She squirmed in the grasp of the man carrying her, punching and kicking at him. None of her blows did any good. They're going to kill me, she thought. She kicked and punched harder to free herself without any effect.
They passed by the town of Eternity. She didn't see anyone on the pathways or in the shops, though it was midmorning. What had they done to the others? she wondered. Were they too lying in cribs or had Becky and Molly gone so far as to kill them?
"Hewp me!" she cried out. "Hewp me pwease!" No one emerged from the shops, church, or dormitories to her aid.
I'm doomed, she thought. There was no one to help her and she was too little to help herself. There has to be some way, she thought. If she could get free, then she might be able to hide in the forest and make her way to the beach. She could take a boat to Seabrooke. Joseph could help her. He knew so much about chemistry; he would find a way to change her back.
How could she explain this to Joseph? For three years she had told him the flimsy story of living in an Amish community up the coast with her cousins. If she showed up on his doorstep as a three-year-old child with some crazy story about the Fountain of Youth, what would he think? And after the way they parted, she wouldn't blame him for slamming the door in her face.
She didn't need his help anyway. Wendell and Prudence were still in Seabrooke. Wendell knew almost as much about science. He could find a way to change her back into an adult. Then he and Prudence could help her stop Becky.
She didn't understand why Becky would do this. Was it jealousy because Becky should be as old as Samantha, if she twice hadn't received a dose of fountain water? Or was it resentment at Samantha raising her like a child? Or perhaps Becky wanted to keep her and Joseph from going anywhere.
None of this makes sense, she thought. Becky had been her best friend behind Prudence for nine years, until the accident three years ago. Then Becky had changed. She became a sullen and withdrawn child. Samantha attributed this to torture Becky received at the hands of Helena and Phyllis. She thought in time Becky would recover. Instead, she did this.
Samantha thought perhaps she was to blame for this. If she hadn't treated Becky like a child, then maybe this wouldn't have happened. In a way, wasn't what she'd done been almost as bad as what Helena and Phyllis had done? Wasn't mothering her almost as humiliating as playing dress-up with her and locking her in a cellar?