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From up above came a mournful howl Prudence looked up to see a pair of yellow eyes glaring at her The beast had found her, but it wasn't stupid enough to join her in the hole The dog snarled at her and snapped its jaws as if to remind her of what awaited her if she could find a way out of the hole Then the dog loped off, probably to find so for that While the pit gave her some protection from the rain, rivulets of water still found their way in She did what she could to avoid them, but she didn't have ainst one side of the pit and began to sob She would die here, just like that other child long ago She continued to sob until she fell asleep

Today is her anniversary As Prudencethat the marks add up to six years Six years since Reverend Crane locked her away in this underground chamber Six years since she last saw the sun Six years without speaking to another hu in al of her sto of the bats living in the caverns

Mr Pryde coe to her cell twice a day She huddles in a corner when she hears the door open and his boots echoing along the corridor Sos; other times he comes alone He always carries a wooden bucket, the "slop bucket" as he calls it

He feeds her like a pig, du the bucket into a pot on the floor What the bucket contains varies froruel, sometimes mixed with fatty pieces of meat or stale bread She wants to refuse the horrible food, but the growling of her stohs and scratches her behind the ear like one of his beasts "Good piggy," he says

As she listens to his footsteps retreat down the passageway and the door slam shut, tears come to her face at what she's become She is no better than an aninity than her

She throws herself onto the pallet to sleep Only in her dreams can she escape this wretched place for even a few reen fields beneath a blue sky Wind ruffles her waist-length copper hair and brings the scent of wildflowers to her nose She runs and runs through the field until she's so tired, she collapses into the soft grass