Then she wakes up in the cell on her rough pallet. She touches the greasy tangles of hair Pryde cut off with his knife at her shoulders. The only smells are those of rotting food. Yet her stomach still growls, demanding more. But there will be no more until Pryde returns later.

To pass the time, she makes her way by feel to the spinning wheel. Pryde brought the spinning wheel into the cell three years ago along with a bag of fabric scraps, needles, and thread. "The rev wants you to make yourself useful. Get to work stitching up these clothes. You might want to make something for yourself too, Piggy."

She puts a hand to her stomach pressing against the sackcloth fabric of her dress. Beneath her pallet she keeps a lacy pink dress she'd worn in her first year of captivity until she outgrew it. Since then she's worn a series of shapeless gowns that grew larger with each year. Sometimes she snuggled up with the pink dress to remind herself of the world outside the cell, where beauty still lived.

From the spinning wheel, Prudence takes the spindle in her hand to continue carving the message. The words first came to her two years ago in a dream. She couldn't remember who had spoken the words, but she knew they were important. When she awoke from the dream, Prudence repeated the words over and over again until they became etched in her memory.

She wanted them to live on in more than her memory, though. She wanted them to last forever. So she took up the spindle and began carving. To carve the first letter took a week.

On her sixth anniversary of being stuck down here, she will at last finish the project. She runs her hand along the spot on the wall where she's carved the other letters, feeling her way to where she needs to place the final one. Her hands shake as she chips away at the rock with the spindle; she takes the spindle in both hands to steady herself.

Hours later, the work is complete. She traces her hand along the words, reciting them to herself once more. "No matter how great the obstacle, with God on our side we will prevail," she whispers. She only wishes she could believe these words.

With a more hurried, less steady hand, she carves her initials. She goes back over to her pallet. Beneath the pink dress lies her other treasure: a tattered piece of paper with the measurements for fifty boys and girls, on the back of which was part of a calendar for November 1649.




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