby just like Molly.

A crash came from outside and suddenly Rebecca was free. Mommy flew to the door, hissing like a snake. “I’ll finish with you later,” Mommy said before bursting outside.

Rebecca lay on the bed, rubbing the holes in her neck. Mommy had tried to hurt her, to make her into a little baby. Rebecca held up her hands, noticing the looseness of her dress. She wasn’t six years old anymore. Now she was five or even younger. Almost a baby. Why would Mommy do this?

Because she wasn’t Rebecca’s real mommy, just like Prudence and the boy on the beach had said. Whoever this cold, mean person who looked so much like Mommy was, she wasn’t Rebecca’s mother. She didn’t have one. She didn’t have anyone now. Everyone hated her.

“Rebecca, are you all right?” Prudence asked. She turned Rebecca to face her. Only then did her chubby face recoil in a wince. “What did she do to you?”

“She bit me,” Rebecca said. “Am I a baby now?”

“No, of course not. You’re a big girl and there’s a very special big girl thing I need you to do for me.”

Chapter 30: Samantha Returns

2007-06-15T09:14:00.001-07:00

Chapter 30: Samantha Returns

Another skill Samantha found she’d gained from Kiaba’s bite was the ability to swim. Wading into the sea, she felt the pounds melting away until she felt like nothing at all. She felt like she could float all the way to the mainland like a piece of driftwood.

The waves carried her away from the beach where she’d waded into the water, pushing her along the coast. She paddled with the current, her limbs working in the coordinated way she’d never been able to master before. With any luck, the current would shoot her past Eternity into the open water and then eventually wash her up somewhere else, somewhere free of Kiaba’s influence.

From there she didn’t know what would happen. She would have to start over again in a strange place in a strange body. This didn’t scare her nearly as much as staying on Eternity to face Kiaba’s wrath, to watch more of her friends die like Annie while she was too scared to help.

So as she ran along the beach after leaving Rebecca and Molly, she stared at the moonlight reflecting off the water and made her plan. She tried to console herself about abandoning her friends by thinking on the mainland she might find some way to get help to them. Once she reached the mainland, she could get help from the police or the army or somebody with more strength and courage than her.

Another wave came up, slamming into her. The wave tipped her over, pushing her beneath the surface. Water filled her mouth and nose and for a moment she thought she might drown. Then her head broke the surface, she spit out the water, and managed to get air into her lungs. She floated there a moment until she recovered enough to resume paddling.

As she glided through the water, she imagined herself as a whale heading out to sea. A white, redheaded whale. She laughed at how silly that must look. She sprayed water from her mouth, imagining it was her blowhole. I hope there aren’t any hunters nearby, she thought.

Her arms tired after a few minutes, restoring the heaviness of her entire body. Her ability to swim vanished in the blink of an eye. She was no longer a whale, but a rock. A rock sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

Sinking to the bottom, she saw the red eyes glaring down at her from the surface. “I told you I would find you,” Kiaba said. “Go on and sink like a big, fat stone. That’s what you are now. Useless as a stone in the ocean. Everyone knows it.”

She’s right, Samantha thought. She was as useless to everyone as a stone in the sea. Why did she think it would be any different on the mainland? She would always be a fat coward, no good to anyone who needed her.

Like Annie. Poor little Annie had warned Samantha not to go into the caverns. Samantha hadn’t listened then. And when Annie needed her help, she stood by and watched Kiaba suck the life from her. Even in this body there must have been something she could have done. Some way she could have saved Annie.

None of it mattered anymore. Annie was dead and in another few moments Samantha would be as well. No, not Samantha. Samantha had died in those caverns. This thing she was now—not Samantha, not Prudence, not Miss Brigham, not Rebecca, but some horrible concoction of the four—would soon be dead. What then?

In Heaven, who would she be? What would she be? Maybe she would be all four of them, everything sifted out like wheat kernels from the chaff. That part of her that was still Samantha would be reunited with her parents again. Not an illusion like in the caverns. For real this time and forever.

In the next moment, the sea rejected her, depositing her back on the beach like a stone. She lay in the sand for a few moments in disbelief at still being alive. To make sure, she pinched a roll of fat with her hands, wincing out of pain and sadness. She was still here, still in this flabby body.

Ahead of her, she saw the opening to the native tomb. She crawled towards it, thinking she might curl up in there with the native warriors to sleep alongside them until all this fat decomposed, leaving only bones. At last she would be skinny.

She didn’t fit in the opening. No matter how hard she tried to suck in her stomach, she couldn’t fit. She tried to burrow sand away from the opening, to dredge it enough so she could squeeze through. After a few minutes her fingers were bloody and the opening no bigger.

Samantha flopped onto the sand, staring down the passage. Rivulets of water still coursed through the passage from where the water had seeped in during the hurricane. One of these rivulets carried something down with it: a finger bone.

Clapping both hands to her mouth, she kept herself from screaming. Then she picked up the bone, examining the ring affixed to the finger. The ring was made of a stone like the ones she’d used for the idol’s eyes. An image of a snake-headed woman wielding lightning bolts was carved into the stone.

As she studied the ring, Kiaba’s words in the meadow came back to her. The natives had served her as slaves. But somehow they had found the courage to rise against her. These warriors entombed in the chamber had killed her—physically, at least. Her evil spirit remained trapped somewhere underground for thousands of years until Prudence unwittingly released it.

The natives had stopped Kiaba. But they were fully grown, not children. They especially were not so fat they couldn’t run fifty feet without breaking a sweat. These were warriors; she was just a not-so-little girl.

“No matter what happens, you have to remember it’s not what you look like on the outside that matters. It’s who you are inside,” Annie had said to her before the sacrifice. But who was she on the inside? She didn’t know anymore.

“There you are, Fatty. Wendell said you’d run off. I didn’t think you’d get very far,” David said. The dirt smeared on his bare chest was now mixed with dried blood from a pair of deep gashes. Another gash went from the corner of his left eye down to the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said without knowing why.

“You are sorry. My friends are gone and all I have are Wendy, a couple of babies, and a fat pig.” He shoved her head back against the wall hard enough that she heard a ringing in her ears. “I should cut you up just like a pig.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she said, tears coming to her eyes.

“That’s right, you didn’t. Just ran away like a coward. Even pigs are braver than you.”

“Why are you being mean to me? It’s not my fault.”

“My friends are probably dead! What can I do for them now with only a bunch of sissies to help? Huh?” He shoved her against the wall again, hard enough this time to draw blood.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, covering her face with her hands. “It’s not my fault.”

“Get up, you blubbering sow! You’re going to help me get them back.” David snatched her hands away, slapping her across the face for good measure. “Move!”

“I can’t do anything. I’m—” Another slap cut her off. She cried out with pain this time, her tears becoming violent sobs. He hit her again; she collapsed into the sand, burying her face as he pounded on her back, shouting curses at her.

“You no-good coward. Don’t you care about anything other than filling your face?” He punctuated this by kicking her in the ribs.

As Samantha rolled over, she looked up at the rising sun. In it she saw Annie’s face. Poor little Annie, who’d died because of Samantha’s cowardice. Annie’s word echoed in her mind again. Who was she, inside?

“I’m Samantha!” she roared. She grabbed David’s foot in mid-air, toppling him to the ground. As he lay motionless, she flopped onto him, slapping at his face with both hands.

“Samantha, get off him!” Wendell shouted. He tried to pull her back, but she clawed at him as she continued to lie across David’s body, squeezing the air out of him. “You’ll kill him!”

David’s face took on the same bluish tinge as Annie’s. Samantha finally rolled off him, watching the color return to his face with relief. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I—”

“You fat pig,” he said, each word interrupted by a cough. “You could have killed me.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled again. The cuts on his chest had opened up, oozing blood. “If we had some fountain water—”

The Fountain of Youth. Now she understood how they could get rid of Kiaba as the native warriors had thousands of years ago. She outlined the plan to Wendell and David, feeling like herself again.

Chapter 29: NightChapter 29: Night

2007-06-15T09:13:00.001-07:00

Chapter 29: Night

Halfway down the hill, Samantha’s foot caught on a rut, pitching her forward. She rolled the rest of the way, coming to a stop at the base of the hill. She lay where she came to rest, her chest heaving and face drenched with sweat.

Above came the sound of children screaming. The idol continued to burn, sending a stream of black smoke to blot out the sky. Her blood turned cold when she heard an unearthly hiss like that of the snake. She looked back at the idol, thinking it must have come to life. The screams turned to whimpers.

“Prudence, run!” Wendell shouted.

She couldn’t run, not anymore. Her flabby body was too tired to get up and run any farther. What good would it do anyway? Kiaba would find her again; her presence was everywhere on this island. There was nowhere safe to go.

Wendell took her hand, tried to yank her to her feet, but she was too heavy. He collapsed onto her stomach. “If you want to stay here, go ahead, Fatty. You’re no good to anyone anyway.” He looked back up the hill, where the flaming straw was beginning to burn down to cinders. “Do you know where she’s keeping her?”

“Who?”

“Samantha. I looked everywhere for her: the church, the barn, the woodshed—”

“Wendell, I’m Samantha.”

