Samantha got unsteadily to her feet and held up the sagging arms of her dress. She had to hike up the tattered hem of her dress several inches to find her feet, which hadn't seemed to shrink at all. "How little am I?" she asked Prudence.
"I don't know. How little am I?"
Samantha squinted to find Prudence's chubby body amongst the folds of the dress that now fit her like a tent. "Five, I'd guess. So that must make me six…and a half."
"How do you know that?"
"I just do." Prudence said nothing more to dispute Samantha's arithmetic. Samantha stood at the edge of the fountain, seeing only reflections of herself as a chubby toddler and the infant Reverend Crane wanted to make her into. "I can't remember being a little girl before. Maybe it won't be so bad. At least I'll still have you as my friend."
Samantha and Prudence embraced and then started to search for the cave's entrance. They wandered around in the dark, walking slowly to avoid tripping on a rock or their skirts, until they saw a shaft of light coming through an opening above their heads. In the light they found a set of steps carved into the rock that led to an opening so small they had to stoop to get through.
The opening came out within sight of Reverend Crane's house. Samantha remembered what he had said about the proof to her prior life being inside and steered Prudence in that direction. "Are you sure we ought to look through the reverend's things?" Prudence asked.
"I have to find out," Samantha said. She opened the front door to the reverend's house and began searching for any clues in the sitting room. She flipped over the chairs, stomped on the floorboards, and felt along the walls for anything he might have hidden. She found nothing in the sitting room and then moved on to the kitchen, flinging pots, pans, cups, and plates from their cupboards.
In the bedroom, she needed Prudence's help to lift up the mattress. They found nothing there or in any of the cabinets or dressers. This left only one room: the reverend's study.
On a simple wooden desk, Samantha studied the reverend's papers. Most were future sermons dealing with The Way and avoiding temptation. She opened a leather-bound ledger sitting next to Reverend Crane's Bible and gasped.
"What is it?" Prudence asked.
"It's a census," Samantha said. "It has the name of every child in town on here." Samantha ran her finger along the list, stopping at the name of Prudence Elizabeth Gooddell. Beside her name was listed the entry: 'Born 3 February, 1625, Wessenshire, England.' When Samantha read this to her, Prudence put a hand to her lips and took a step back.