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(In a van somewhere, early morning, Wednesday, October 1, 2013)
Janet struggled to return to consciousness. She was gagged, blindfolded, and tied up—hands and feet. And she'd been drugged. Whoever had her wanted her disoriented. Typical behavior for the deprogramming/programming crowd. People made good money bringing young adults out of cults and "deprogramming" them. Start with the shock of a kidnapping and disorientation. Janet figured it probably worked in reverse to induct someone into a cult. At its most fundamental, Jehovah's Valley was a cult. And somehow, the Valley had to be at the heart of all this. She didn't know how or why, but she was certain she was headed back there.
She'd been asleep when Pulitzer started whining and pulling on her. Groggily she woke up and looked at the clock. 2 a.m. Two hours sleep. "What's the problem, boy?" she whispered as she looked around for her clothes. And then she heard the crashing of glass and a whooshing sound. Smelled diesel and smoke. She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, shoved her feet into sneakers, and grabbed Pulitzer's collar. "Good boy," she said. If he hadn't woken her, she wasn't sure she wouldn’t have heard anything until it was too late. She'd been exhausted by the radio show. She felt good about what she'd done, but it had been emotionally draining. She hadn’t any energy left, hardly enough to get undressed and into bed.
Now, she grabbed her purse and keys from the kitchen table and headed down the hall and into the kitchen. The fire was already spreading; now she could feel the heat of it. Coughing a bit, she was still careful to open and close the back door quietly. Pulitzer whined softly.
"Easy boy," she whispered as she unlatched the garden gate and slipped through to the alley.
"Going somewhere?" an unfamiliar voice asked as rough hands grabbed her. She struggled, calling out once before someone stuffed something into her mouth. She heard Pulitzer bark. She kicked out, heard someone grunt and knew she'd connected. "Get that shot into her!" someone ordered. "We've got to get a move on."
Janet felt a prick in her shoulder and then a gradual slide into oblivion.
She didn't know how long she'd been out. Probably a couple of hours. She tried to get a sense of where she was. A van. The ride was rough and road noise came through loudly, so probably a working panel van, not some fancy SUV. She lay on her side on the floor. Her face rested against someone's boot. So at least one person was back here with her, a driver and someone in the passenger seat. Probably two people guarding her actually. That jibed with her recollection of being grabbed. Four men. She was completely hogtied, gagged and blindfolded. No chance of escape. No point in fighting. Sleep, she decided. The best thing she could do right now was sleep. She carefully relaxed each muscle starting with her toes and working up through her body. Modulating her breathing, emptying her mind—it worked as it always did, and she drifted off to sleep.
The van stopped in the late afternoon, after a stretch of gravel road and then a bumpy drive. If Janet had any doubts about where she was headed, the familiar rough road would have removed them. When the van door opened, they were in the barn—out of sight. Janet figured only a few in the community knew what was going on.
The two men who had ridden in the back with her pulled Janet to her feet. Although their grip was firm, they weren't overly rough as they helped her down from the van. Someone pulled her blindfold off, and then her gag.
She blinked to clear her eyes. An older man stood in front of her. It took a moment to recognize him—it had been 20 years since she'd left the Valley. "John Welch," she said calmly. "Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"
She glanced behind him. Her brother Stephen stood in the shadows, also 20 years older but immediately recognizable—he looked like her father had when she was a child. He shook his head. Trying to tell her something, she supposed, but she didn't know what.
"It was time for you to come home to your husband," John said in a well-modulated voice. She could picture him at the pulpit. He was probably an effective preacher, she thought. She forced herself to focus on his words.
"...you have strayed far from the path God has laid before you," John was saying "Your involvement in this besmirching of the Rescue Movement for the saving of the babies is the last straw. You have begun to discuss publicly our way of life here. It is time for you to become the woman God meant for you to be."
Janet shook her head, tried rolling her shoulders to ease the pain from having been bound for 12 hours or more. She still felt drugged. Or maybe concussed, but she didn't remember being hit. Drugs would clear out of her system eventually, she thought.
"I'm not coming back to the Valley," she said. "And I most certainly am not coming back to be the wife of a man who raped a 17-year-old."
John slapped her across the face, knocking her to the barn floor. She stayed down. Stephen stepped forward as if to stop John, but John caught himself. He stood looking down at her.
"In the eyes of God, you were my wife," he said, without raising his voice. "In the marriage bed, there is no such thing as rape."
She sighed. "Dad's little ceremony was meaningless, and you know it. I married Eli Andrews two weeks later—legally and morally. Eli was my husband, never you."
John shook his head sorrowfully. "No one can put asunder what God has joined," he said. "You may have thought you left us, but you will repent and return to the fold now. We have need of you."
"The Valley needs me?" she asked startled, looking up at him from the floor. It felt safer there. "How am I needed here?"
"Your father is dying," he said bluntly. "He refuses to turn over the leadership to me. I have been his second in command for decades, and it is long past due. But he refuses. He continues to insist that God has shown him that the next leader will be married to you. And my reminder that he married us gets ignored. The Valley cannot continue in this limbo. We need decisive leadership now."
