Children of Eternity Omnibus Page 17

  “I’m not ugly!”

  “Settle down, girls,” Rebecca said. “Let Samantha tell the story.”

  “Thank you. As I was saying, there was a beautiful princess who lived in a castle far away. Her name was Samantha.”

  “No fair,” Helena grumbled.

  “It’s my story,” Samantha said, fixing Helena with a hard look. “Samantha lived in the castle with her parents, the king and queen. They were all very happy there. Samantha had all sorts of wonderful toys and her own pretty white pony to ride whenever she wanted.”

  “Then what happened?” Annie prompted.

  “Well, one day a nasty man showed up at the castle. He called himself Mr. Pryde.” Some of the younger girls whimpered at the mention of the name, despite they were too young to remember Pryde or his dogs. “That night Mr. Pryde snuck into Samantha’s room and he took her away.

  “He took her in a boat across the sea to an island. He gave Samantha something so she couldn’t remember who she was or where she came from. Then he took her into a village.

  “In this village Samantha found a bunch of other pretty little girls with names like Annie and Phyllis and Rebecca—and Helena,” Samantha said before the latter could start pouting. “Just like Samantha, these girls couldn’t remember where they came from either. The mean old Mr. Pryde made the girls all work very hard to feed him and his mean old dogs.”

  “I don’t like this story,” Annie said with a whimper. She clutched her doll with white knuckles.

  “Don’t worry, Samantha and her friend Prudence got rid of that mean old Mr. Pryde. They pushed him into a magic fountain that made him disappear. Him and his mean old dogs.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, five years went by. Samantha and the other girls were all alone on the island. They still had to work very hard to keep themselves alive. Samantha started to think she might never see her parents or their castle ever again.

  “But then one day something wonderful happened. A boat landed on the island. It was a magic boat made all out of gold and jewels and other pretty things—”

  “Wouldn’t a boat like that sink?” Rebecca asked.

  “No, it was a magic boat. It was so magical that the boat could talk. The magic boat told Samantha it had been searching for years and years and at last it had found her. At last she would be able to go home to her parents.”

  Samantha paused, hearing the door creak open. She saw Prudence slip inside as quietly as a girl her size could manage. Prudence stepped through the knot of girls, her big rear end brushing against Samantha as she went past. Then Prudence flopped onto her pallet and turned to face the wall. Samantha glared at her former best friend for a moment, waiting for some sign that Prudence was sorry. Apparently Prudence was still mad at her.

  “What happened next?” Annie prompted again.

  “The boat told Samantha she could take all her friends back to the castle with her. There they could all find new parents and be happy forever. The girls were all happy about this, all except one. Only big fat Prudence didn’t want to leave the island. She wanted to stay there forever and ever because she was too scared to get on the boat.”

  “Samantha, stop it,” Rebecca said. “You promised to apologize to Prudence.”

  “Well maybe she should apologize to me first.”

  This prompted Prudence to roll over. With a groan she managed to sit up. “Why should I apologize? You started it.”

  “Did not!

  “Did so!”

  “You’re such a liar.”

  “I am not!”

  “Stop it, both of you,” Rebecca said. “You’re acting like babies.”

  “Who asked you?” Samantha said. “You think you’re so grown up, but you’re just a little kid. Well, not so little anymore. Another year and you’ll be fatter than Prudence.”

  Tears bubbled up in Rebecca’s eyes at this. She turned away to cry into her pillow. “That was mean,” Annie said. The other girls nodded their assent.

  “I don’t care what you little brats think.”

  “We’re not brats!”

  “Oh, no, of course not. Let me tell you a new story. There once was a little girl named Samantha who lived on an island with a bunch of other girls. Those girls were mean to her all the time, calling her nasty names.

  “Then a mean old reverend decided to turn all the nasty little girls into babies with his magic water. Only Samantha realized it was a trick. She kept some of the other little girls from drinking the magic water. But those who were really nasty still drank it and they became nasty little babies.

  “After the mean old reverend was gone, Samantha took care of all the nasty little babies, even though they hadn’t been nice to her. She fed them and changed their dirty diapers and sang them songs so they could sleep. She even told them stories before bedtime.

  “Samantha did everything she could to make the nasty little girls happy. As they grew up, she still helped them, even though more than anything she wanted to go look for her parents. How did the nasty little girls repay her? They called her mean names just because she looked different from them. And when she offered to take them away from the horrible little island, they were too scared to go.”

  Samantha stood up and then went into her room. She plucked her pillowcase off the bed. Looking around at the girls on their pallets, she said, “So Samantha decided she was going to leave without them. She would leave all those nasty little girls to live out their nasty little lives on the island.”

  With that, Samantha stomped out of the dormitory.

  Chapter 6: On the Road

  Before she left the village, Samantha stopped in the kitchen to get some apples and biscuits. She drew herself a pitcher of water as well. She hoped it would be enough to get her to the mainland. If nothing else, maybe she could catch some fish along the way.

  She walked down the path to the barns. Like the people in the village, the animals should be asleep by now. Yet when Samantha walked past the barns, she heard the animals making noises. Was there a fire? Or perhaps another animal like a fox or raccoon had snuck into the barn.

