When You Were Young

"Well, no. It's hard to explain. You see-"

"Skip it. Just get me to the Seafarer Bed and Breakfast. I hear it's a nice place. In the morning you can tell me all about whatever it is you want to tell me about."

"Very well then. I don't mean to pry, but you seem to be upset about something."

"Oh, it's nothing really. I've only killed five people in the last two days through incompetence." She laughed and added, "Are you sure you still want my help?"

"I don't see where I have much choice," she said. They reached the car and Samantha collapsed into the passenger's seat. The redheaded woman got in slowly, as if afraid the car might devour her. She looked at the controls for a minute until figuring out how to put the key into the ignition. "Can you tell me how to get to this bed and breakfast?"

Samantha pointed to a road winding over the docks. "It's up there somewhere. Keep going til you find it or we run out of gas." She leaned her head against the side of the window, her haggard reflection filling the rearview mirror. "I'm so old."

"You're only as old as you feel, dear." The woman put the car into drive and tapped the accelerator. The car lurched forward. The woman did this again and again until Samantha's stomach began to churn. "I'm sorry, dear. It's been so long since I had to drive one of these. The last time was in 1947 I think or it might have been 1967. It's so hard to remember."

Samantha thought she must have heard something wrong. This woman sitting next to her couldn't be more than thirty; she wouldn't have been born in 1947 or '67. "Just get us there," she said. She closed her eyes, seeing Joey's face looking up at her, tears in his eyes as he learned his mother was dead. I'm sorry, she thought. I wish there was some way to make it up to you. Saving these children in 'grave danger' might be the start of her long penance.

The woman shook her awake some time later. "We're here, dear," the woman said. She pointed to a sprawling white house.

"Great. You didn't hit anyone on the way here, did you?"

"Oh no, I'd never do that."

"Wonderful. Listen, Miss-"

"Brigham. Molly Brigham."

"Miss Brigham, you wait here and I'll see about getting us a room for the night." She wove her way to the front steps of the house, her body feeling like a rag doll's. She stumbled into the front door and then reached out for a brass knocker in the shape of a bear's head. She banged it against the door for at least five minutes until the knocker was torn away from her hand. An old woman in a dark-blue-and-white-striped nightgown that complemented the house's color scheme stood in the doorway. "I'm sorry, my dear, but it's too late to accept boarders," the old woman said. "You'll have to come back in the morning." She frowned at Samantha. "Have you been drinking?"