Children of Eternity Omnibus

by P. T. Dilloway

  “It’s fine,” he said. “They’re still sleeping.”

  “Do you think he did the same to his father as he did to us?” she asked. She wondered what kind of nightmares would torment a man like Mr. Pryde.

  “I’m not sure,” Wendell said. They sat down on the bed, sitting on opposite sides of Mr. Pryde’s legs. Wendell tried to think of what to do next. First they had to find Samantha and Joseph, and then they had to stop them. Where would they go? There had to be some way of finding out.

  “We could look on a map,” Prudence said. He didn’t realize he’d been thinking aloud. “Something might jump out at us.”

  “It’s worth a try,” he said. They went downstairs to rummage around the living room and parlor until Wendell found a map of Maine in a desk drawer. He spread it open on the floor, searching along the coast to find Seabrooke. “Anything?”

  “I don’t know. It’s so big,” Prudence said.

  “They won’t go too far. He’ll want to hit something soon, before a lot of people start looking for them. He’ll want something close by that’s about the same size as the one here so he won’t have to alter the plan too much.”

  Prudence pointed to a tiny spot on the map within a fingernail of Seabrooke. Pinecrest. “How about this one?”

  Wendell considered the suggestion and then nodded. “That looks like it would do.”

  “What if we’re wrong?”

  “Then they’re lost to us,” he said. He gave her hand another squeeze. “It won’t come to that. They’ll be there. Now for our next problem: how do we stop them?”

  Neither of them said anything for a while. Wendell couldn’t imagine any way of incapacitating Samantha without hurting her. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. “Let’s get some breakfast,” he said. “Food for thought.”

  Prudence’s hand went down to her stomach. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “I don’t think I can eat ever again after what happened. After that terrible—” She jumped up to her feet. “That’s it, Wendell! That’s what we have to do.”

  “What?”

  “They gave us and Mr. Pryde and Mrs. Schulman some kind of potion, right? Maybe we can turn the tables on them.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Wendell said. He kissed Prudence for coming up with the idea and then followed her up the stairs to Joseph’s bedroom. The door was locked, but yielded to Prudence’s shoulder after three tries.

  “Where do you suppose he keeps them?” Prudence asked.

  Wendell looked around the room and shook his head. “He’ll have taken them with him if he’s not coming back. I should have thought of that sooner. I’m sorry. It was a good idea.”

  He started for the door, reaching the doorway before Prudence yanked him back by the collar. She held up a stack of papers she’d found in the desk drawer. “Look at this,” she said. “It’s his cookbook.”

  Wendell took the papers from her and saw she was right. The notes detailed the makeup of the various potions and their effects on the body. He found the one that must have been used on he and Prudence—“causes temporary unconsciousness with hallucinations”—along with a dozen others. “Do you think you can make one of these?” she asked.

  “I’ll try,” he said. Even with the list of ingredients, creating a whole new compound in twelve hours would be difficult. Not to mention he didn’t know much about modern chemistry. Still, what choice did they have?

  “You can do it. I believe in you,” Prudence said. She kissed him again, this time for luck.

  Chapter 40: Undercover

  Samantha didn’t know whether the nitroglycerine or Joseph’s temper was more volatile. “How the hell did they wake up?” he kept asking as he drove. “That combination should have put them down for at least a week.”

  “I don’t know,” Samantha kept saying. Every time, she leaned over to look into the mirror. A shot of Joe’s potion had turned the skin around her eye a pale white, although she still remembered it swollen and purple. She brushed a tress of platinum hair over the eye. She didn’t dare say anything else out of fear he might vent his anger on her.

  “And how did they untie themselves? I checked those knots myself. There’s no way a little kid and some fat chick could get out of those.”

  “Maybe they had some help,” Samantha suggested.

  “Who? My father was still asleep. Mrs. Schulman was still out. What, some random stranger passed by to untie them?”

  “I don’t know,” she said again.