  She threw open the door and then felt around for the lantern. By feeling around she found a box of matches on a shelf next to the lantern. She lit the lantern, the light casting a dim glow around the barn.

  There didn’t seem to be any sign of another animal. Perhaps it was hiding in one of the pens. Samantha set her pack on the ground and then took a pitchfork with her free hand. She went over to the sheep’s pen and held up the lantern. The sheep squealed at her, the largest ram snapping at the air. “What’s wrong?” Samantha asked. The sheep of course could not answer her.

  She looked around the horse stalls next. They pawed at the ground and shook their heads as if an unfamiliar rider were on their backs. “Easy, guys. It’s just me.”

  Not even Sarah was in good spirits. The cow loomed protectively next to her calf. “Hi,” Samantha said. She set down the pitchfork to hold out her hand. “It’s just me, Samantha. What’s spooking you guys tonight?”

  Sarah didn’t come towards her. The cow pawed at the ground as the horses had done. Her tail whipped from one side to the other, swatting at imaginary flies. “I don’t know what’s got into you guys tonight, but I just wanted to say goodbye,” she said. Maybe the animals could sense she was leaving. Maybe that had gotten them so riled up.

  “I’m going miss you guys. Maybe when I find Mom and Dad they’ll let me come back and bring you all home too.” Did her parents own a farm? In a way she hoped so. She liked all the open space in Eternity, where she could run around and play, not that she ever got much time for that. None of the kids had much time to play like normal kids. Even the toddlers had to do chores much of the day. Samantha definitely wouldn’t miss that.

  “Well, goodbye I guess,” she said. “You be good.”

  Sarah lowed at her in response. Samantha nodded to the cow and then left the barn. She left the pitchfork behind but took the lanter
n with her so she’d be able to see her way to the beach. Then she could be on her way home.

  ***

  Samantha’s departure had left the girls in a panic. Even Rebecca, who was ordinarily so unflappable, sobbed uncontrollably into her pillow. Prudence sat on her bed, looking down at her feet. This wasn’t how she had wanted things to go.

  In her shop, Prudence had worked on a new dress and thought about what Samantha had said. It was more tempting than Samantha had let on to leave Eternity and go to the mainland. If they made it there, maybe the kids she met on the mainland would be nicer. They might not call her names or pinch her stomach. Maybe on the mainland Prudence would be normal and skinny girls like Samantha would be the ones who were called names.

  Yet when she thought about it, she couldn’t do it. Eternity was her home. It was the only home she’d ever known. From what she and Samantha had found out, Prudence had lived on the island for over three hundred years. After all that time, how could just pick up and leave?

  She didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t let Samantha go either, not the way they had left things between them. Samantha might never come back; she would spend the rest of her life thinking Prudence hated her. Despite the scene in the dining room, Prudence didn’t hate Samantha. Samantha was her only real friend, the only one who stood up for Prudence when the others teased her or comforted Prudence when she felt sad. She couldn’t let Samantha leave thinking Prudence didn’t like her.

  She had decided to apologize to Samantha when she got back to the dormitory. Then she opened the door and saw Samantha telling a story to the other girls. Prudence decided to go to her bed and wait until the morning, when she could talk to Samantha in private.

  From there everything had gone wrong. Samantha had said such terrible things about her. And then she had said horrible things about the rest of the girls. She had even attacked poor Rebecca for trying to intervene.

  As she looked around the room at the other girls crying, Prudence forced herself to stand up. She couldn’t let Samantha leave like that. It would devastate the other girls and demoralize everyone on the island. In particular it would demoralize Prudence to leave things as they were. For that reason she had to go and bring Samantha back.

  Putting on a fake smile, Prudence patted Rebecca on the back. “I’ll be back in a little bit. You girls get ready for bed. Understand?” They nodded to her; not even Helena had the will to fight with her at the moment. “Be good while I’m gone.”

  In the kitchen, Prudence found a candle to light her way. She knew Samantha would be going to the beach, where Mr. Pryde had kept his boat. They had not tried taking the boat anywhere since he left, the girls too little for sailing and Miss Brigham too scared to try. Prudence hoped it would take Samantha a little while to get the boat ready, long enough for Prudence to stop her.

  As she plodded along the path down to the barns, Prudence considered what she would say. She knew Samantha was just angry at the moment. With any luck she would have calmed down by the time Prudence found her. That would make things easier. In her heart Samantha had to still love all the girls, even brats like Helena. She wouldn’t want to leave them in the way she had, saying such terrible things. If Prudence just told her this, Samantha should come around.

  Or perhaps not. Samantha could be very stubborn. When she was nine, Samantha had gotten mad at Prudence for tearing a page in the Forever Young book. They hadn’t spoken for a whole week, not until Rebecca worked things out between them. If this were one of those times, then Prudence might have her work cut out for her.

  Prudence was still thinking about this when she heard a distant rumble. It was already night and yet the sky on the horizon looked even darker. Prudence shivered as the wind began to pick up. Maybe she wouldn’t have to find Samantha at all. With a storm coming in, Samantha would surely realize she had to come back, wouldn’t she?