Janet snorted. "So rather than wait until he's gone, you burn down my house, kidnap me, and haul me back here? Do you really think you can keep me here? And for how long? People will be looking for me. I'll not stay here willingly."
"People think you're dead," the driver of the van said. "I heard it on the news as we drove back here. No one is going to look for you."
John nodded. "I have prayed much on this. This is God's will. You will resume your position as my wife. And with your father's blessing, I will assume leadership of the Valley. Our allies demand it."
Janet frowned at the “allies” comment but set it aside. "Over my dead body," she said succinctly.
He kicked her in the stomach. She rolled away and took the next kick on her rear. The kicks kept coming, as she tried to dodge them the best she could. Then a glancing blow to her head dazed her. She heard Stephen and the other men shout at John and pull him away. Even as she faded out of consciousness, she could hear his heavy breathing.
"Take her to the Penitent's Cabin," he said. "Let her think on these things."
When Janet regained consciousness again, it was dark out. It had been a long time since she'd been in a rural setting where dark nights really meant dark nights. There were no lights in the Penitent's Cabin. No running water. No bathroom. Some things hadn't changed in the 20 years since she'd last been confined there. She groaned as she struggled into a sitting position. She was no longer bound, but all those hours in the van, plus the beating she'd endured, and then more hours on the dirt floor here had left her as crippled as if she still had cuffs and chains on. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was sore—really sore—but there didn't seem to be any broken ribs.
She stretched out her legs, massaging her calf muscles to ease the cramps. Carefully, she rotated her arms and shoulders. Finally, she rolled to her knees and pushed to a standing position, testing her back. No permanent damage, she decided, relieved. She swallowed. She needed water. Food wouldn't hurt either. She wasn't sure what time it was, but it had been more than 24 hours since she'd eaten much of anything. She knelt on the floor, and feeling with her hands, she set out to explore the space.
The Cabin as she remembered it was only eight feet square, made of logs, and set on a dirt floor. Janet crawled forward as straight as she could—it was remarkably hard to crawl straight in the dark. But six... paces?... forward she touched the wall. She ran her hands over it. Still rough logs. Still on her knees, she turned to her right and crawled a bit further and bumped into another wall. Turned back, crisscrossing the room. One upgrade to the cabin, she appreciated—a chemical toilet. Twenty years ago, it had been a chamber pot. She shuddered at the thought of trying to use one of those now.
She continued her explorations, and finally found the door. Knowing it had to be barred from the outside, she tried it anyway. There was no give; it didn't even creak. She sighed. The good news, however, was that sitting next to the door was a jug of water and a loaf of bread—the traditional food for the penitent. She tore into the bread with her teeth. It was good bread, homemade of course. She sighed. The water tasted good, too. It was well water, deep and cold. Even sitting in a jug for hours, it still was some of the best water she'd tasted.
She remembered her first days in Seattle and how much she had missed the water of the Valley. City water tasted wrong, and never seemed cold enough. Or it was refrigerated and that tasted off. The freshman 15 was a joke for the pounds most college freshmen gained eating the carbohydrate rich foods in the cafeteria. For her, she'd lost 15 in spite of being pregnant. The food just didn't taste right. Over-processed, bland meats, rich sauces, and vegetables that had been out of the garden for way too long before they were cooked. Of course, her pregnancy had made up those pounds quickly enough. She sighed again.
The Penitent's Cabin had been intended for community members who needed space away to pray, to seek God's forgiveness, or the forgiveness of the community. It had also been used as a punishment place—a kind of Time Out space, especially for teenagers. With few distractions, it was the perfect place to make a young man rethink his rebellion, or a young woman her defiance.
And on the night she had defied her father, only for him to pronounce her and John husband and wife, it had become her marriage bed.
Her father had stormed into the dining room where she and her brothers were doing their homework while their mother, Mary, sat grading the papers of her elementary students. He had a letter crumpled in his hand that he shook at them.
"What does this mean?" he roared at them. He was a big man, and although he was nearly 60, he could still put in a full day of manual labor with the younger men. He led the community by the force of his charisma and the strength of his will.
Mary looked at him calmly. "What is it? Let me see," she said.
"It's a letter from the University of Washington congratulating us on the scholarship awards for our daughter," he said, turning to his wife. She paled slightly, and then looked at the children at the table.
"Why don't you put your homework up for now," she said quietly. "Your father and I need to talk."
The kids hurriedly closed their books.
"Not you, Janet," her father said coldly. She sat back down as her brothers escaped without looking back. She looked him in the eyes unwaveringly.
"You knew about this," he said looking at his wife.
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
She shook her head.
"Why?"
"Because your daughter is bright. Really bright. She deserves the best education we can give her. I want her to have the kind of education I had. University of Washington."
"And you didn't tell me, because...."
"Because I knew you might forbid it. I thought we could have that discussion after we knew whether the University would admit her."
"Well, now we know. And I do forbid it. Janet's role in the community has been determined by God... to be the wife of the next leader. And she doesn't need a fancy education to do that."
