She gave the remote control to him. "You point this at the television and it tells it what to do."

He examined the remote control as if she'd given him a magic wand. He punched a button and the baseball game was replaced by two people with skin nearly the same color as Samantha's arguing in a language none of them understood. Wendell hit another button and a cartoon appeared. A square, yellow character jabbered with a red blob. "What are those?" Prudence asked. "They're like pictures, but they're moving."

"That's right. It's called animation," Samantha said.

Wendell repeated the word with reverence. "How do they create these things?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Samantha said. "It's complicated."

"I don't like it," Prudence said.

"Give it a chance," Samantha said. "You two keep watching. I'll be right back."

Samantha didn't want to take advantage of their host, but she needed to find answers. She crept into the parlor to search for any clues about Judah Pryde. On the mantle above the fireplace, she found a color photograph similar to the one of her parents.

She recognized a younger Judah Pryde despite shorter hair and a smile on his face. He knelt beside a boy with brown hair sticking up in the back and a pair of black-rimmed spectacles. A chubby woman who looked almost exactly like her son-including the glasses-smiled on the boy's other side. Behind them was a forest of evergreens. "That's my wife and son about ten years ago," Mr. Pryde said. Samantha jumped and muttered an apology. Mr. Pryde waved the apology away and picked up the photograph. "That was about three months before she died."

"I'm sorry," Samantha said.

"A heart attack. Real sudden."

"That's awful." Samantha looked down at the dusty floor as she composed her next words. "I used to know someone named Jonas Pryde. Is he any relation?"

Mr. Pryde set the picture back on the mantle. "I had a grandfather named Jonas, but he disappeared probably sixty years ago during the war. Left my grandmother with a baby and this house. I don't suppose you could have known him."

"I suppose not," Samantha said. "It must be a different Jonas Pryde." She thought of the trophies Jonas Pryde had kept from his victims, the various eras from which they had originated. He could easily have come ashore and married a woman before heading back to his duties on Eternity.

"If it is, he ain't related to me. Joey and I are the last of the family." Mr. Pryde sighed and then reached into the pocket of a different flannel shirt for another cigarette. "There's one other of us-my sister-but she disappeared years ago."




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