“You? That can’t be. You’re Prudence. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head from that fall?”

“No, I’m Samantha. She did this to me. You have to help me. Please. Get me out of here.” Tears came to her eyes again; her nose started to run. She felt as weak and helpless as little Molly.

Wendell looked her in the eyes, his mouth twitching with shock. “It is you. My God, what did she do to you?” He waved away her attempt to explain. “Tell me later. We have to get you out of here.”

With him pulling and her pushing, she managed to get upright again. She lumbered behind Wendell along the path towards the beach. As they neared the woodshed, she heard Molly cry out again. “We can’t leave Miss Brigham here,” she said.

“That’s Miss Brigham?” Wendell shook his head, but followed Samantha to the woodshed.

Inside, Rebecca cowered in a corner while Miss Brigham cried from the straw pallet, her tiny limbs flailing. She quieted when Samantha picked her up and stroked her wispy hair.

“What’s going on? Where’s Mommy?” Rebecca asked.

“Come on, Rebecca, we have to go,” Samantha said.

“That’s Rebecca? This is crazy.”

“I don’t want to go with you. You’re a big meanie.”

“I’m sorry, Rebecca, but it’s not safe here. Some very bad things are happening and if you stay here, you could get hurt. You have to believe me.”

“I don’t care what you say. I want Mommy.”

“Who’s Mommy?” Wendell asked.

“Her,” Samantha said.

Wendell shook his head. “Fine, leave her here with Mommy then. We have to leave now before she catches us.”

With great effort, Samantha knelt down in front of little Rebecca. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But we can’t stay here. It’s not safe.” When Rebecca still didn’t move, Samantha added, “Mommy sent us to take you to the beach, where you’ll be safe. She wants you to come with us. Now be a good girl and do what Mommy says.”

“You’re lying! Mommy would never want me to go with you.”

“Let’s go!” Wendell said, prompting Molly to resume crying.

“Rebecca, please. We’re out of time. We have to go—”

Wendell ended the conversation by clubbing Rebecca over the head with the butt of a spear. He caught the little girl as she fell, dragging her towards the door. “Let’s go.”

“What about David and the others?”

“They can take care of themselves.”

Samantha followed Wendell into the fields, cradling Miss Brigham in her arms. She whispered snatches of nursery rhymes that popped into her head, as much to comfort herself as Molly. Her words came more slowly the farther they went and the harder it became for her to get air into her lungs. She took one hand off the baby to wipe the sweat dripping into her eyes, wondered how much farther they had to go.

Her pace quickened when she heard something crash in the wheat behind them. She thought she saw a pair of red eyes between the stalks of weed, red eyes boring into her. After a moment the eyes disappeared, but Samantha knew they would still be there, watching her. There was no escape.

At last she heard the waves crashing against the seashore. They had made it this far. Samantha gratefully sank onto a bench of Pryde’s old boat. The bench snapped beneath her after a moment, dumping her onto the ground. Only by digging her nails into Miss Brigham’s tender skin did Samantha manage to keep the baby from being impaled on a piece of the splintered board.

The broken bench opened the floodgates in her eyes. Her gut heaved with sobs, prompting her to cry even harder. “It’s not fair,” she said. “I’m nothing but a fat, useless baby anymore. I’m nothing.”

Wendell left the unconscious Rebecca on the sand, coming over to pat Samantha’s hair. “You may be fat, but you aren’t useless. You—”

“I didn’t do anything. You saved me and Rebecca and Miss Brigham. You and David and Mark and Paul. I didn’t do anything. I stood there while she killed Annie. I stood there and watched because I was too scared.”

“Samantha—”

“Leave me alone! You’re better off without me slowing you down anyway. Take Rebecca and Molly and find somewhere to hide. I’ll just lie here like a beached whale.”

“I guess I was right. You aren’t Samantha,” Wendell said.

She listened to him walk away, the sound of his breathing growing faint. In her arms, Molly squirmed, reaching out to touch the flap of skin beneath Samantha’s jaw. The baby giggled at this while Samantha continued to bawl, looking down at the food stains on the sheet she wore as a dress—the only thing big enough to cover her.

All she was good for now was for everyone to laugh at, including the baby. Kiaba had taken away her strength and courage, reducing her to a coward, an object of ridicule. Everything special about herself was gone, replaced by blubber and blubbering. No wonder Kiaba hadn’t wanted to use her for a sacrifice; no wonder she’d taken brave little Annie instead.

“Your strength becomes my strength,” Kiaba had said. Now Samantha understood what had happened to her in the caverns. Kiaba had exchanged Samantha’s strength for Prudence and Miss Brigham’s weaknesses. This fat thing she’d become was nothing more than the leftover garbage, the byproduct of the experiment.

“I’m nothing,” she repeated to Miss Brigham.

The baby continued jiggling Samantha’s double chin without concern. After a few minutes, little Molly grew tired of the game, cooing softly to Samantha before falling asleep.

Samantha rolled over onto her side, setting Miss Brigham on the ground beside her so she wouldn’t crush the baby. While Molly slept peacefully, Samantha cried silently for the waste of flesh she’d become.

Her eyelids finally began to droop when she felt someone wriggle up next to her. She reached out a hand to feel a curly head of hair tucked against her stomach. “Rebecca?”

“It’s scary out here. I want Mommy. I want to go home.”

“I know, dear. We all do. Goodnight.”

Samantha fell asleep at last. In her dreams, mountains of cake, forests of cookies, and rivers of hot fudge surrounded her. She gobbled the landscape around her with both hands, her stomach inflating more and more. Before long, not even a sheet would fit her. Still her stomach pleaded for more, more, more. She waddled along, devouring the trees, flowers, and even the clouds of cotton candy until she could no longer move.

She lay on her back, the mountain of fat protruding from her midsection blotting out the sun. Day turned to night around her while she reached out for whatever she could find to stuff into her mouth. As the stars came out, she saw two of them were blood-red. They glowed brighter than all the rest and no matter how she turned her head, they followed her.

A laugh rumbled across the edible landscape. “There’s nowhere for you to run. I’ll always find you.” Kiaba descended from the night sky to crouch at Samantha’s neck.

Samantha woke up before the fangs sank into her neck. She touched there, feeling only smooth skin. Beside her, Rebecca snored into her gut while Molly whimpered in her sleep. The familiar scent of soiled cloth came to Samantha’s nostrils. She soon realized it came not from Molly, but from herself.

She eased Rebecca away before heaving to her feet. Pressing both hands to her stomach, she thought back to the dream. No matter where she went, Kiaba would find her. She only endangered Wendell, Rebecca, and Miss Brigham by staying with them.

She ran again.

Chapter 28: Great Sacrifice

2007-06-15T09:12:00.002-07:00

Chapter 28: Great Sacrifice

As the sky turned to orange, Samantha held up the finished head for the idol. The serpent head glared back at her with its eyes taken from rocks polished to a shine. Its fangs looked sharp enough to tear out someone’s throat; these she had created from chicken bones. The scales on the head came from a patchwork of leaves and grass of varying green shades.

She looked upon her handiwork with a mixture of pride and sadness. She had constructed head alone, the only help coming from one of the boys, who found and broke the chicken bones for her. At the same time, this accomplishment was further proof that she had lost a piece of herself when Kiaba’s fangs sank into her neck. Prudence had created this head, not Samantha. Samantha couldn’t even thread a needle without help.

Ever since first waking up in Eternity, she had wondered who she was. As time went by, she didn’t learn her name or where she came from, but she did learn certain things about herself, inside. She knew she could read, chop firewood, pick locks, and fight. She knew she couldn’t swim, cook, or sew.

With one bite, everything about her changed and once more she didn’t know who she was inside or out. As much as she tried to tell herself she was Samantha, she didn’t know who Samantha really was. The girl she had been for the last five years might have only been as real as one of Kiaba’s illusions. This fat girl able to sew and weave so beautifully might be her true self after all.

Kiaba interrupted her thoughts by tearing the head from her hands. “Nice work, Fatty. I knew you could do it.”

Samantha stared down at the ground; she didn’t want to look this woman who so resembled her mother in the eye. “Thank you.”

Kiaba raised her voice so everyone could hear. “You have done well, children. Rest now before the sacrifice.”

Rebecca toddled forward then, carrying a pot of something foul-smelling. “I made it all by myself,” she said, setting the pot in front of Samantha.

Despite the terrible smell, Samantha’s stomach growled in anticipation. Before she could reach a hand into the pot, Kiaba wrenched her backwards.

“You’re fat enough already,” Kiaba said.

“But I’m hungry,” Samantha said.

“You’ll always be hungry. Get used to it.”

Samantha looked down at the ground again, listening as the other children feasted on Rebecca’s awful concoction. The growling in Samantha’s stomach grew louder and angrier until it sounded in her ears like waves pounding against the shore.

As soon as Kiaba walked away, a handful of sticky goop hit Samantha in the chest. “There you go, meanie,” Rebecca said. Helena and Phyllis giggled at this.

Samantha stared at the stain on her sheet, the growling in her stomach urging her to take it. To the delight of Rebecca, Helena and Phyllis, Samantha licked the food off the front of her dress. As she finished, tears came to her eyes for what she had done. And yet her stomach continued to rumble, urging her to eat more.

