I should have kicked and hit him with my fists. I should have found a way to fight him.
She’d been so stunned, she never fought back. Now she had no recourse. Her hands were pinned behind her. When she twisted her wrists and tried to free them, metal cut into her skin. A chain attached to her handcuffs trailed the length of her body, to where a set of leg irons encircled her ankles. They were so tight that they made her toes tingle.
Delilah felt caged, caught in a steel web. The chain was somehow anchored to the wall behind her, and she could move only a dozen feet or so before it pulled taut.
At times her horror, her panic, built until it threatened to explode. She had no choice other than to scream—high-pitched, wounded animal cries.
In response there was only silence. No one came.
The thin lumpy pad beneath her smelled of urine and worse. Unable to see the room around her, she listened for clues. Old pipes groaned. At times, she heard scratching, like rats scampering across the room or a squirrel foraging in the attic. An old house, she thought. But where? Nowhere the man worried that someone would hear her.
“Help! Please, help me!” she shouted. “Someone come! I need help!”
Off and on, a lock clicked and she heard a door open. The man entered. Most of the time, he came alone. Delilah felt queasy as she sensed him standing a few feet away, staring at her, silent.
“I want to go home,” she pleaded. “Please, let me go.”
He said nothing.
Other times, he brought someone to feed her. While the man paced the room, a woman with a soft voice whispered, “Open up.”
Delilah felt a straw on her chapped lips. The cool water soothed her dry throat. The gruel the woman fed her was thin and tasteless, but Delilah greedily sucked it down.
In the background, the man encouraged Delilah. “Now, that’s good, isn’t it? Eat up.”
She wanted to refuse the food, but her stomach cramped in emptiness.
“Please, mister. I have to go home. My mom is really worried about me,” she’d told him, doing her best to hide her terror. “My family is looking for me. If I don’t get home quick, my mom will send my brothers. Once the men in town find out, they’ll search for me. They’ll call the police, and they’ll be looking for me, too.”
The man had said nothing but, “Eat.”
Another spoonful of the gooey mush had touched her lips, and she took it. When Delilah finished, the woman had gently wiped her lips with something soft.
The bowl empty, they left.
Once again alone, Delilah rolled on the mattress as far as the chains allowed. She searched with her fingertips, her legs, felt for something, anything that might be of use. When she lay on her side and stretched out as far as she could, her bare feet brushed over a rough wooden floor.
Delilah considered the temperature. Three times she’d felt the room cool, stay cool for a long time, before the heat gradually built. Those must have been nights, she decided. That meant she’d been in the room for three nights.
He took me on Thursday night. This must be Sunday.
How could nearly three days have passed and no one had come to rescue her? “Momma must be so worried about me,” she whispered.
As Delilah had the evening she was taken, she fought to stay calm by singing church hymns and lullabies. “God, watch over me and keep me safe / Keep me sweet and help me to obey,” she began, her voice trembling. “Lord, guide me to salvation.”
Her parents had taught her that if she followed God’s law she’d be rewarded. Delilah questioned what she had done to deserve such punishment. Where am I? How long will he keep me here?
One thought above all others couldn’t be silenced. What will he do to me?
Six
My hands felt clammy even in the heat, as we set out to talk to my family. When Max pulled into Alber, I stared out the windows at the town where I’d been born and spent the first twenty-four years of my life. On the surface, Alber didn’t look markedly different. A wave of emotion flowed through me when we passed the familiar faded sign outside my family’s sawmill, sensations so confusing I couldn’t parse them out.
JEFFERIES LUMBERYARD
OPENS SUNUP
CLOSES SUNDOWN
“With Father gone, who’s in charge?” I asked Max.
“Your brother Aaron,” Max said. “The ones who continue to live the principle keep to the prophets’ teachings. Oldest male inherits.”
“I would have hoped, with the leaders gone, that maybe they wouldn’t be holding on so tightly to the past,” I said.
“In some ways, they’ve closed in tighter.” Max hesitated for a moment, then tried to explain. “Clara, these people saw their way of life attacked, their leaders arrested, put on trial and sent to prison. The lesson they learned is that the prophets were right. Outsiders, all nonbelievers, are enemies to be feared.”
We passed a big box of a house surrounded by a high picket fence. Through the slats, I saw women playing with their children. The day had turned into a sizzling one, but home-sewn dresses covered the women and girls neck to ankle. Long-sleeved shirts and trousers sheathed the boys. I recognized one of the women from my high school science class. We’d once blown up baking soda volcanos together. I raised my hand and waved, and there was a glint of recognition in her expression, but she didn’t acknowledge me. Not even a nod. Instead, she shooed the children inside.
In seconds, the yard yawned empty.
The streets we traveled cut a checkerboard through town, and Max’s car kicked up dust. I remembered how in hard rains the dirt
