When You Were Young

"I'm sorry, Reverend, but what you're proposing is murder," David said. "We cannot go along with it."

The other three nodded in agreement. "Then your souls will rot in Hell with Mr. Gooddell's. Mark my words gentlemen, you will come to regret your cowardice today. Now go slink back into your beds and seek the comfort of your wives the way a child does its mother."

The four men crept out of the tent and back into the night, leaving only Mr. Pryde. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"We continue as planned. We do not need those fools. God is on our side," Reverend Crane said.

"Unless God is showing up with a musket he isn't going to do us much good," Pryde said.

"He will provide for us somehow. Leave me now. I have much to consider."

"As you command, Boss, but don't expect me to stick my neck out too far for you and your god. I'm not about to get it chopped off." Pryde shoved the knife into his belt and then left the tent. Reverend Crane glared at the flaps. The cowards! he thought. They have no more bravery than worms in the ground. If none would help, then he would find a way to destroy the savages by himself.

Reverend Crane knelt down on the dirt. "Lord, you have guided me here to do your work, to establish your kingdom here on earth. I beseech you now in this moment of darkness to light my way. Show me what I must do to rid your country of these foul heathens."

The tent flaps burst open and the reverend opened his eyes to find a red-haired girl clinging to him. "Reverend, please, you must help me. Something terrible's happened and I don't know who else to turn to. You have to help me. Please."

"Peace, my child. What is troubling you?"

The girl wiped at her eyes with the hem of a dress several sizes too large for her. "I was in the meadow and I fell asleep and when I woke up this boy-the stowaway-was going by and so I followed him into the woods and he went into this cave and there was this pool of water in there and I looked into it and I saw my reflection, but it wasn't my reflection. It was me as a little girl and a toddler and a baby and when I touched the water there was this glow and I became a little girl again. Mrs. Gooddell is going to be so angry with me if I go back like this. There has to be something you can do for me to change me back. Please, Reverend, I know you can do it because you're the smartest, most wonderful man I know. God has to listen to you if you ask him to change me back. I know he will."