Veronica swept the shelf clean in frustration. Hammers, nails, and screws crashed to the floor of the tool shed. She held out her arm, the pale, chubby limb a reminder of the sacrifices she had made over the last three years. All for nothing now, she thought.
Three years of manipulating the pieces into place, waiting for the perfect time to strike. She had earned Samantha's trust, enduring three years of that bitch ordering her around and tucking her in at night. At the same time she convinced David to help her overthrow Samantha and assuaged Molly's fears. She discovered the formula for the Indian potion to erase the children's memories in Joseph's bedroom, smuggling the recipe back to Eternity inside one of Molly's dolls. She and Molly then brewed the formula in secret at night and tested it on Annie until they got it right. After Samantha and her friends left for Seabrooke this final time, Veronica and David filled buckets with water from the Fountain of Youth.
Everything orchestrated with the precision of a military campaign and carried out successfully. They spiked the children's juice at breakfast with the water and memory-altering potion. She had stood at one end of the dining hall, watching those brats Helena and Phyllis shrink into five-year-olds bawling for their mommas. Grabbing them by the ears and tossing them into the pantry cellar gave her a taste of the joy to come when she traveled to Seabrooke.
At the time she thought God must have been rewarding her for all the years of patience. There Samantha lay passed out on the docks, dead to the world. The temptation to grab David's knife and plunge it into the traitor's heart paralyzed her for a few moments. But she didn't want to kill the wretch like this, not after thirty-five years of waiting. No, she wanted Samantha to suffer, to be broken and destroyed.
It had happened so much easier than she thought possible. Not more than three hours after waking up as a toddler, Samantha's mind snapped. One glimpse of herself in the mirror in those cutesy-pie clothes and with those ridiculous curls reduced her to a simpering child.
Veronica took on her new role as her enemy's mother with glee. Every time the baby called her "Mama Veronica" she resisted the urge to laugh with triumph. What better and more thorough humiliation for the traitor could she ever hope for? Best of all, with the fountain water and the memory-altering potion at her disposal, she could keep Samantha in that state for years or even centuries. The very thought of the bitch still wearing those cutesy-pie clothes three hundred years from now and still calling her "Mama Veronica" gave her an almost orgasmic thrill.