When You Were Young

The smell of smoke shook her from her dark thoughts. Must be cooking fires, she thought. From the smell, they were roasting meat of some kind. Her stomach rumbled at the thought.

She emerged from the trees to a sight of unspeakable horror. The savage village had already been wiped out. Tiny bodies lay in a pile at the center, too burned to be identified. The wooden houses where the savages had lived remained untouched for future use along with all their possessions.

Prudence dropped to her knees on the site of her future workshop, pressing her head to the ground. They were dead. Every last one of them slaughtered. She looked back up at the pile of bodies. These were not the savages, she thought. The ones who did this were the real savages.

From the small size of the bodies, she assumed the natives had been forced to ingest water from the Fountain of Youth. This could only mean Pryde was responsible for the destruction. His next target would be the settlers on the other side of the island. If she hurried, she might be able to get there first and warn them.

Prudence took a moment to find a dress made of deer hide and a pair of shoes from one of the native girls. She also located a knife probably used for cooking to defend herself with. Holding out one of her scrawny arms, she doubted she could do much good against Pryde or his animals with the knife, but it was better than nothing. Finally, remembering how badly she'd gotten tangled in the brush while escaping from Veronica, she tied back her hair and tucked it into her dress.

Then she took off running from the native village that would become her home for the next three hundred years. As she ran, she doubted she could make it in time to do any good. Pryde already had a substantial head start on her. Her only hope lay with her tiny body being able to move more quickly than his adult frame. This was not much hope, but she supposed she had to try. That's what Rodney would expect her to do.

She raced through the forest as fast as her legs could take her. Branches clawed at her, but the tough deer hide dress kept any from scratching her and her bound-up hair didn't catch on anything. In what seemed like only moments she reached the meadow near the encampment. As she ran across the grass, she slammed into someone.

She sat up at the same time as a chubby brunette girl about her age clad in an oversized dress. "Rebecca?" she said.