  With a sigh, Prudence kept going.

  Chapter 7: The Storm

  Samantha had only walked the path to the beach a few times in the last five years. The first time she and Prudence had gone down to verify the boat was indeed there. They had looked around for anything to salvage, but they hadn’t turned up anything. The other times she had come down to the beach by herself to make sure the boat was still there.

  The path looked a lot different at night. The trees took on a menacing quality, the branches like clawed hands reaching out to grab her. An owl hooted as it searched the forest for prey. Samantha hoped that didn’t include her. She squealed like one of the toddlers when something rattled the brush to her right. She held up the lantern, but didn’t see anything.

  “It’s just the wind,” she told herself. Or a squirrel or chipmunk or something harmless like that. There were plenty of those on Eternity. But her mind conjured pictures of bears twice her size, huge black monsters with razor-sharp claws and teeth.

  “I’m a big girl,” she said. “I’m not scared of the dark.”

  She remembered the first few nights after Reverend Crane and Pryde had died. Samantha had been only six years old, not much removed from a toddler. Though she had slept in the dormitory for quite a few days already, the room became completely foreign to her at night. Every noise prompted her to hug her dolly and whimper. She had finally gone into the adjoining room where Miss Brigham slept.

  She shook Miss Brigham’s shoulder until the older girl woke up. “Samantha? What are you doing up at this hour? A girl your age ought to be getting some sleep.”

  “I’m scared,” Samantha said. “Can I sleep with you?”

  “I suppose that would be all right for tonight.” Miss Brigham moved aside so Samantha could crawl onto the bed with her. They had done that for three straight nights, until Miss Brigham finally looked Samantha in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, young lady, but you have to get used to sleeping on your own. You’re a big girl and you should sleep in your own bed.”

  “But it’s so dark.”

  “That may be, but there’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light.”

  Samantha had considered this. They had finally settled for keeping one of their precious candles lit through the night. They did this for two nights, until Samantha became certain nothing inside the room could harm her.

  As she walked now along the path, though, Samantha thought back to what Miss Brigham had said. That might have been true in the dormitory, but it wasn’t true in the forest. There were plenty of animals that only came out at night to do their hunting. Those animals were not friendly to humans either. Samantha started to wish she’d brought the pitchfork with her.

  The lantern slipped from her hand as she heard an inhuman howl. Was one of Pryde’s dogs out here, stalking her? She heard another howl, this time accompanied by a clap of thunder. Samantha retrieved the lantern and then held it up. The tree branches were dancing like mad from the wind.

  A storm, that must be what had made the noise. To confirm this, a bolt of lightning slashed through the sky. Not tonight, Samantha thought. Not when she was so close to finally leaving Eternity.

  She barely had time to turn around before the rain was upon her. It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of water on her. She dropped her own pitcher of water and the pillowcase as she took off running. The lantern managed to stay lit for a minute or two before its fire went out. Samantha tossed the now-useless lantern to the ground to lighten her load.

  A gust of wind roared through the trees before hurling Samantha from her feet. She landed what must have been ten feet away, face-first onto the damp ground. She lay there for a moment, the rain drenching her in an instant. She forced herself up to her feet and then swept a veil of wet hair from her face.

  She had to get back to the village. She couldn’t stay out here in this storm. To emphasize this, she heard a tree creak. A moment later a tree wider than three of Prudence put together split in half. Samantha screamed as she darted into the forest to avoid being crushed.

  She decided to stay in the forest, where the
trees would protect her a little from the wind and rain. That was unless the storm smashed more of the trees. Still, there didn’t seem much choice at the moment. Samantha ran.

  The storm had blotted out the moon and without the lantern, Samantha couldn’t see anything. She had to rely on keeping her hands out in front of her to keep her from running into any of the trees. The farther she went, the more certain she became that she was lost. She was never going to find the village. She wouldn’t be able to find Miss Brigham’s cottage or Reverend Crane’s old house either. She was stuck out here.

  Her foot tripped over something, sending her sprawling on the ground. Samantha lay there for a moment, sobbing not from any physical pain. She was going to die out here, of that she was certain. She would die here without ever seeing her parents again. Not only that, she would die without ever getting to apologize to Prudence or any of the others for saying such terrible things to them. Prudence had been her best friend and now for the rest of her life she would think Samantha had never liked her.

  “No,” she whispered. It wasn’t over yet. She pushed herself back up. Again she had to sweep wet hair from her face. She looked around, but it was impossible to see more than two feet in front of her.

  She forced herself to run again. She had to find the village. If nothing else, she had to at least find somewhere to ride out this storm. Besides the fountain cave there were others scattered around the island, most along the shore. If she found one of those she could hide until this storm ended.

  Even as she considered this, Samantha saw a dark shape up ahead. It didn’t look like any tree she had ever seen. Upon closer inspection, she saw her salvation: a house! It didn’t look like Miss Brigham’s or the reverend’s. At the moment she didn’t care, so long as it had somewhere for her to dry off.

  She felt around until she located a door. Pulling open the door, the smell of mold assaulted her nostrils. Not only mold, but other forms of rot as well. It was as if she’d entered a garbage dump. How could that be?