More handfuls of food pelted her as the other children laughed. She continued to cry and eat what she could suck off the sheet or comb out of her hair, trying to silence the voice in her gut. Still it demanded more and more.

The children finally ran out of food, leaving Samantha to lay on the ground, sobbing into the grass. A hand touched Samantha’s back. She looked up to see Annie kneeling beside her. “Leave me alone.”

“It’s almost time, Samantha.”

“Time for what?”

“The sacrifice.” Annie looked down at the ground. “No matter what happens, you have to remember it’s not what you look like on the outside that matters. It’s who you are inside.”

A whistle brought them both to attention. Kiaba stood next to the finished idol that loomed over everything in the meadow. “Children, the time has come. One of you will be sacrificed to add your strength to my own. Form a line so I may choose which of you will give yourself to me.”

The children shuffled into a circle around the idol, the girls on one half and the boys in the other. Kiaba walked along the circle, looking into each child’s eyes. She paused at some to lift up their chins, study their necks.

Samantha looked down at the ground, her entire body trembling as she felt Kiaba staring at her. “Not you, Fatty. Not yet. Your suffering will continue,” Kiaba said.

Kiaba came next to Annie. She looked into the girl’s eyes, studied her neck, and then nodded. “You’ll do.”

In the past, Samantha knew she would have done something. She would have launched into one of her flying kicks, chopped at Kiaba’s neck, or tossed Kiaba over her shoulder. At the very least, she would have said something brave like, “Take me instead of her.”

She did nothing. Her knees quivered, her gut churned, and her hands shook, but she did nothing to help Annie. Through tear-filled eyes, she watched Kiaba lead Annie up to the platform, laying her at the feet of the idol.

“Mommy, what’s going on?” Rebecca asked.

“Nothing, sweetie. You run on home to feed Molly.”

“But—”

“Go!” Kiaba’s eyes flared red with rage, driving Rebecca away in a panicked gallop.

Something in Samantha told her this would be the time to lunge forward, grab Annie, and make a break for safety. Her legs wouldn’t move, though. She remained standing beside the other girls, shaking with the same fear of those red eyes that had driven Rebecca away.

Cowering with the other children, Samantha watched Kiaba pin Annie to the platform, turning her head to face the idol. “Your blood will merge with my blood. Your strength with my strength,” Kiaba chanted.

Annie didn’t scream. She didn’t cry out. She didn’t flinch as Kiaba’s fangs sunk into her neck. Even as her body turned pale and shrank within her dress, she didn’t make a sound or move a muscle, as though she were resigned to her fate.

Samantha watched Annie’s skin turn white, tinged around the edges with blue. She watched Annie’s hair turn nearly the same shade of white. She watched Annie’s body shrink into that of a toddler, a year or possibly two older than Molly in the woodshed. She watched and cowered and hated herself for being relieved it wasn’t her on the platform instead of Molly.

Kiaba seemed to swell up as she gorged on Annie’s blood. Her hair changed from black to a dark brown. Her skin lost some of its bronze coloring. But her eyes turned a brighter red, the color of Annie’s blood. She raised her head from Annie’s neck and then touched the puncture marks to wipe off the last drops. These she wiped at the foot of the idol.

So intent on watching the sacrifice, Samantha didn’t notice the streak of flame arcing through the night sky until it struck the center of the idol’s chest. Flames engulfed the dry straw at once. Samantha hated herself again for gasping at the destruction of her beautiful handiwork.

“Savages!” David shouted. Three more flaming spears landed on the idol. David, Mark, and Paul charged up the hill, bare-chested and smeared with dirt.

Another dirt-smeared hand touched Samantha’s shoulder. “Run!” Wendell hissed into her ear. “Meet me on the beach.”

Samantha ran.

Chapter 27: Idol Worship

2007-06-15T09:12:00.001-07:00

Chapter 27: Idol Worship

The woodshed had been emptied out, the logs in heaps between the shed and the barn. “That’s where Mommy sleeps,” Rebecca said. “She doesn’t like bright lights.”

Samantha hardly registered this comment. She was too focused on the jiggling of her fat. With every step she took, the saggy masses under her arms shook, the gut sagging over her waist bounced, and the flabby protrusions between her legs chafed together. No matter how carefully she walked, it happened every time. Even when she pressed her arms close to her body and shuffled her legs, she still felt the arm fat wobbling and thigh fat grinding together. She hugged herself, using her fingers to steady the arm fat to lessen the jiggling effect and waddled along with her legs as far apart as possible to minimize the thigh chafing.

Samantha supposed it had been easier for Prudence, who had always been fat. She didn’t know anything else. All this jiggling around probably hadn’t bothered her. For Samantha it felt like walking around with sandbags hanging from her arms and midsection.

By the time they reached the doorway of the woodshed, Samantha felt sweat popping up on her brow though it wasn’t hot. Her cheeks felt warm to the touch from the simple exertion of walking. This nearly brought tears to her eyes; she used to be able to run all the way from the fields to the top of the meadow without getting winded. Now she couldn’t go a hundred feet without needing a breather.

“It’s not much farther,” Rebecca chirped. She skipped ahead of Samantha, her own paunch jiggling beneath the pink dress. In a few years, Samantha imagined Rebecca as large as her, gasping for breath at the woodshed door. Rebecca had always been a chubby girl, but Samantha couldn’t remember her being so heavy either. Prudence must have done something similar to her as well.

That would also explain Rebecca’s memory loss and her delusions about “Mommy.” The obvious question was why Prudence would do these things to her friends, to the people who loved her. How could she hurt and humiliate them this way?

Then Samantha thought back to the scene in the dining hall. The way she’d made fun of Prudence’s weight. She had humiliated her best friend, betrayed her to the scorn and mocking of everyone else. Samantha put a hand to her bulging stomach. That was the payback, Prudence’s revenge for that betrayal.

But what about Rebecca? She hadn’t done anything to Prudence. Rebecca had never done anything to anyone; she was too sweet of a girl to hurt anyone else. What could she have done to earn Prudence’s hatred?

A baby’s wail shook Samantha out of her thoughts. The cry sounded familiar to her. She thought back to the vision in the cavern. Little Molly, her red-haired, green-eyed sister. There were no infants left on Eternity, unless someone created one with water from the Fountain of Youth.

“Oh my God,” Samantha whispered. She lumbered towards the woodshed, her breath coming out in puffs as she tried to run.

The baby continued to cry as Samantha made her way to the woodshed. Inside, she found the baby lying naked on a straw pallet covered with cloth rags. As Samantha had suspected, this was the same baby from her dream in the caverns. She knelt down beside the pallet, reaching out to caress the baby girl’s wispy red hair. “Miss Brigham, what did they do to you?”

“That’s Molly. She’s always crying. Mommy says she has cowlick,” Rebecca said.

“Colic,” Samantha said. For an ordinary baby that might make sense, but Samantha knew the real reason little Molly cried. She was a grown woman trapped in the body of a helpless child, unable to talk, walk, or feed herself. She could only cry out in rage and sorrow at being trapped in such a fashion.

Molly’s crying took on a new intensity when Samantha leaned over her. “No, Molly, I’m not Prudence. I’m Samantha. Look in my eyes. You see?”

The baby’s crying turned to a soft cooing. She reached out to touch Samantha’s nose and giggled.

“That’s right. It’s me. I’m going to find a way to bring you back. To get us both back to normal.” As Samantha heaved to her feet, she doubted what she could do to help Miss Brigham. Still, she kissed Molly’s forehead. “You’ll be fine, dear.”

“Are you done playing with the stupid baby?” Rebecca asked.

“She’s not a stupid baby. She was your teacher, your friend. Don’t you remember Miss Brigham? Don’t you remember anything at all?”

Rebecca’s lip trembled as if she were about to cry. “You’re trying to confuse me again,” she said.

“Come on, let’s find Mommy.”

They left Miss Brigham in the woodshed and head up the hill to the meadow. Before they even got halfway, Samantha needed to rest, sweat running down her face, into her eyes. Her stomach heaved with each breath as she forced air back into her lungs.

Rebecca flopped down next to her on the grass. She picked a handful of blades, tossing them into the wind. Sweat dotted her forehead and wet circles showed beneath the arms of her dress. “I wish I could go swimming, but Mommy says I’m too little to go alone,” she said.

“You like swimming?”

“Yes. When I was a baby, Mommy used to hold me in the water and let me kick and paddle.”

“That wasn’t Mommy, Rebecca. That was me. Samantha. I wasn’t much bigger than you are now at the time. Do you remember? I tried to teach you, but you were always a better swimmer than me. You didn’t need my help.”

“You’re lying. It wasn’t you. It was Mommy. You’re just trying to confuse me again. You’re a wicked, wicked girl!” Rebecca got to her feet and stomped up the hill.

Samantha tried to follow, but by the time she managed to get upright, Rebecca was out of sight. Chugging up the hill, Samantha heard the sound of hammers pounding. The sound became louder as she neared the top.

