I grew firm that day. Committed. The determination grew like a hard stone inside me. Whatever it takes to survive. I will do what he tells me. I will not endanger my family. I will not endanger myself.
I realize that I am not a perfect person. During the nine months that I was in captivity, there were times when I may have failed or made mistakes along the way. But in this one thing, I never wavered. In this thing, I was strong until the very end.
*
I lived in fear that he was going to rape me again. I kept trying to convince myself that he wouldn’t do it. Okay, I thought, it happened twice. Maybe that’s all it needs to be. Maybe it can end now. But I knew it wouldn’t. So I begged him to leave me alone, to not do it again. I begged and I cried. I said everything that I could.
He was having none of it. “We’re man and wife. It’s an important part of the relationship. If you’re sick or something maybe we won’t do it, but otherwise, plan on it.”
Throughout all of these conversations, Barzee never intervened to save me. She never tried to soften the pain I endured in any way. I find that interesting. She is a very jealous person. She didn’t want to share her husband. But at the same time, she believed in him and allowed herself to be manipulated. Who was she to say that it was a bad idea to steal a fourteen-year-old girl from her bed, take her up to the mountains, cable her to a tree, and rape her every day? God had spoken. Her husband acted. Apparently, it sounded like a good plan to her.
Throughout the day, Mitchell talked. And talked. It seemed he never would shut up.
“You know, Shearjashub, you are a very lucky girl,” he would say. “I have taken you out of the world and saved you. God has chosen you. You are so blessed!”
I didn’t feel very lucky.
He went on (and on!) to explain.
The end of the world was coming. Maybe not that month, or that year, but it was coming soon. Maybe fifteen years, at the outside. (I guess he didn’t realize that I felt like my world had already come to an end.) In preparation for the end of the world, God had called him into the wilderness. God had purged and cleansed him. He was now a clean and holy vessel. (As I looked at his dirty clothes, stringy beard, and small black eyes, the words clean and holy didn’t come to mind.) As part of God’s plan, before the end of the world, the Lord had commanded him to take seven wives. All of them had to be young girls. All of them virgins (of course)! And yes, I was the lucky one. I was the first. But have no fear, the day would soon come when all of his new wives would truly love him. We would have children with him. We would be so happy. And when the time was right, all of us would go out and testify to the world that he was the Immanuel. We would tell of his greatness and holiness. We would testify that he was indeed the holy one, the chosen vessel from God. Then we would stand against the authorities and beg for Mitchell’s life. By then, the Antichrist (yeah, who else) would have come and conquered the world. The evil Antichrist would sit among the holy of holies in the temple. After taking the house of God, the Antichrist would claim it for his throne, sitting upon it as he ruled the world with blood and war and horror.
Having been called out of the wilderness with his seven wives and their children, Immanuel would stand before the world in all his glory, ready to reclaim the throne of righteousness for God.
Now, I was just a little girl, and not wise to the ways of the world, but all of this seemed unlikely to me.
Yet all day long he talked. And talked. And talked. Over the coming months, he would continue to talk and talk. Eventually, I’d heard it all so many times that even now I can remember it almost word for word. I can hear his voice in my mind, the structure of his phrases, his intonations and verbal tics. I can remember all of the scriptures that he quoted. His explanation of how God had taken him and made him clean by telling him and Barzee to get rid of their home and live in their RV, then to sell their RV and live in a small trailer, then to sell the trailer and everything else that they owned. Eventually, they ended up hitchhiking around the country with nothing but a handcart and the packs on their backs. Modern-day pioneers, Mitchell and Barzee and their god against the world.
Of course, I knew it was ridiculous. He was a dirty old man who wanted a bunch of young girls for his wives. That’s the only thing he cared about. Sex and drugs and alcohol. That was the only thing this was about. He could do all of the preaching that he wanted, but there was never any doubt in my mind. He was an evil man who had taken me and held me captive. He threatened to kill me. He raped me every day. He threatened to kill my family.
That seemed to take God out of the equation for me.