She giggled again. "I'm not that important. They got along without me for over three hundred years."
"I suppose they'll find a way to get by without you again."
"Right."
They said nothing for a while. Finally Samantha said, "We should head back to town. They should have something for dinner by now."
As they started through the meadow, Uncle Hector said, "There's one thing you haven't shown me yet."
"What's that?"
"Where's that magic water come from? The Fountain of Youth."
"Oh, that. It's in a cave."
"Can I see it?"
"Sure. I'll take you down there tomorrow. You have to be really careful, though. Just a little bit of that water can go a long way."
"I noticed," he said, rubbing his beard. "I haven't looked this good since I was twenty-five."
"Miss Brigham might have used too much. It's not an exact science."
"I guess not." He squeezed her shoulder. "The reverend used it on you?"
"Yes. I was ten when I woke up. Then before the reverend died he pulled me into the fountain. When Prudence pulled me up I was six again."
"I'm sorry."
"It's all right. I'm almost a grown up again."
"You sure are. It couldn't have been easy, though, being a little kid again."
"It wasn't so bad, sometimes," Samantha said. She thought of running through the meadow with Prudence, both of them screaming their heads off. Those moments had been few and far between. "It was worst in the dark."
"I would bet. You never did like the dark when you were little. Your mom used to say your dad would have to sit in your room until you fell asleep."
Samantha closed her eyes. She could see her father sitting on a chair much too small for him, a metal club in his hand to ward off monsters. She giggled at this image. "Daddy really loved me, didn't he?"
"You bet he did. So did your mom. So do I." Then Uncle Hector scooped Samantha off her feet. He spun her around as if she were still a toddler. She screamed until they wound up in a laughing heap on the ground.
* * *
For dinner they had what Phyllis called "rabbit stew." It was mostly chunks of rabbit in water with a few chunks of vegetables from the cellars. Miss Brigham had never cared for rabbit of any sort. Whenever she tried to eat it, she pictured those adorable animals with their cute ears and bushy tails. That always made her lose her appetite.
This time didn't prove any different. Despite the rumbling in her stomach, she only ate the vegetables and sipped the water. The chunks of meat she left in the bowl. When no one was looking, she slipped them into Prudence's bowl. She knew she shouldn't encourage the girl to eat, but it was better than her eating the rabbit.