The boys were using some of the logs from the woodshed to build a pedestal. They pounded each nail with a fury, even the smallest ones, as if their lives depended on driving the nails into the logs. She counted four missing among their number: Wendell, David, Mark, and Paul. Samantha didn’t want to imagine what kind of horrible things Prudence might have done to them.

As for the girls, she found them a short distance away, weaving bits of straw together. They worked with the same intensity as the boys, even Helena, who looked about her as if she expected someone to attack her at any moment. Perhaps bite her on the neck, Samantha thought, touching her own flabby neck.

The goal of their labors became clearer as Samantha got nearer to them. They were fashioning a human being. Some worked on legs with thighs thicker than hers while others wove the arms and others the chest.

Annie turned and bolted towards Samantha, trying to embrace her, although her arms couldn’t get around Samantha’s waist. “Samantha! You’re back,” Annie said.

“How did you know it was me?”

“She couldn’t take away your eyes. That’s where your soul lives,” Annie said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I should have.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Annie flinched, looking about her nervously. “What you have to remember most of all is that you’re still you no matter how big you are. You’ll always be Samantha no matter what she does.”

Before Samantha could say anything, a bronze-colored hand clad in a denim sleeve snatched Annie back by the hair. Annie collapsed to the ground, tears coming to her eyes. Samantha made no move to help her friend, she merely stood rooted in place, a nervous grumble rising in her stomach.

The hand clad in denim was her own, or more accurately, her mother’s. The owner of the hand looked just like her mother in the picture Samantha found in Pryde’s cabin, right down to the clothes Samantha had taken from the pile. The only difference between Mom and this woman was this woman’s eyes glowed a furious red.

Samantha watched her mother scream at Annie with a voice that echoed as if it came from the bottom of a well, “Back to work!” Then Mom turned to her. “I see you finally woke up. The sheet looks good on you.”

“Prudence, is that you? I know you’re mad at me, but why are you doing this to everyone else? Rebecca didn’t hurt you. Miss Brigham didn’t hurt you.”

“I’m not Prudence. Not anymore. I am so much more now, thanks to you. For the first time in an eon I am whole.” She pushed Samantha to her feet. “I am Kiaba and this is my island now and forever.”

“What is it you want,” Samantha asked, her voice shaking along with the rest of her body. Any moment she expected her bladder or bowels to loosen, soiling the sheet like a baby, like Molly in the woodshed.

“What I want is none of your concern. You and the other brats here serve me now.” She motioned to the girls weaving the straw limbs. “They’re making the idol for the sacrifice tonight, but I’ve saved the most important part for you.” Kiaba reached out to take one of Samantha’s hands. “These hooves of yours will fashion the head after my likeness.”

“Your likeness?”

“My true likeness, not this monkey face of yours. You will make me as I truly am.” With that she opened her mouth, baring her fangs and for a moment Samantha saw the head of a great serpent. She thought back to the native tomb and the drawings of a serpent-headed creature with lightning bolts in its hands.

“It was you. That’s who they died fighting.”

“Yes, once upon a time they managed to trap me, to cage me in that infernal box for thousands of years, until your friend Prudence came along to release me. Now you will serve me as they did and this time no one will stop me.”

Kiaba grabbed Samantha by the back of her improvised dress, shoving her towards the crowd of other girls. Samantha landed next to Annie and Helena. A pile of sticks and straw landed on top of her. “Get to work, Fatty. You have until nightfall to complete the task or you die.”

Samantha cowered on the ground until Kiaba walked away and then set to work with trembling hands. Beside her, the other girls worked even faster. No one could save them, not anymore.

Chapter 26: Prudence Returns

2007-06-15T09:11:00.002-07:00

Part III:

The Sisterhood of Eternity

Chapter 26: Prudence Returns

The smell of decay and blood filled Samantha’s nose. Bile rose up in her throat at this smell. She tried to roll over, but something was wrong; she felt something heavy on her chest.

She opened her eyes to see a white sheet covering a lump on her stomach as if someone had stacked pillows on her chest. The lump rose and fell in time with her breathing, the pillows stacked so well her breathing didn’t upset them at all. Why would anyone do this? she wondered.

When she reached out to touch the lump, the bile in her throat came spewing up along with a scream. The fingers on her hand were no longer the tiny, pudgy digits of a child or the long, spindly ones she remembered as a twelve-year-old. These fingers were like five sausage links, swollen and pink.

With one set of these sausage links she tore away the sheet on her chest to reveal a pale lump of flesh. The flesh rose in time with her breathing—it belonged to her. It was her. But she wasn’t fat! As a child she had been a little chunky until a growth spurt around her eighth birthday. She had never been this fat, fat like…Prudence.

The horrible dream came back to Samantha. She had stood in front of the mirror as a small child with a fat woman who was not her mother. A fat woman who claimed to be Prudence. “You’ll be seeing a lot more of me,” she had said. Looking at her pale gut, Samantha understood those words.

She sat up, grunting from the effort. Her pale stomach sagged onto ham-sized thighs. She pinched the doughy flesh, wincing at the pain. This stomach really did belong to her now.

No, this couldn’t be real. It was another trick, like believing herself to be a four-year-old. The ghost wanted her to think she was fat. All Samantha had to do was wake up and she would be back in her skinny body. At this point she would welcome her big feet and boobies.

How could she wake up from this nightmare? She tried slapping herself across the face, but that only brought tears to her eyes. “It’s not real,” she whispered over and over until it became a mantra. “Wake up now. Now.” Still nothing happened.

Something skittered across her short, swollen feet. A mouse disappeared into the straw around her. Only then did Samantha look around her to realize she was in the barn. The smell of decay and blood came from where the roof had caved in over the chicken coop. With great effort, Samantha rolled onto her side to throw up in the straw.

Once she recovered and sat up again, she tried to consider how she’d ended up in the barn. She had gone down to the caverns to look for Rebecca and Miss Brigham, entered Prudence’s old cell, and then found herself as a little girl in her bedroom. So how had she gone from the caverns to the barn? Someone must have dragged her here. Maybe David or Annie had come after her, saved her from the ghost. Or maybe Miss Brigham or Rebecca had found her.

The barn door opened, a shaft of sunlight blinding Samantha. Footsteps crunched along the straw towards her. When her vision cleared, she knew she must be dreaming still.

“Hey there, Prudence,” Rebecca said. She looked exactly as she had in Samantha’s dream, right down to the frilly pink dress and matching ribbon in her curly hair.

“I’m not Prudence. I’m Samantha,” she said, but her voice had the same almost-whispering softness of Prudence’s voice.

“You are not. Mommy said you’re Prudence and she would never, ever lie to me.”

“Mommy? Rebecca, your mommy is dead. So is mine.”

“She is not! Why would you say such a terrible thing?” Tears came to Rebecca’s eyes. She threw a parcel at Samantha’s feet and then turned to run away until Samantha grabbed her arm. “Let me go, you big meanie!”

“Rebecca, I’m sorry. Your mommy isn’t dead. I’m sure she’s a very wonderful person.” Samantha tugged Rebecca down to sit next to her in the straw. “What’s going on here? How did I get here?”

“I don’t know. Now let me go!”

“Rebecca, please, this is very important. How did I get here? How long have I been here? You have to tell me.”

“Mommy brought you here. She said you belonged with the cows and sheep.” Rebecca squirmed free and picked up the parcel. “She sent me to bring you some things. If I’d known how mean you would be to me I wouldn’t have done it.”

“I’m really sorry, Rebecca. I’m not myself right now. Thank you very much for the present.”

Samantha took the parcel from Rebecca, opening it to find clothes, shoes, and other grooming supplies. To her dismay, she held up the white gown in the parcel only to see it was really a sheet with a hole cut in it for her head.

“Mommy said we didn’t have anything big enough to fit you.”

“It’s all right. I’ll make do.” She slipped the sheet over her head, using a cord of rope from a bundle of straw to cinch the sheet around her waist. It would have to do until she could find a needle and some thread—this thought brought a shiver through her enlarged body. She didn’t know anything about sewing, unless she really was Prudence. “No, that can’t be. I’m not her. I’m still me.”

The shoes fit her feet much better, better even than her old shoes. At least in these she had room to wiggle her stubby toes. She tried to lace up the shoes, but her stomach kept getting in the way. “Rebecca, be a dear and tie up my laces.”

“I can’t. I’m too little.”

“That’s nonsense. You’ve known how to tie your laces since you were four years old. I taught you myself. Come on, you can do it.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I can’t.”

She looked ready to cry again, so Samantha put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, dear.” Another chill ran through her at this. She sounded like Miss Brigham, but that couldn’t be either. “Never mind the shoes.”

Samantha took a brush from the parcel. She swept her hair forward, gasping at the wavy, copper tresses. They looked just like Miss Brigham’s hair. What’s happened to me? Her hands wove the hair into a tight bun of their own accord, as if possessed by Prudence or Miss Brigham’s spirit.

At the bottom of the parcel she found a mirror. She held it up, her fingers trembling. The face looking back at her had Prudence’s flabby cheeks and double chin with Miss Brigham’s petite nose and ears. The only part of her remained were her eyes, still the same shade of brown she remembered ever since first waking up on Eternity.

“Are you ready to go now?” Rebecca asked.

“I think so. Let’s go see Mommy,” Samantha said with Prudence’s voice.

