5
Prudence struggled with the handcuffs, but they held tight. Dwight had the foresight to have them custom-made for the occasion when restraints needed to be extra strong and Nathan was glad of it, realizing that if Prudence had been cuffed with a regulation set, she would have broken them apart.
"Prue, stop," Duke urged. "You're hurting yourself," he told her, seeing the gashes she was creating on her wrists from fighting with the handcuffs.
"My wrists will heal," she said. "My wounds always heal, do they not, Mara? It would spoil your amusement if I were to perish too quickly."
"I am not Mara anymore!" Audrey argued back. She searched her mind, trying to remember any fragments of her encounters with the silvery-eyed woman across from her, but any of Mara's memories had vanished along with her. "I am only Audrey Parker now," Audrey stated firmly. "I want to help you, Prudence."
"There is nothing you have to offer that I want," Prudence growled. "You have already taken everything I held dear from me-I have nothing left, save my life, and if I could forfeit it, I would do so gladly," she panted, angry tears dripping from her eyes. "I am a monster, an indestructible creature, like a monster from a fairy tale."
"You're not a monster," Vince told her. "And neither is Audrey. Yes, she did wrong as Mara-but she fought Mara and won out in a battle of wills, because she wants to end the Troubles, as much as you do."
"Who are you?" Nathan said.
"Prudence Stillwater," Duke said. "She is my seventh-generational great-grandmother. She's the first Crocker to have ever been Troubled," he went on, a hand on his great-grandmother's shoulder. "She's the original model, you might say."
"Which means your family's Trouble is undiluted with her," Nathan pointed out. "Did you take Dwight's Trouble from him?"
"Yes," Prudence answered. "I relieved the good constable of his terrible burden. And who might you be?" she snapped. "Mara's latest puppet to make dance on a string? There have been many like you, of that I am certain."
"I asked you a question," Nathan said, ignoring Prudence's insults regarding Audrey. "If you are the first Crocker to be Troubled, how did-or does your Trouble work? And what happens now that you took Dwight's Trouble, the same thing that happened to Duke?"
Prudence looked puzzled at her grandson.
"Mara-caused me to release all the Troubles that our family had killed off," Duke said in a low voice.
"And yet you stand here and defend her," Prudence stated matter-of-factly. "Did it occur to any of you that if she is gone, perhaps her miseries will go with her?"
"We don't know that they would, and that's not gonna happen anyway. So just get used to the idea that Mara is gone, lady," Nathan said angrily. "And I asked you a question, Mrs. Stillwater," he growled, still furious that she'd tried to kill Audrey. "How does your Trouble work?"
"If I make contact with the blood of an afflicted person, I can absorb it into my own body. I do not have to take the life of a family member," Prudence said. "I was taught the old ways by the Mik'Maq-I know how to send them out of me and back to the other side where they belong. Unfortunately, Mara and her-companion-"she ground out savagely, "altered that. Crockers could still 'cure' Troubles-but it meant turning my kinsmen into assassins and killers. I would imagine the name Crocker now inspires fear in the hearts of the afflicted," she concluded, glancing at Duke's face, seeing that she was indeed speaking the truth. "I'm sure the hands of my family are stained with the blood of the Troubled."
"Why wasn't your Trouble-altered?" Audrey asked.
"Because it was not a Trouble to begin with," Prudence said. "It was originally a healing gift. But you took it and turned it into an atrocity," she directed at Audrey, who looked stricken. "The curse William placed upon me was that of indestructibility-I cannot die. The curse placed upon my family was that they would have my gift of healing-but at a terrible cost."
"If you can send Troubles to the other side, then that means that you can open the door," Dave said, a look of fear crossing his face. "You can't do that-you don't know what's over there, Prudence!"
"I am all too aware of what is over there," Prudence replied. "And yes, it is terrible, David."
Audrey got up and crossed over to Prudence, kneeling down in front of her.
"Prudence-I want to try to end the Troubles," she told her, her blue eyes on Prudence's own. "I can't imagine the pain I've caused you as Mara, and if I could take it all back, I would. But I can't. Now all I can do is try to make things right. You can help me-help us-do that," she continued, going around behind her.
"Audrey, what are you doing?" Nathan protested.
"The right thing," Audrey answered firmly. She unfastened the cuffs from around Prue's wrists, and could indeed see that though the cuffs were bloody, the wounds inflicted by the handcuffs were gone.
"How do you know that you can trust me?" Prudence asked.
"I don't," Audrey replied. "But I trust him," she went on, looking steadily at Duke, who returned her gaze.
Prudence looked at him, and then back at Audrey and Nathan, gauging her words carefully before she spoke.
"I will trust in you, because they all seem to trust in you," she said at length, looking from one face to another in the room. "But betray my trust, Audrey Parker; and you will sincerely regret it to your dying day."
"Fair enough," Audrey stated, and offered her hand to Prudence, who took it solemnly. The two shook, gauging one another warily.
"Well now," Vince said brightly, trying to lighten the mood. "How about we dig into some of the food Duke has thoughtfully provided?"
"I could eat," Audrey said, her eyes still on Prudence's.
"As could I," Prudence replied, her gaze never wavering from Audrey's face.
Nathan came up behind Audrey protectively.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he said in her ear so as not to be heard as Prudence finally broke her gaze, turning her attention instead to Duke as he explained what foods were what.
"I hope I do too," Audrey sighed.