"I needed that education to be your helpmeet," Mary reminded him. She'd already been a teacher when she'd met him, a war hero returning from Vietnam. She'd attended his father's church, and it had been pretty much love at first sight for them both.
He looked at her and saw the love still there in her eyes. No matter that he might rage, no matter the duties he carried for the community, that love was always there for him. But he shook his head at his daughter. He knew she had a rebellious heart. Oh, she loved the Lord. He believed that. But she lacked the obedient spirit of her mother. He knew, he knew, if she went to the University of Washington she would not come back. And the community needed her here. He'd prayed much in the last few months seeking God's guidance, and he'd been given a clear vision from God that her role was to be the helpmeet of the next preacher, as Mary had been his.
Two weeks ago, John had come to him, seeking his blessing. He believed God had called him to be the next leader. They'd prayed together frequently during those two weeks. And Isaiah Brandt had become convinced that a marriage between John and his daughter would be the next step in the will of God. He dismissed his reservations after careful prayer. Yes, John was 14 years older than his daughter, but then he was nine years older than Mary. Yes, his daughter was young, but that wasn't unusual in the Valley. She'd be 18 in six months, shortly after she finished high school. That would be soon enough. And yes, John had a coldness to him that sometimes made him uneasy, but a good wife would soften those edges. John's first wife had died giving birth to their third child. Those children needed a mother.
"I have decided that she will marry John," he said firmly. "John and I have been in prayer about the future leadership of the Valley. God has given him the call. Janet will be able to support him as you have supported me."
"I don't love John!" Janet exclaimed, leaping to her feet. "I won't marry him."
"Silence!" the Preacher roared. "I have said you will marry him. It is God's will. And mine. It is your role to submit to God, to your pastor, to your father, and to your husband."
"Isaiah, I married you because I loved you," Mary began.
"And she will grow to love John," her husband said.
"No, I won't. John is cruel. He was cruel to his wife, and he's mean to his kids," Janet said. "I'm going to the University whether you want me to or not."
Mary bowed her head. When she looked at Janet, she saw a bright, spirited young woman who loved the Lord. She sometimes wondered what her husband saw—and if maybe he saw himself: the godless man he had been during his 20 years in the Navy, before he found the Lord in his father's church and heard the call to preach. He was so afraid they would lose her. She was afraid he was forcing her to go. Either way, she didn't have the strength to stand between them. She couldn't even stand to be in the same room when they fought. No one else could challenge him the way his daughter did. No one else lit his temper afire like she did. Her younger son once suggested that they sell tickets to their fights as a fundraiser.
The two of them had fought since Janet was old enough to speak in complete sentences. As Janet got older, the fights were often about the books Janet read, and the ideas she espoused. Isaiah had declared she couldn't read between sunup and sundown—there was work to be done. She was the only one under such restrictions—learning and the love of learning were encouraged in the Valley. Mary knew Janet snuck books up into the hayloft to read. She stashed books in all kinds of places where she could disappear for a few minutes. Mary had looked the other way. Isaiah would sometimes catch her, and there would be raging fights, and punishment. Mary had to intervene in the punishments a couple of times. The Valley did believe in 'spare the rod, spoil the child' but there was a limit to how much a teenaged girl should be whipped with a belt. If she would just cry when he hit her, he would stop. But she took her punishment dry-eyed, infuriating him further.
Their voices grew louder. Mary tried to intervene, but both of them ignored her, too focused on each other to even hear her attempts to calm the situation. Then, fighting tears, she got up and fled the room as she had done so many times when her daughter and husband battled.
The argument might have ended as so many had before, with one of them storming out to calm down, if John Welch hadn't shown up and let himself in the back door. His presence and his words further inflamed Isaiah, who finally roared that he would marry the two of them right then and there.
"You can't do that!" Janet protested. "Marriage requires licenses and all kinds of stuff. Someday, when I'm ready to marry, I want to marry in the church with everyone present. I want to marry for love, not on your orders!"
"In your defiance, you have forfeited the right to have those dreams" her father said sternly. "Marriage is in the eyes of God. The needs of the state can be done in due time."
John looked Janet over. She'd seen the men look at cows at the auction in the same way—the desire for ownership. She shuddered. She was particularly innocent. None of the boys had the courage to try kissing games behind the barn with the Preacher's daughter. But she knew that the possessive heat in John's eyes wasn't good. There was an ugliness about it, something she couldn't articulate but understood. It was why she and the other girls were careful not to be caught alone with him. It was why his wife had always looked so tired and sad. The girls might not have understood the particulars, but they saw the results. And they stayed away from John, especially after his wife’s death. When they were called on to babysit his children, their mothers always insisted they bring the children to their home, not go to John’s. No one explained. No one questioned. But Janet knew she could not marry that man, no matter what her father said.
When her father turned to find his Bible, Janet took the opportunity to flee. But John was too quick. He grabbed her by the arm so tightly she knew she'd have bruises. He jerked her roughly around to stand beside him facing her father.
Someone knocked on the door. For a moment Janet hoped that intervention had arrived, but when she saw who was there, her heart sank. Two of John's closest friends walked in. "Witnesses," John said succinctly.