"What does this mean?" she asked.

"It means you were thirty years old when Reverend Crane first poisoned you." Samantha turned through the pages, finding a census taken in 1700 that listed Prudence's age as three. Through the censuses, Samantha determined a pattern. "Whenever anyone might start to remember anything or question anything, he poisoned you and wiped your memories so you had to start all over again."

"How long? How long has this been going on?" Samantha turned to the last page of the ledger with writing on it, a projected census with the date of 31 May, 1999. It listed Prudence and Samantha as newborns. "He's been doing this for almost four hundred years?"

"I'm afraid so." Samantha turned back to the previous census taken in 1991. Her name was not included on the list. This disheartened her more than if learning she-like Prudence and the others-had been a pawn of the reverend for the better part of four centuries.

She closed the ledger and searched through the rest of the study, but found nothing. Nothing that might have given her a clue to her real identity or tell her where to find her family. She sagged to the floor and put her head in her hands. "It's useless," she said. "He was lying. I should have known. I'll never know who I am or where I came from or find my family."

Prudence sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "But you have a family, Samantha. We're your family now. All of us: Miss Brigham, Rebecca, Wendell, even Helena. We love you, Samantha."

"But do you think all those things he said are true? About me being a murderer and a thief? How else would I be able to do what I did?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't matter who you were and what you did. All that matters is who you are now. You're my best friend." They embraced again, both of them crying. They stayed on the floor of the reverend's study until their tears dried up.

"We should go back to town and tell the others what happened," Prudence said.

Samantha shook her head. "No, we can't tell them about this. The little ones wouldn't understand. They still think their parents are coming for them."

"But, isn't that lying?"

"It's not lying. It's withholding the truth," Samantha said with a smile. "Someday, when they're older, we'll tell them. Until then, it's our secret."

"What about Miss Brigham? Should we tell her?"

"It might be hard to explain to her right now. Let's give her a little while to adjust."

They left the reverend's house and found Miss Brigham still tied up in the woods where they'd left her. Samantha hesitated before pulling the gag from Miss Brigham's mouth. "Oh, thank heavens you girls came along. I don't know what happened to those other two. I ought to give them a talking-to for leaving me out here all night with nothing to lie on by this hard ground. I ought to give them a real piece of my mind."




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