She knew instantly what it meant.
She let out a scream, yelling, “Call 911!” My dad came racing into the kitchen. My mom’s face showed nothing but fear and utter disbelief. Dad stopped in the middle of the kitchen and followed her eyes. He saw the open window. He saw the knife cut in the screen.
Mary Katherine’s words seemed to hang in the air between them.
Elizabeth is gone. You won’t find her. A man came and took her. He had a gun.
7.
Morning Light
We climbed all night. It was a terrible struggle, going up the back side of the mountain without the benefit of any trail. It was climbing and crawling and moving through rough patches of weeds and thick trees. As the sky changed from black to gray to pink to light blue, the man became more and more agitated. More in a hurry. More anxious to get out of sight. As the sun broke, we were just crossing the highest ridge on the mountain. The sky was clear, with not a single cloud, and I suppose that you could see for miles. I was wearing a pair of red silk pajamas that I had been given by a friend of my mother’s. The man looked at my bright clothing in the growing light. “Someone is going to see you,” he said in anger.
I looked down at my pajamas. They were very bright.
He said something more about a runner seeing me, something I really didn’t understand—what kind of runner would be up here on top of the mountains?—then reached into his bag and pulled out a gray shirt. I don’t remember if I put it on or not, but I do remember that he made me hurry. By this time, the man had put away his knife. He figured I couldn’t get away from him now. Still, he always stood beside me, ready to grab me if I ever made a run for it.
Over the top of the ridge we moved, dropping onto a steep canyon on the other side. There the trees were not as thick, seeming to grow in patches of scrub oaks and small pines, with a few quakies scattered in, most of them nearer to the bottom of the canyon. There was thick grass and weeds, and the mountain dropped steeply toward the south. Above the treeline, there was a large basin of barren terrain we had to cross. The man almost made me run, so worried was he that I might be seen. I was exhausted by then. I’d been climbing all night. I was terrified and thirsty and dreading whatever lay ahead. But I moved quickly with him, too terrified to resist.
We hiked across a barren patch of grass, thistle, and weeds. Then he pulled me toward a grove of mountain oaks that was about a third of the way down the ridge. Approaching the trees, he stopped and called out. “Hephzibah!”
A woman’s voice answered from the trees: “Immanuel.”
He seemed relieved and moved faster toward the voice.
The old woman was waiting for us near the trees. I studied her hopefully, but her hard stance and cold eyes told me she was anything but a friend. She had a wild look about her, emotional and tense, like a strand of wire that was being pulled too tight. She had straggly brown-and-gray hair, a broad face, and brooding eyes. She looked older than she was, and it was obvious that she had lived a hard life. Her eyes were dull, but grew excited now, an ember of fire beneath her drooping lids. She had rough hands and a rough manner that was all-business and curt. She was dressed in a linen robe, not the kind you tie at your waist, but those you have to slip over your head. It shocked me to see her dressed like that, up there on the mountain.
That turned out to be one of the first clues as to what lay in store for me.
The first thing she did was walk up and put her arms around me, pulling me into a strong embrace. But it was not a warm thing. Not an act of kindness, and certainly not an act of love. No, it felt more like an act of dominance than any sort of welcome. I am stronger than you are. And don’t ever doubt it—when it comes to you and me, I am number one.
I felt dangerously out of place, standing there in my red pajamas. Though my top had a collar, sometime before, to be more modest, I had taken a safety pin and pinned it a little higher. I touched the collar, then thought of my mother, knowing she had a set of pajamas the same as mine. Thinking of her, I wanted to cry.
I glanced quickly around the camp, trying to take it in. It was primitive but well stocked. Tents. Tarps. Other things. They had obviously been up there for a while.
I don’t really know what time it was, probably close to midmorning. It had been something like six or seven hours since I had been taken. I don’t remember feeling tired any longer, but I remember feeling very scared.
Immanuel (I didn’t know his real name yet) nodded, seeming to signal to the older woman. Hephzibah (again, I didn’t yet know her name was Wanda Barzee) nodded back. Without any explanation, she took me by the hand and pulled me toward the large tent. It was obvious they had planned out what was going to happen before I had been brought into the camp.
As she pulled me by my arm, I knew that my world was about to come apart.
8.
Rape of a Child