Chapter 25: House of Mirrors

2007-06-15T09:11:00.001-07:00

Chapter 25: House of Mirrors

At the entrance to the cave, Samantha paused to look back, thinking of Annie’s warning. She remembered what had happened in Pryde’s cellar, what she had almost done. It’s nothing, she told herself. Visions can’t hurt me. They aren’t real.

She entered the cave, steering away from the glowing white water of the Fountain of Youth. Instead, she ducked through the opening into the caverns below, where Miss Brigham and Rebecca had gotten lost. The sooner she found them, the sooner she could get back to what remained of the town and then find a way to leave this awful place forever.

At the base of the path sloping down into the caverns, she called out for Miss Brigham and Rebecca in case they might have found their way close to the entrance. All she heard in reply was her voice echoing through the caverns.

She took a few steps before calling out again, louder this time. As she waited, she thought she heard a whimper from up ahead. “Rebecca? Miss Brigham? Is that you?”

“Samantha?” Rebecca’s voice echoed back. “Help me!”

“Where are you?”

“In the cell. I’m stuck. Please hurry!”

The cell—Prudence’s cell. Samantha remembered it from exploring the caverns five years earlier. She raced towards the opening to the cell, the rotting frame of the door where she remembered it. “I’m coming, Rebecca. Hang on!”

“Hurry, Samantha. I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake,” Rebecca said.

Samantha ran down the narrow passageway leading to the cell, her pace slowing as a horrible thought occurred to her. “The monster lives there,” Annie had said. This could be a trap. There had to be a way to prove the voice she heard came from Rebecca and not the ghost. “Rebecca, I’m almost there. Just keep breathing, like when we were swimming. Do you remember where we used to go swimming?”

“In the stream,” Rebecca said.

“What did you say about breathing?”

“Take nice easy breaths. Don’t force too much air into your lungs at once,” Rebecca answered. “I’m scared, Samantha. Please help me.”

“I’m almost there.” Samantha hurried down the passageway to the opening of the cell. She didn’t see Rebecca there; she saw a pair of red eyes glowing brighter and brighter, freezing her in her tracks.

The red eyes break apart, reforming into the red numerals of an alarm clock covered with stickers of teddy bears dressed like ballerinas and clowns. A shrill beeping sound fills her head. As she leans over to slap the clock, she stops to examine her hand. It’s so small, she thinks.

After turning off the clock, she sits up in the bed. She throws off a pink comforter trimmed with lace to see the body of a little girl. The red flannel of her nightgown hangs loosely off her flat chest and hangs all the way down to her tiny feet.

Around her she sees the bedroom of a little girl with stuffed animals, dolls, and toys scattered around the pink carpet and posters of unicorns and kittens hanging on the matching pink walls. Samantha crawls out of bed, running over to the vanity. The image of a pudgy little girl with pigtails held in place by white ribbons looks back at her. The little girl in the mirror screams along with Samantha.

The bedroom door flies open a moment later, Samantha’s father taking her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong, honey? Did you have a bad dream?”

“You can’t be here. You’re dead!” she screams. “I saw the coffin. I saw it!”

“Samantha, honey, I’m not dead. You had a nightmare, that’s all,” Dad says.

“No, it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. I was big and we went to Disneyland and I had my period and Mommy said I was a woman and then we went home and Mommy said she was pregnant and then there was an accident and you died and I ended up on this horrible island with some other children and an evil reverend—” Samantha broke down, sobs doubling over her little body.

“It was a dream, honey. I’m right here. Your mom is down the hall changing your sister’s diaper.”

“My sister?”

“That’s right. Don’t you remember your sister Molly? Today’s her first birthday. We’re going to have a big party for her. Do you remember?”

Samantha shakes her head. “I don’t have a sister. She died. She was never born. It wasn’t a dream!”

Dad reaches up onto the vanity, taking a framed picture like the one Samantha remembers. She and her parents stand in front of a backdrop of palm trees, only in this image Samantha is a toddler wearing pink overalls with a bunny on the pocket. The stuffed Minnie Mouse beside her comes up to her head of curly hair. She sees the very same Minnie Mouse in the corner of the bedroom.

“That was a year and a half ago, when you were three. You got an ear infection and we had to go home early. You slept almost the whole way back. Do you remember?”

Samantha shakes her head again. “I’m not four. I’m twelve. I’m a big girl. Mommy said so!”

“Oh, honey, of course you’re a big girl. But you won’t be twelve for a long time, not until you’re old like me.” Dad tickles Samantha’s tummy until she giggles. “You see, this is real.”

He scoops Samantha up from the floor, pressing her against his chest. He stops, his nose crinkling. “Smells like someone wet the bed,” he says.

Only now does Samantha realize her underwear and nightgown are soaked. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she says.

“That’s all right, honey. We’ll go get you cleaned up before your mom finds out. Mommy has enough problems right now as it is getting ready for the party.”

Daddy strips the soiled nightgown off her in the bathroom and then fills the tub with warm water. He adds bubble bath to the water so a layer of suds cover the water. Some tickle Samantha’s nose as he sets her in the tub. She giggles at this, splashes water at Daddy, soaking his shirt.

By the end of the bath, they’re both completely drenched, water and suds lying in puddles all over the floor. “We better clean this up before Mommy sees,” Daddy says. They wipe the floor clean with towels until everything shines. Then Daddy uses another towel to dry Samantha off.

She watches him in the bathroom mirror, smiles at his reflection next to hers. He really is here, caring for her, loving her. They didn’t die in the desert. It had all been a dream, like Daddy said.

For the party Samantha wears a new lemon-yellow dress with lace on the skirt that itches, but she doesn’t complain to Daddy. He ties her hair back with a pair of ribbons the same color as the dress. Then he brushes away her bangs to kiss her forehead. “My pretty little girl,” he says.

“Daddy, I’m not little,” she says.

“Right, I forgot. You’re a big girl now. Almost a woman.” He scoops her up again. “Come on, let’s go see your mom.”

Mommy is in the living room, hanging pink streamers. She turns around, sucks in a breath when she sees Samantha in her pretty new dress. “You look so adorable,” Mommy says. She kisses Samantha the same place as Daddy did.

“Can I help you, Mommy? What can I do?”

“You can go in the nursery to watch your sister. She’s sleeping right now, so be careful not to wake her.”

“I won’t.” Samantha skips back to the nursery, where the white crib sits in the corner. She pushes over a stool, standing on it to look inside the crib. Inside she sees the tiny little baby with her pale white skin and wispy red hair. Little Molly is so pretty Samantha wants to touch her, but she can’t. Mommy said not to wake the baby.

Samantha is so intent on watching the baby sleep, she doesn’t hear the front door open and the guests begin to arrive.

“Hey there, Samantha!” Rebecca calls out from behind her.

The sound of this startles Samantha and little Molly, whose eyes flash open. Something about the baby’s green eyes look familiar to Samantha. She tries to remember where she’s seen them before, but isn’t sure. The baby starts to scream. “You woke her up!” Samantha says.

Rebecca’s fat cheeks turn red at the scolding. She comes to stand beside Samantha next to the crib. She wears a pink dress similar to Samantha’s with a pink bow holding back her waves of curly brown hair. “I’m sorry. What do we do now?” Rebecca asks as Molly continues to wail.

Before Samantha can answer, Mommy flies into the room. “Samantha, I told you not to wake the baby. Now she’s going to be all cranky for the party,” Mommy says.

“It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything.”

“I woke her up. I’m sorry,” Rebecca says, her eyes filling with tears. “Are you going to spank me?”

“Of course not, sweetie. And I’m sorry to yell at you, Samantha. You two girls go play until the party starts, all right?”

Samantha and Rebecca go out back, where Annie waits for them on the swings in a powder blue dress with a matching headband in her sandy hair. “The monster has you,” Annie says.

“What monster?” Samantha asks while Rebecca cringes next to her. “I don’t see a monster.”

“Look closer and you’ll see it.” Annie jumps off the swing and then disappears through the back gate.

“She’s weird,” Samantha says. “Come on, let’s play.”

They swing and play tag until Daddy tells them to come inside for the party. Little Molly has been cleaned up, dressed in a green dress that matches her eyes. She sits in a highchair, chewing on a napkin until Mommy takes it away from her. The other babies from the neighborhood and Samantha’s classmates from kindergarten are all there, including nasty little Helena. She prances around Samantha in her white dress, saying, “My dress is prettier than yours. Mommy ordered it all the way from Paris, France. Your mommy probably made yours.”

“She did not!” Samantha says, but she can’t help blushing with embarrassment at her dress, which came from the department store in town, not some faraway place like France.

At last Mommy brings the cake in, a single candle on top of it. Samantha’s parents have to help Molly blow it out; she’s more interested in banging her plastic utensils against her highchair.

“This party’s for babies,” Helena says. “My party will be much better than this and you won’t be invited.”

At this Samantha pushes Helena. She topples over an ottoman in front of Daddy’s chair to land in a heap on the floor. Helena wails louder than Molly, prompting all the babies to start crying.

“Samantha, that was very naughty,” Mommy says.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“Go to your room, young lady,” Daddy says.

