After Rebecca finished her story, the others stared at her for a few moments in shock. "I don't understand," Samantha said. "How could she have died three years ago? I still remember her and Veronica."
"I'm not sure how it's possible," Rebecca said. She put a hand to her head. "I can't remember anything after that until I woke up in the cabin this morning."
"What about everyone else?" Wendell asked. "Do they remember anything about the last three years?"
"I think you better see that for yourselves," Rebecca said.
As they walked along the path from the demolished cave to town, Samantha tried to make sense of everything that had happened. Everything she remembered about raising Molly and Veronica the last three years had never happened. Yet she could remember every moment as clearly as the forest around her. She remembered the birthday parties, the trips to Seabrooke, and the bedtime stories. She remembered the skinned knees, the poison ivy, and the lost teeth. Most of all, she remembered them crawling into her bed during thunderstorms, their bodies pressed close to hers and their warm breath touching her face. On those nights when she protected them from the lightning and thunder she felt most like a mother.
Those moments had never happened; those adorable little girls were only ghosts of her memory now. How could this be? How could people she loved so much simply disappear through some quirk of time? She told herself that she would not forget, no matter what else happened. She would keep those girls alive in her memory; the only place where they could still survive.
It should have been me, Samantha thought. I should have used the fountain to go back, not Molly. Samantha had raised the girls, but when the time came for her to sacrifice like a mother for her children, she had failed. She had failed to protect Molly just like Andre, her unborn child, Joseph's mother, and the others Veronica had murdered.
As if reading her thoughts, Prudence put a hand on Samantha's shoulder. "You did what you could. We all did. Including Molly. She did what she had to do for all of us."
"You don't understand. I was supposed to protect her. She was my responsibility." She shook Prudence's hand away. "You can't understand. None of you can."
Samantha bolted into the forest, dropping to her knees among a stand of ancient trees. She rested her head against the ground to cry as the memories overwhelmed her. Two more victims to add to her list of failure and incompetence, Veronica being the greatest failure of all.