When You Were Young

She turned to Wendell and said, "Promise me that no matter what happens you'll never leave me."

"I promise," he said. He opened his eyes and with great difficulty managed to kiss her on the cheek. "I love you. No matter where or when or how old we are, there's nothing that can ever change that."

The town appeared in her vision. The boys dragging the net slowed as they reached the town square. "What do we do with them?" one of them asked.

"The redheads are traitors. Dispose of them however you like. The fat one is mine," Veronica said. As soon as the boys pulled the netting away, Veronica snatched Samantha by the arm, dragging her away.

"Samantha!" Joseph shouted. He tried to run after her, but was again elbowed in the ribs. For her part, Samantha kicked and even tried to bite Veronica to no avail.

A group of boys hauled Prudence and Wendell to their feet and then carried them to the center of the square, where they were reunited with Molly. "What do we do with them?" some of the boys asked.

"Stab them!"

"Hang them!"

A boy Prudence recognized as John, Helena's former husband, pressed his way through the crowd. "I say we burn them!" he said. The other boys roared their approval of this.

"How do we do that?" someone asked.

"Tie them to a post and light a fire beneath them," John said. He shoved Prudence's head forward and then with his knife sawed off her long hair. She screamed from the pain until someone muffled her with a dirty rag. John held up the shorn tresses for everyone to see. "This will make good kindling."

"You can't do this," Wendell pleaded. "We haven't done anything wrong."

"She killed Helena and Phyllis," John said, pointing to Molly. "And you two helped her."

"She couldn't have killed them," Wendell said. "Look how small she is. How could she murder anyone?"

"Veronica is lying to you," Molly said. "She's using you like she used me. As soon as she's done with you, she'll kill you. She doesn't care about anyone but herself."

John hit Molly in the stomach with the handle of his knife. "You killed them! Why should we believe anything you say?"

Molly looked about her frantically. "Annie, tell them! You were there. You saw them. Annie?"

Prudence scanned the crowd, but didn't see Annie anywhere. As the others spoke, Prudence had been working the rag free from her mouth. She finally managed to spit it out as some of the boys returned from the fields with three fence posts. They pounded the posts into the ground and then tied the redheaded children to them with ropes. Others brought firewood from the nearby shops to pile at the base of each post. As a finishing touch, John laid Prudence's hair at her feet. "Now you three will get what you deserve," he said.