Samantha runs back to her bedroom, throwing herself on the bed. She presses her face against the pillow, sobbing into it so no one else can hear her. She ruined the whole party for Molly. Mommy and Daddy hate her now. They’ll probably send her away to some horrible place like the island from her dreams.

A hand runs along the back of Samantha’s dress. She looks up to see Mommy sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, Mommy. Please don’t send me away. I’ll be good from now on.”

“I’d never send you away, honey. I love you very much.”

“But I ruined Molly’s party. I hurt Helena.”

“No, of course you didn’t. Helena will be fine.” Mommy pats Samantha’s back. “Your father and I will always love you, no matter what.” Mommy takes her other hand from behind her back, revealing a plate of chocolate cake. “I brought you something. Try not to get too many crumbs in bed.”

Samantha sits up in bed, sniffling as she accepts the plate of cake. Together, she and Mommy eat the whole piece without getting a single crumb in bed. Afterwards, Mommy helps Samantha change out of the yellow dress into a pink nightgown. Mommy takes Samantha over to the vanity to brush out her hair.

As she looks into the mirror, Samantha sees not Mommy, but a fat woman with red hair and redder eyes standing next to her. “The monster has you,” Annie’s voice echoes.

“Mommy?” Samantha asks, whimpering.

“No, honey, not Mommy. An old friend saying hello. Don’t you remember me?”

“Prudence?”

“That’s right, honey. You’re going to be seeing a lot more of me from now on,” Prudence whispers. In the mirror, Prudence reveals a pair of fangs that sink into Samantha’s neck.

Chapter 24: Warning Signs

2007-06-15T09:10:00.001-07:00

Chapter 24: Warning Signs

The town was completely destroyed. Samantha opened the church door to see everything in town lying in ruins. Piles of timber and bricks were all that remained of the ring of workshops around the church.

She found Prudence’s workshop and began combing through the wreckage for any sign of her best friend. She pushed aside support beams and sections of the room, expecting to find Prudence in the rubble, her body as broken and cold as Samantha’s parents in their caskets. To her relief, she found no bodies in the rubble, only the shattered remains of the loom, spinning wheel, and hearth. The scraps of fabric she unearthed were stained only with dirt.

Wendell had said no one had seen Prudence since before the storm. Where would she have gone? Had she went out looking for Samantha? If so, perhaps she was still alive somewhere in the forest, although Samantha doubted this. Unless Prudence found shelter underground before the storm, she couldn’t have survived. She was as dead then as Samantha’s parents.

And what about Miss Brigham and Rebecca? They had disappeared after the storms, presumably in the caverns beneath the Fountain of Youth. Unless they fell into the river or a crevasse they were probably still alive. She had to find them.

From the dormitories came a scream. Samantha took off running towards the sound, finding the dormitories and dining hall as wrecked as everywhere else. The walls and roof lay in heaps of wood and stone, the doorway to the girl’s dormitory somehow remaining upright, welcoming her to the disaster.

The scream came from amidst the rubble, where the girls worked under the supervision of Mark and Paul—David’s friends. The girls picked through the rubble, tossing pieces of wood, utensils, and pottery onto the ground at Mark and Paul’s feet. They held sharpened sticks, Mark tapping Helena in the ribs with the end of one, prompting her scream.

“Keep working! There’s no time for rest,” he said.

“I’m tired,” Helena whined. “Why do we have to do this?”

“You heard what David said. The savages are coming and we have to be ready for them.”

Samantha yanked the stick from Mark’s hands and broke it over her knee in one swift motion. Paul raised his stick, took one look at her, and then dropped it.

“Samantha! We thought you were dead!” Helena said. She hugged Samantha around the waist like she did as a toddler. “It’s been so awful. The boys and the dreams. I hate this place. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“I know, sweetie. I’m going to get us out of here, I promise,” Samantha said. She turned to face Mark and Paul, who took a step back in unison. “Where’s David?”

“On the meadow,” Paul said.

“Take the girls to the church. Wait for me there.”

The boys were only too happy to obey, leading the girls in a line towards the church. Samantha knew from experience nowhere was safe from the ghost’s influence, but it was safer than everyone grubbing around in the rubble.

The trek to the meadow took much longer than usual. She had to keep stopping to shove brush out of the way and to climb over fallen branches. Some of these branches she noted were cut too precisely to have fallen by accident. David had cut them down to keep anyone from following him.

She found him standing in the center of the meadow, a sharpened stick in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. He stood as rigid as a statue, as if he were rooted to the ground. She wondered if he were still awake. If not, that would make disarming him much easier.

Samantha squatted down in the grass, watching him for a few moments. He didn’t move. She crept towards him, careful not to make a sound that could alert him. Like a snake she slithered through the grass, coming within inches of him. As she reached out for his ankles, he spun around.

“I knew you were there,” he said. He lowered the pitchfork at her neck. “You savages think you’re so clever, but you’re not. I’m smarter than you.”

“David, it’s me. Samantha. Don’t you remember?”

His bloodshot eyes stared down at her, blinking in rapid succession. He ran a hand through his wild, greasy hair as he considered what she had said. At last he lifted the pitchfork. “Samantha. I remember. You were in the woods. I thought you were one of them.”

Samantha got to her feet, taking a step away from David just in case he decided to try using the pitchfork or spear on her after all. “There aren’t any savages on this island. Not anymore. They’re all long dead. Reverend Crane and Mr. Pryde made sure of that,” she said, thinking of the tomb by the sea.

“You’re lying. I saw them. An army of them in the forest, coming to get us. They already got Rebecca. I didn’t want her to go, but she wouldn’t listen to me and now they have her. But they aren’t going to get me. I’m ready for them.”

“David, that’s nonsense. There isn’t an army of savages. No one got Rebecca. She’s lost in the caverns. We have to go find her.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like for me to abandon my post, go off on a fool’s errand so they could take over.” He jammed the spear into his belt and then tightened his grip on the pitchfork. “You’re in league with them. All this time I suspected it, but now I know it’s true. Savage!”

At the moment he jabbed the pitchfork’s tines at her, Samantha stepped to the left. With a chop to his left wrist, the pitchfork fell out of his hands. Before he could snatch the spear from his belt, she seized his wrist, pinning it behind his back. He squirmed against her grasp, but she kept him pressed against her, unable to move.

“Say uncle,” she said. “Then I’ll let you go.”

“Never! I’ll never surrender to a savage!”

She twisted his wrist until he cried out. “Say it.”

“Uncle!” he shouted.

She took the spear from his belt and then shoved him to the ground. “This has gone far enough. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to find Rebecca and Miss Brigham and then we’re going to find a way off this place before we all lose it.”

“We can’t surrender the island! They’ll take over!”

“There is no ‘they!’ There’s no one here but us, don’t you understand?” She threw the spear far away, into the grass. “We have to leave this place. It’s our only chance.”

“Never!” he shouted, leaping to his feet. He caught Samantha by surprise with his quickness, shoving her to the ground. They grappled with each other in the grass, David snarling and clawing at Samantha like one of Pryde’s beasts.

She finally managed to clout him on the side of the head, knocking him off her. Before he could get up, she pinned him to the ground. “David, stop this! I’m not your enemy. I’m your friend. You remember when Reverend Crane poisoned the gruel? I kept you from eating any, otherwise you would have turned into a baby. Remember?”

The snarl slowly faded from David’s face. He nodded. “You saved me back then,” he said. All at once tears came to his eyes. “Where were you when we really needed you? Where were you during the storm? It’s your fault Rebecca is gone! If you had been there, she never would have gone after Miss Brigham.”

“I’m sorry, David. I didn’t know about the storm. It caught me by surprise like everyone else. But, look, I’ll find Rebecca. I’ll find her and Miss Brigham. I promise.”

“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

“You stay with the others in the church. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Wendell is working on coming up with some kind of boat so we can get out of here to the mainland. Give him whatever help he needs and if I’m not back by then, you take everyone and leave. Got it?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Samantha. Did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine. You go back to the others now. I’ll be back with Rebecca and Miss Brigham before you know it.”

She sat in the grass, watching David limp away. As he faded from view, she heard a rustle nearby. Looking to her left, she saw Annie crouching in the grass. “Annie, you scared me half to death. What are you doing out here?”

“You can’t go there, to the caverns.”

Samantha slid over to where Annie sat, putting an arm around the little girl’s shoulders. “I have to go, sweetie. Rebecca and Miss Brigham are lost and they need my help.”

“They aren’t lost. It has them.”

“What?”

“The monster. It has them.”

“How do you know that?”

“It told me. The Fountain. It showed me the monster and Rebecca and Miss Brigham. The monster has them. You can’t go.”

“There’s no monster, Annie. It’s your imagination.”

“It’s real. I saw it.” Annie began to cry. “It took them and if you go down there, it will take you too. Don’t go.”

“I can’t leave them. They’re my friends.” Samantha stood to go, but Annie latched onto her arm. “Annie, stop it!”

“Don’t go. You won’t find them. They aren’t them anymore. The monster destroyed them. Don’t you see? If you go down, it will do the same to you.”