  “This is just fucking great,” Joseph said. “All that planning for nothing. All that work out the window. We should have killed those brats when we had the chance.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He turned to her and at last the tide of rage broke. “It’s not your fault,” he said.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. She hoped he would say they would keep driving until found somewhere safe to begin a new life. She hoped he would forget all about bank robberies and focus on the two of them.

  “There’s another bank nearby in a place called Pinecrest. It shouldn’t be much different.”

  Samantha knew better than to suggest they give up on the bank robbery plan. He wouldn’t give up now, not with them so close. To give up would be to acknowledge someone had outsmarted him, beaten him at his own game. “When?” she asked.

  “We’ll do it tonight. It’ll take the sheriff some time to get everything together even if your friends went to the cops.”

  “You think they wouldn’t go to the police?”

  “These kids aren’t like us. They don’t know anything about the outside world. They’re Amish for God’s sake. They don’t know whom they can trust. By the time they figure things out, we’ll be long gone.”

  Samantha reached across the seat to put a reassuring hand on Joseph’s thigh. Everything would work out fine in the end. They would rob the bank and then leave all this behind. With the money they could find some remote place in the desert or mountains where Joseph could do his work and she could look after him. In time they’d add children as beautiful as her and smart as Joseph. Everything would be perfect.

  The town of Pinecrest turned out not to be much of anything. A handful of shops, a gas station, and a McDonald’s all clustered around one stoplight. “This is it?” she asked.

  “There’s the bank,” Joseph said, pointing to a building that didn’t seem much bigger than Mr. Pryde’s living room. Pinecrest State Bank. This was the key to their new life?

  “Do they even have money here?”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he said. He took her hand off his thigh as he found a parking spot in front of the bank. “We need to go inside and get the lay of the land. I need you to create a distraction so I can look around without drawing attention.”

  “Me? How do I create a distraction?”

  “I don’t know. Think of something. When I open the door, that’s your signal to make the distraction. Got it?”

  “I got it.”

  “Come on, baby, don’t get upset. This is all going to work out. Maybe not like we planned, but just as well.” He kissed her, a short, dry peck that promised more if she did a good job.

  Samantha got out of the car, stomping up to the front door of the bank without looking back. Inside, the bank was like the layout of the town itself: one teller window, one office, and one bank vault. A fat woman with red hair that made Samantha think she could be the mother to the kids they’d tied up leaned against the teller window. In the office, an old man with a drooping mustache read a newspaper. A black woman in a blue security guard uniform sat on a stool against one wall, inspecting her nails. Other than the piped-in easy listening music the place was as quiet as a library. How could she create a distraction in here?

  “Can I help you?” the fat teller asked.

  “Oh, sure, I guess. I was thinking of maybe opening an account or something. What kind do you have?”

  “We have all the usual: checking, savings, money markets. You’ll need
to bring one of your parents with you to open an account, though.” Joseph opened the door then. The teller’s spiel gave Samantha an idea she hoped would work.

  “A parent? But I don’t have any parents. They’re dead,” she wailed. She willed herself into crying. “I’m an orphan. All alone in the world and you tell me to bring in a parent? Don’t you have any heart at all?”

  The teller reached across the counter to pat Samantha on the back. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t know. Well, if you don’t have a parent, then surely you have an adult guardian who looks after you?”

  “I don’t have anyone. No one wants me. Not even your stupid bank. Why does everyone keep punishing me? It’s not my fault they died.” She put her head down on the counter, sneaking a glance at the security guard, who was too interested watching Samantha make a scene to notice Joseph.

  The old man put down his newspaper and came out of the office. “Is there a problem here, Gertrude?” he asked.

  “I told this young lady she needs an adult to come with her if she wants to open an account. She says she doesn’t have any parents or a guardian—”

  Samantha reached out to grab the old man around the arm. “Here. Here’s an adult. Now let me sign your stupid papers so I can get a stupid account to put money in your stupid bank.”

