Samantha went over to Prudence, kneeling down beside her. She shook Prudence until her friend stirred. "Where are we?" Prudence asked. She touched her head where Pryde had cut off her hair. "What happened?"
"We have to get moving. Stay close to me." She helped Prudence up and put an arm around her shoulders. Together they walked up the path to where Pryde waited.
"You two keep going. Try anything funny and I'll slice you in half," Pryde said. Prudence gulped at this, but Samantha met his gaze, her eyes narrowing.
She and Prudence continued up the path with Pryde following behind, his knife at the ready. "Where are we going?" Prudence asked. "Is he going to kill us?"
"I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you," Samantha said. She glanced over her shoulder at Pryde.
"What happened to my hair?"
"He took it."
The path ended in an arched opening carved from the rock. Beyond this was a chamber several times bigger than the one where Prudence had written her message. A white light danced off the walls, illuminating stick figures painted around the chamber. One sequence of figures showed a baby, a child, an adult woman, and an elderly woman.
The white glow came from a pool of water sunk into the center of the room. Samantha stepped up to the edge of the pool and found more hieroglyphics etched there. In the surface of the water she saw not her actual reflection, but reflections of herself from a baby to a little girl. "What is this?" she asked.
"This," Reverend Crane said from behind them, "is the Fountain of Youth."