Samantha wrenched Annie off her arm. “That’s enough, Annie. I know some strange things are happening here, but there’s no monster. Our minds our playing tricks on us. That’s all. Now go back to the church with the others.”

“Samantha, please—”

“I’m sorry, Annie, but I have to go. Be a good girl until I get back.” She bent down to kiss Annie on the forehead and then started off towards the caves, Annie’s cries fading away.

Chapter 23: Reunion

2007-06-15T09:09:00.002-07:00

Chapter 23: Reunion

With a trembling hand, Samantha opens the heavy wooden door. In the room she sees rows of white folding chairs. They could be used for anything—a wedding, a family reunion—but these chairs lead to the carpeted platform, atop which rest a pair of burnished-silver caskets.

Her parents lie inside the coffins. They will lie in there forever, their bodies rotting away until they turn to nothing. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” as the pastor said during the service.

Samantha had listened to his words from outside the door, unable to bear sitting in the room of grieving friends and family. She didn’t want to hear them say how sorry they were or how wonderful her parents were. She didn’t want to hear their business cards in case she wanted someone to talk to.

The only people she wants to talk to are lying in those caskets. She’ll never be able to talk with them again. They were taken from her and nothing could ever bring them back. No sympathetic words or shoulders to cry on could change that one simple fact.

She approaches the platform a step at a time, working up the courage to touch the caskets. The silver lid of one feels cool to the touch, as cool as the body inside. She bites down on her lip before she opens the coffin lid to hold back the tears ready to pour out.

Her mother lies in the coffin, or at least someone vaguely resembling Mom. The undertaker applied rouge to Mom’s cheeks, pink lipstick to her lips, and purple eye shadow to her eyelids. This is wrong, all wrong; Mom hardly ever wore makeup. Samantha wants to rub the offending cosmetics off, so she might look upon her mother’s real face again, but she can’t bring herself to touch Mom’s skin.

The undertaker also pulled a tress of Mom’s hair down over the right side of her face. Even with the hair, Samantha can make out the bulge above Mom’s right eye where she hit the dashboard. This wound had killed Mom, taken her away from Samantha forever.

Leaning against the casket, Samantha’s hair mingles with her mother’s as she tries to catch a glimpse of Mom’s stomach. The third victim of the accident lies there, entombed in Mom’s body. The baby sister Samantha would never know.

She slams the lid shut and the collapses onto a folding chair. She can’t bear to look into Dad’s coffin to see his kindly face shattered and swollen from where the steering wheel hit it. The undertaker hadn’t done much for Dad, just dressed him in a blue suit—the only one Dad owned because he said suits were for snobs who wanted to feel better than everyone else. That he should wear it for all eternity is as wrong as the makeup on Mom’s face.

Everything is wrong and nothing will ever make it right again. Her life is as shattered as Dad’s face and there isn’t anyone who can put the pieces back together again. She tastes blood in her mouth, a reminder that she’s alive while they’re dead. It isn’t fair, she thinks. Why did God take them and leave her here to suffer?

A hand touches her shoulder. Samantha looks up to see an old woman in a technicolored gown with a silver braid that goes down to her sandaled feet. “Go away,” Samantha says.

“Now, darling, I know you miss them—”

“You don’t know anything about how I feel. Just leave me alone.” Samantha shrugs the old woman’s hand away.

Undeterred, the old woman sits on the chair next to Samantha. “It’s all right, darling. I understand you’re angry. I’m angry too. Your parents were taken much too soon and they were such good people. It’s not fair that we should have to go on without them.”

At this, Samantha can no longer hold back her tears. The old woman takes her head, pressing it to her chest. Samantha tries to break free, but the old woman’s hands are like vises clinging to Samantha’s arms.

“Easy now, darling. Let it out. Let it all out.” The old woman continues to whisper soothing words as Samantha sobs. For hours, a lifetime, they remain locked in that position.

When she can cry no more, Samantha lifts her head. “Thank you,” she says to the old woman with a sniffle.

“Go say goodbye to them,” the old woman says.

Samantha nods, goes back to Mom’s casket. She forces herself to open the lid and bend down to kiss Mom on her overly-pink lips. “Goodbye, Mom. I love you.” She walks over to Dad’s coffin, lays a hand on the lid. “Goodbye Dad. I won’t ever forget you.”

She retreats from the caskets, letting the old woman put an arm around her shoulder. They walk silently out of the funeral home. For Samantha it’s the start of a new life.

Her eyes fluttered open to see not rows of folding chairs, but rough-hewn benches that seem familiar. Then she saw the altar and podium where Reverend Crane delivered his sermons. As she sat up, a hand touched her shoulder as in the funeral home.

This was not the old woman from her dream. It was Wendell. “You? What happened? How did I get here?” Samantha stammered.

“David and a couple of his thugs caught you in the woods and brought you here,” Wendell said. “You’ve been out for a whole day. I didn’t think you would ever wake up.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. I can’t be back here. I was in a boat and then I ended up on a beach and there was a house. This can’t still be Eternity. It can’t be!”

She got to her feet, noting the pain in her ankle had gone. She rolled up the sleeve of her jacket to see the bite marks no longer there as well. Only water from the Fountain of Youth could have done that; she really was back on Eternity.

Samantha dropped onto a bench, burying her face in her hands. After everything she’d gone through, she’d never left the island. The whole time she thought she’d been on the mainland, where she could start a new life, she hadn’t really gone anywhere at all.

Wendell touched her shoulder again. “Samantha, where’s Prudence? Did you two get separated?”

“Prudence? How should I know?”

“She wasn’t with you?”

“No. Why? What’s happened?”

“No one’s seen her since before the storm. We all thought she’d gone with you.”

“Oh God.” Samantha thought of the driving rain, pounding waves, and screaming winds. If Prudence had been out in the middle of all that—she was gone. As dead as Samantha’s parents.

“There’s something else,” Wendell began. He sat next to her on the bench. “Miss Brigham disappeared in the caves. Rebecca went to look for her, but she didn’t come back either.”

“What? Hasn’t anyone gone to look for them?”

“David won’t let anyone leave town except for him and his cronies. He’s getting crazy, Samantha. Everyone is.”

For the first time, Samantha saw the dark circles around Wendell’s bloodshot eyes. His unkempt hair was even more so, hanging in greasy tangles embedded with dust. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week or even longer. “What’s going on?”

“We can’t sleep,” he said. “Anyone who tries wakes up screaming. Nightmares. They’re so real…and so awful. Some of the little ones almost didn’t come back. So we don’t sleep.”

Samantha thought of the ghost in Pryde’s cellar. The same thing had been happening to everyone on the island. They had to get off this godforsaken island, to the mainland, where ghosts of the past couldn’t haunt them.

“I’m going to find Miss Brigham and Rebecca.” She put both hands on Wendell’s shoulders. His cheeks turned as red as his eyes. “I want you to find a way to get off this rock. A boat, a raft, a slingshot, I don’t care. You can do it.”

“But what about David? You can’t leave me with him.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.”

Chapter 22: Out of the Cellar

2007-06-15T09:09:00.001-07:00

Chapter 22: Out of the Cellar

“Samantha, wake up,” Mom’s voice whispered.

Samantha remained curled up on the cellar floor, pressing her hands to her ears. “You’re not real. You’re dead.”

“We can be together forever. Come with me, honey.”

“Leave me alone!” Samantha bolted upright, searching the cellar for any sign of the ghost. She saw only the pile of clothes from the dead. Pryde’s victims.

She had nearly become another. She still could unless she left this awful place, this tomb. The dogs were probably upstairs; she had to get rid of them before she could escape.

The knife blade winked at her. She crawled over to it, reaching out towards the hilt as though it were a venomous snake. “Take it, honey. Use it as it was meant to be used.”

“You’re not my mother!” Samantha screamed. “She would never tell me to something so terrible. She loved me.”

“Did she? How do you really know?” The ghost waited a moment for Samantha’s reply. “You don’t. You don’t know anything about her. I know. Would you like me to tell you?”

The darkness came alive with color. Samantha saw herself as a pigtailed little girl lying on a dingy white carpet, clad in pink overalls and holding a green crayon. She finished coloring in a tree, next to which stood three stick figures.

Her younger self picked up the picture and then skipped into the dining room, where Mom talked on the telephone while smoking a cigarette. “Mommy, look what I drew!”

Mom blew a cloud of smoke towards little Samantha. “That’s great, honey. Go tell your dad. Anyway, so I said—”

“Mommy, you didn’t look. Look, look, look—”

Mom slapped little Samantha across the face, the drawing fluttering to the ground. “Shut up, you little brat! Go bug someone else. Goddamned kid. Where was I? Oh, right—”

As little Samantha ran away crying, the scene faded until Samantha found herself in the cellar again. “That didn’t happen. Mom wouldn’t do that.”

“You don’t know that. I can show you everything.”

Samantha saw her younger self again, this time in a pink nightgown and lying on the floor under her bed. From down the hall came the sound of arguing. Little Samantha whimpered as glass shattered outside, a puddle forming on the carpet.

The door flew open; Mom stomped over to the bed. She looked under the bed, her nose wrinkling. “What did you do, you little monster?”