  “There’s no need to get nasty,” Gertrude said. “I’m sure we can make arrangements, can’t we Mr. Lundy?”

  “Of course,” the old man said. He slipped his arm out of Samantha’s to put it on her ass. “If you’ll come with me to my office, we’ll work something out.”

  The door closed behind Joseph at that moment. Samantha nudged Mr. Lundy away, ready to make her big exit. “I know what you’re doing. As soon as I get back there, you’re going to call the police and have me taken away. I don’t need your stupid bank anyway! Fuck all of you.” She raised her middle finger, holding it up to Gertrude, Mr. Lundy, and the security guard as she stormed out of Pinecrest State Bank.

  She continued her angry march to the intersection, where Joseph waited with the car. She climbed into the car and then allowed herself to laugh. “You should have seen their faces when I flipped them off,” she said.

  “I can imagine,” Joseph said. “You were totally believable. You even had me going.”

  “Thanks.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek before accelerating through the intersection and out of town. “Well, what did you find out?”

  “It should work. The vault isn’t much different. Maybe even easier to crack. I don’t think they’ve put a new one in since the ‘30s.”

  “Great,” she said. “So now what?”

  “We wait until it gets dark. There’s a motel nearby where we can act out a love scene.”

  She kissed him and said, “I can’t wait.”

  Chapter 41: Life in an Island Town

  David found them on the path between town and the caves. He ignored Molly, brushing her aside to embrace Veronica. “Becky? What the hell happened?” he asked. Now he turned to Molly. “What did you do, you little brat?”

  “She didn’t do anything,” Veronica answered before Molly could say anything. “She saved my life.”

  “I don’t understand. What happened to you?”

  “I went to the cave to meet you and I must have left the door open, because some kind of wild creature—a wolf, maybe—came running in after me and I fell into the fountain. I would have died in there, but Molly had followed me and pulled me out.” Veronica’s eyes teared up as she told this lie. “I’m so lucky she disobeyed me. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

  David took Veronica’s chin in his hand to inspect her. “How old are you now?” he asked.

  “Five,” she said.

  “Five,” David repeated. “Jesus Christ, Becky, how could you let this happen?”

  “What difference does it make how old I am on the outside? It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” Veronica said.

  “It matters. Look at you, you’re a little girl. You’re practically a toddler. How can we be together now?”

  “If it bothers you that much, go jump in the fountain yourself,” Veronica said. Molly snickered at this.

  “You think this is funny?” he said, glaring at Molly. His face turned red to the point where Molly expected steam to shoot out of his ears. Instead, he said calmly, “You want to be a little girl, fine. You’ll live like a little girl. We’re going back to the cabin to pick up your clothes and then the two of you are moving into the dormitory with the others.”

  “Dormitory?” Veronica said.

  “I’m not going to have two five-year-olds living alone out there,” he said.

  “I’ve been taking care of her in this condition for years,” Veronica said. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Oh no?” David seized Veronica by the ear. She slapped at his hand, but he refused to let go. “Samantha put us both in charge, but seeing as how you’re unable to handle your responsibilities, that means I’m the boss and you’ll do what I say. The same for you,” he said, glaring at Molly again. He shoved Veronica to the ground, where she lay rubbing her ear. “Now the two of you come along or I’ll drag you back.”

  “Who does he think he is?” Veronica asked as they trudged along behind David back to town. “He thinks he can treat me this way because he’s bigger. I’ll show him.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but this isn’t over,” she said, rubbing her ear again. She didn’t say anything the rest of the way and Molly thought it best not to disturb her.

  At the cottage, David stood in the front doorway in case either of them tried to escape. “Take only your nightclothes and two dresses each. And a doll if you want. The rest stays.”

  “This isn’t fair,” Molly said. “We’re old enough to take care of ourselves. We’re big girls.”

  “You’re babies. Hurry up.”

