Chapter 42: The Plea

Chapter 42: The Plea

The ground and netting shredded the back of Prudence’s dress until she felt a burning pain from her raw flesh scraping against the dirt. Samantha continued to struggle next to her, tearing at the net in a frenzy that did nothing. Wendell had his eyes closed as if already accepting their failure.

Samantha finally ran out of energy to struggle, her body going limp. She turned to Prudence and said, “This isn’t over yet, Pwoodance.”

At another time Prudence would have taken comfort from her friend’s defiant words. At ten or fourteen or seventeen Samantha would have already found a way out of the net and taken down anyone in her way. But the fat toddler next to her in the net, who couldn’t even pronounce Prudence’s name correctly, was as helpless as Prudence in the forest with Reverend Crane.

Wendell touched her hand. What would become of him? They had been through so much together the last three years, ever since their first trip to Seabrooke. From that time, Wendell had loved her as much and made her as happy as she ever was with Rodney. With Wendell she had discovered strength and beauty she never thought possible. For the first time she had become the person she might have been if Reverend Crane hadn’t taken her into the forest.

She turned to Wendell and said, “Promise me that no matter what happens you’ll never leave me.”

“I promise,” he said. He opened his eyes and with great difficulty managed to kiss her on the cheek. “I love you. No matter where or when or how old we are, there’s nothing that can ever change that.”

The town appeared in her vision. The boys dragging the net slowed as they reached the town square. “What do we do with them?” one of them asked.

“The redheads are traitors. Dispose of them however you like. The fat one is mine,” Veronica said. As soon as the boys pulled the netting away, Veronica snatched Samantha by the arm, dragging her away.

“Samantha!” Joseph shouted. He tried to run after her, but was again elbowed in the ribs. For her part, Samantha kicked and even tried to bite Veronica to no avail.

A group of boys hauled Prudence and Wendell to their feet and then carried them to the center of the square, where they were reunited with Molly. “What do we do with them?” some of the boys asked.

“Stab them!”

“Hang them!”

A boy Prudence recognized as John, Helena’s former husband, pressed his way through the crowd. “I say we burn them!” he said. The other boys roared their approval of this.

“How do we do that?” someone asked.

“Tie them to a post and light a fire beneath them,” John said. He shoved Prudence’s head forward and then with his knife sawed off her long hair. She screamed from the pain until someone muffled her with a dirty rag. John held up the shorn tresses for everyone to see. “This will make good kindling.”

“You can’t do this,” Wendell pleaded. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“She killed Helena and Phyllis,” John said, pointing to Molly. “And you two helped her.”

“She couldn’t have killed them,” Wendell said. “Look how small she is. How could she murder anyone?”

“Veronica is lying,” Molly said. “She’s using you like she used me. As soon as she’s done with you, she’ll kill you.”

John hit Molly in the stomach with the handle of his knife. “You killed them! Why should we believe anything you say?”

Molly looked about her frantically. “Annie, tell them! You were there. You saw them. Annie? Where are you?”

As the others spoke, Prudence had been working the rag free from her mouth. She finally managed to spit it out as some of the boys returned from the fields with three fence posts. They pounded the posts into the ground and then tied the redheaded children to them with ropes. Others brought firewood from the nearby shops to pile at the base of each post. As a finishing touch, John laid Prudence’s hair at her feet. “Now you three will get what you deserve,” he said.

“John, you can’t do this,” Prudence said. “I know you loved Helena. She was your wife. Do you remember?”

“I didn’t love her. She was just a stupid girl,” he said.

“You two were married by Reverend Crane on a June afternoon. It rained so much we had to move the wedding into your father’s barn.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“You two rented a room from Mr. Davenport in town. You stayed there for a year until you left for this place because you wanted to start a new life. That’s why we came here,” Prudence said. “We wanted to find a land where we could live in peace to raise our families. A dream brought us here. A dream that we could find a new country not ruled by the fear and corruption of our homeland.”

The match wavered in John’s hand. Behind him, the other children mumbled in confusion. “It’s working,” Wendell said.

“Don’t you see,” Prudence said. “We didn’t come here as children. One man’s evil vision made us this way. He enslaved us for over three hundred years through his lies. He took away our memories. He took away ourselves. But if we look within our hearts, we can find ourselves again. We can again be those adults who came here in pursuit of a dream and we can make that dream a reality.”

One at a time, the children dropped to the ground, clutching their heads. The match fell from John’s trembling fingers to ignite the hair and wood beneath Prudence’s feet. As the children moaned and rolled around on the ground, the fire grew more intense. “Someone help me!” Prudence called, flames singeing the soles of her shoes and hem of her dress. She thrashed against her bonds, but they held fast.

Prudence screamed with pain while Wendell and Molly joined her cries for help. No one responded. Then, as Prudence’s feet began to blister, someone dumped a bucket of water over the fire. Joseph cut her down from the pole and set her on the ground. He did the same for Wendell, who rushed to Prudence’s side. She whimpered as he yanked the shoes off her feet. “Oh my God,” he said.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“No, of course not,” he said, but his grim look told her otherwise. “You’ll be fine.” He kissed her and then picked her up in his arms, carrying her into the girl’s dormitory as if she weighed nothing.

He set her down on her bed and then kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I have to get some water.”

“Promise you’ll come back,” she said.

“Of course I will. I love you.” He left her on the bed, where her feet continued to burn with pain. At least now the others might remember and finally achieve Rodney’s dream. I wish I could see it, she thought as she passed out.