Mom grabbed little Samantha by the hair, dragging her from beneath the bed. She hauled little Samantha into her old nursery, with her crib still in the corner. “If you’re going to act like a baby, then we’ll treat you like one,” Mom said.

Little Samantha did nothing as Mom stripped her naked and then squeezed a diaper on her. After Mom stormed away, Little Samantha turned onto her side in the crib to face the wall so no one could see her cry.

“That’s not true!” Samantha said. “You’re lying!”

“I can show you more about how much your precious mother loved you.”

“Stop it. I know Mom loved me. She wouldn’t do those things to me.” Samantha closed her eyes so she couldn’t see anymore of the ghost’s horrible visions.

“You know it’s true. Remember.”

Samantha lies on the sidewalk, her bicycle lying next to her. At the sight of blood oozing through the gash in her green corduroy pants, she screams. Mom comes running out of the house to Samantha’s side.

“Oh, honey, what happened?”

“I fell, Mommy.”

Mom picks her up, takes her inside to the bathroom. As Mom washes the cut, she sings “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” At first continues to cry, but soon she joins in. Mom finishes the song by kissing the Band-Aid on Samantha’s knee. “There you go, good as new.”

Mom carries Samantha to the bedroom, setting her down on the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. She brushes hair away from Samantha’s forehead, kisses her on the cheek. “Goodnight my angel.”

“I love you, Mommy.”

Samantha opened her eyes. “You’re wrong. I do know she loved me. I’ll never believe any of your lies.”

The ghost said nothing. For the first time since the ghost’s appearance, Samantha felt alone in the cellar. She picked the knife up from the ground, stuffing it into her pocket. As she passed by the stack of beers, she dumped one into each pocket of her jacket. Now she would drive Pryde’s beasts from the hut and leave this place.

At the base of the ladder leading up, she put a hand on the knife’s hilt. With each step up the ladder, her ankle blazed with pain. Blood flowed from her bottom lip as she tried to keep herself from crying out. She couldn’t afford to risk alerting the dogs to her approach.

She listened at the top step for the sound of their breathing, but heard nothing. Maybe they left, she thought. Or they might have gone to sleep, allowing her to slip out. Or they could be waiting for her to open the door so they could tear her arms off.

With her left hand she raised the cellar door an inch, keeping her right on the knife’s hilt. Her eyes swept the room for any sign of the beasts. She spotted a pile of black fur by the hearth. The bundle of fur snorted and wheezed more like a wild boar than a dog.

She eased the cellar door open, careful not to let it slam down against the floor. Easing out of the doorway, she heard the dog’s breath a moment before its muzzle snapped at her right arm. She somersaulted forward, rolling to her feet with the knife at the ready.

The beast stopped in mid-lunge at the sight of the blade. “You remember this, don’t you? Your master’s knife,” she said.

The dog growled, pawing grooves into the floor with its claws. The other beast near the hearth rose to join its partner. Samantha backed towards the front door with the knife in front of her.

The door handle bumped into her back. She reached back with her left hand to turn it while keeping her eyes and knife on the dogs. They edged closer, but made no move to attack her.

Samantha eased backwards through the doorway and then closed the door. As soon as the door clicked shut, she took off running, ignoring the pain in her ankle. She looked behind her, saw nothing but empty forest. I made it, she thought.

A black shape lunged from the brush to her right, teeth sinking into her wrist. The knife dropped to the ground as she screamed. The beast swatted her to the ground with a paw. Samantha landed on her stomach and lay motionless.

She listened as the dog padded towards her. With her left hand, she reached into the pocket of her jacket, taking out the can of beer there. She shook the can, rolled over, and popped the top, a stream of foam spraying into the dog’s face. This gave Samantha the opening to grab the knife from the ground and rake it across the beast’s snout. The dog howled as Samantha took off running again.

She ran blindly through the forest, her ankle and wrist throbbing in harmony. Every few steps, she looked back, waiting to see the yellow eyes on her tail. She tried to listen for the creatures in the brush, but could only hear the sound of her own ragged breathing.

The second dog leaped at her from behind a fallen log, going for her injured ankle. Samantha rolled out of the way in time. She reached into her jacket for a second can of beer. This time she hurled it at the dog’s head. The can struck the beast between the eyes. It crumpled to the ground as if shot.

Samantha hobbled away, deeper into the forest. When the pain became too much, she collapsed onto a moss-covered rock. Pryde’s dogs were gone. She had nothing more to worry about, except where to go now that she knew her parents were dead.

Something heavy struck her in the back of the head. She pitched forward, her parents’ faces rising before her.

Chapter 21: Funeral Rites

2007-06-15T09:08:00.002-07:00

Chapter 21: Funeral Rites

Her eyes opened, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t move. They were dead. Not by Pryde’s knife but through an accident. A random traffic accident on a desert highway less than a half-hour from home. They died while she lived.

They had died that night and now a second time thanks to Reverend Crane and Pryde hauling her to the godforsaken island of Eternity to wipe her memory so she couldn’t remember them. So she had to endure losing them all over again.

The worst part of all was she still couldn’t remember anything more about them than that one day, the day they died. She didn’t know their names or where they lived. She didn’t know what foods they liked or what scared them or what they did for a living. She knew only that they loved her. And that they were dead.

Tears flowed down Samantha’s cheeks. None of this was fair. They were dead and she couldn’t remember them. She couldn’t remember being their daughter. This was worse than if she too had died in the car and it was all thanks to Reverend Crane and Pryde.

Only now did she realize the extent of what they’d stolen from her. By wiping her memory, they’d stolen her past, all those precious moments of love and happiness with her parents. They left her with nothing; she was an empty shell. A face without a name, without an identity.

They had stolen her ability to grieve for her parents. How could she mourn for people she couldn’t remember? They were strangers to her, faces on a photograph and nothing more. She could only cling to a pair of memories, tiny fragments of the life they’d spent together.

At last she got to her feet, stumbling back to the trophy room. She stared at the photographs on the bulletin board, each picture a symbol of a life ruined by evil like her own. After minutes of gazing at the bulletin board, her legs quivered and her hands shook.

She could nothing for any of these people any more than she could for her own parents. The man who’d killed them was already, drowned in the Fountain of Youth thanks to Samantha. Not even the fountain could bring them justice. Not even the magic water could bring them back from the dead.

With trembling hands, she tore every image from the bulletin board. Using one of the knives on the worktable, she carved out a hole in a spot of dirt near the pile of clothes. When she had a big enough hole, she dumped the photographs into it, covering them with dirt.

This did little to make her feel better. No longer were their images on the bulletin board like trophies, but they were still dead. Nothing could change that.

She crawled away from the grave, bumping into the stack of Budweiser cans. Like Newton’s apple, one fell onto her head, giving her an idea. She popped the top of the can, letting the alcohol course down her throat. A warm feeling settled over her, steadying her shaking limbs.

She drank another and then another. By the fifth beer, her body felt light as air. As she reached up for another one, a hand stopped her. She looked up to see Miss Brigham smiling down at her.

“Now dear, you shouldn’t drink like this. It’s a sin.”

“So what? I’m a woman now. I can do what I want.”

“You know this won’t bring them back. This can only make you feel better for a little while. Later you’ll feel even worse. Don’t you see?”

“I don’t care. You’re not even here. You’re a figment of my imagination.”

“Samantha, I’m terribly sorry for what happened—”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me they were dead? Why did you give me hope?”

“I had no idea, dear. The reverend—”

“You knew all that time before Reverend Crane wiped your memory and you never said anything. You let me think they were still alive. You knew!” Samantha hurled a can of beer that went through the apparition of Miss Brigham.

“Even if I knew, what good would it have done to tell you, dear? Nothing would have changed. They would still be dead. I spared you from the pain, at least for a little while. I love you, Samantha. I would never try to hurt you on purpose.”

Samantha gulped down two more beers. The ghost of Miss Brigham faded away. In her place was the image of Samantha’s mother. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

“I came to tell you not to worry, honey. Your father and I love you very much. You’ve made us so proud.”

“I wish I could remember you. Why can’t I remember?”

“It doesn’t matter, honey. All that matters is how much we love each other. Do you understand?”

Samantha sniffled and wiped at her nose, feeling like a child again in her mother’s presence. “I miss you so much, Mommy. I wish I could be with you.”

“You can be, honey. If that’s what you want.”

“But how?” Pryde’s knife appeared at Samantha’s feet. She picked up the weapon, studying the sharpness of the blade. One stab to the chest, one slice across her wrist and it would all be over. “Miss Brigham said suicide is wrong.”

“Not if you’re doing it for love. He understands how much pain you’re in, how much you miss us. He wants us to be together again. Go on, honey. Come back to us.”

Samantha held the blade over her left wrist. Her hand began to tremble again. One cut and it would all be over. She could be in Heaven, reunited with her parents. One stroke and all the pain would end.

As she brought the knife down, Mom’s face changed to that of Pryde. His eyes glowed red with anticipation. In death he would add another trophy to his collection.

“No!” she screamed, hurling the knife towards his ghost. Pryde vanished, leaving Samantha alone in the cellar. She began to sob as a thin line of blood trickled from her wrist. She curled into a ball, crying until once more she fell asleep in Mom’s jacket.