  Veronica sidled up to David, running a hand inside his thigh. “I know you’re angry with me, but it’s not my fault. It was an accident. There’s no need to punish Molly,” she said.

  David pushed her again, but this time she kept her balance. “She needs punished. You’ve made her think she’s better than everyone else here. She’s a baby. And now, so are you.” He turned his back while Veronica stood there, quivering with rage.

  “If that’s how you want it,” Veronica said. She went back to her bedroom, returning a few minutes later with a bundle of clothes, a blanket, and a pillow. Then she came into Molly’s room to help her pack. “Everything will be all right, honey,” she said. “No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you.”

  She kissed Molly on the forehead the way Becky had done for as long as Molly could remember. Her lips felt the same. How much of her was Veronica and how much Becky? Veronica took a green dress out of the closet and held it up to Molly’s body. “This looks nice on you. And here, take the gray one for everyday wear. Have you decided which dolly to take yet?” In a lower voice, she added, “We’ll come back here tonight. Just let him try to keep us out.”

  They laughed together at this. Molly took the dresses, a nightgown, pillow, blanket, and Sir Francis out to the living room. David marched them across town to the girl’s dormitory. The other girls loitered in the parlor, their whispered conversations coming to a halt when they saw Molly and Veronica. “Girls, Rebecca had a little accident. She and Molly are going to be living with you from now on,” David said. He shoved them forward into the room and then slammed the door on his way out.

  Helena was the first to come forward with a sly grin on her face. “Oh, look how adorable Rebecca is now,” she said. She pinched Veronica’s cheek until Veronica winced. Helena tried to do it again, but this time Veronica slapped her hand away. “Uh-oh, looks like the baby is mad. I know what will make her happy. Let’s play dress-up.”

  Phyllis and a handful of other girls charged forward to seize Veronica and pin her to a chair. Helena took hold of Molly’s arm to keep her
from interfering as the girls went to work on Veronica. They smeared makeup on her face, put her hair into sloppy curls, stuffed her into one of Prudence’s tent-sized dresses, and forced a pair of Samantha’s big shoes on her feet despite Veronica’s pleas to stop. When they finished, the girls backed away, giggling and pointing. Phyllis held up a mirror so Veronica could see herself. “Isn’t it cute? The baby wants to pretend like she’s a grownup,” Helena said. The other girls laughed along with her.

  “Leave me alone!” Veronica screamed as the girls pinched her cheeks and tousled her hair. “I’m not a little kid!” The makeup applied to her face started to run as she cried.

  “I think little Becky needs a nap,” Helena said.

  The girls dragged Veronica from the chair, following Helena and Molly out the door. “Stop this!” Veronica shouted.

  No one stopped the procession on its way to the pantry. Molly didn’t expect anyone to do so. This is what David wanted; this is why he insisted they go to the dormitories, knowing Helena would torture Becky now that she didn’t have anyone around to stop her from doing so. Helena had always been jealous of Becky’s authority and now she had the chance to get even. “When Samantha finds out about this—”

  Helena interrupted Molly’s threat with a laugh. “Samantha’s gone. I’m in charge now.” She opened the door to the cellar and dragged Molly down the steps, followed by Phyllis and a pair of other girls carrying Veronica.

  They dumped both girls on the floor and then started back up. “You’ll pay for this!” Veronica howled. “All of you will pay if it’s the last thing I do!” With the makeup smeared on her face and in her oversized clothes, the threat seemed comical. The cellar door clanged shut, leaving them alone. Veronica batted Molly’s hands away and then retreated to a corner to curl up in a ball. “They’ll pay,” she said again.

  They spent the rest of the night sleeping in opposite corners of the cellar. Every time Molly closed her eyes, she saw Becky reaching out to her while she did nothing to help. If she had only taken Becky’s hand, Becky would still be here and she and little Veronica could have lived in the cottage as one happy family. Why hadn’t she taken Becky’s hand?