trembled; the Bann never worked for these sort of crimes. The offenders would usually continue to offend after the dust settled or sometimes while still in the Bann. If I did not report the bishop to the authorities, I knew there would be many more victims.
A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
—Sir William Neil
My story starts early on a cold desert morning in Phoenix, Arizona. I was born to an unusual couple; my mother was the seventeen-year-old girlfriend of her former stepfather, who was only twenty-eight years old himself. I was not their first child; in fact, I was the brand new sister to a two-year-old boy. Surprisingly, my grandmother was there to witness my birth, standing next to my parents: her former husband and the daughter she accused of stealing him away.
On that day in 1982, I became the newest member of this dysfunctional family. It included my grandmother, who was the head of the household. She was a crafty and vicious woman, disliked by all. She was also a mastermind at cheating the system for money so she would never have to work. While she was nearly illiterate, she was most certainly not stupid. She believed in taking advantage of people whenever possible. My mother, who was seventeen, was quickly learning her mother’s trade. Lastly, there was my father, of whom I have a few vague memories.
My mother had only been fifteen when she and my stepfather had their first child. When my brother was about a year and a half, my grandmother obtained full custody of him on grounds that my mother was abusing him. He was living with my grandmother when I was born and my mother was living with her stepfather as his girlfriend. My grandmother had since divorced him. A few months after my birth, my father kidnapped my brother from my grandmother’s backyard. For the next two years, there was an arrest warrant out for my parents. My mom and dad traveled around to avoid law enforcement and we finally settled in Topeka, Kansas. Here, my younger sister Samantha came along and my parents officially got married.
Back in Arizona, my grandmother was still searching for my brother. Sometime between 1984 and 1985, my brother became one of the first missing kids to have his picture on the back of milk cartons. A few months later, a neighbor lady thought my brother looked like the boy she had seen on the back of her milk carton and called it in. Not long after, the FBI stormed our apartment and took my brother out kicking and screaming. Thirty-one years later, my brother would tell me what I could not remember at such a young age: that he was being badly abused. The stories he would tell me of our time in Topeka would cause my eyes to well up with tears; the severity of the abuse was heartbreaking.
On that day, this terrified little boy was sent back to live with our grandmother, a woman who would convince him she was his real mother. He would end up leading a life apart from us, but his supposed rescue from an abusive home would have its own path littered with fear and sorrow.
Soon after this incident, my parents divorced. My mother took my sister and me back to northern Arizona to live with our grandmother, so she could be near my brother. My father was sent to prison for a few months for kidnapping my brother, and he then moved to Phoenix. My parents shared custody of my sister and me, although we ended up living with my father most of the time.
Even though I would later learn that my father had been abusive to my brother, for the most part, I felt safe living with him. I can recall his small, yellow house that sat on a busy street. The smallest bedroom had two twin-size beds with matching bedspreads—one for me and one for my little sister, Samantha. I can remember my father taking us to the local swimming pool and letting us float around with floaters on our arms. Those days were fun for us. My sister and I would laugh and splash each other in the warm Arizona sunshine. Little did I know that happy days such as these would soon disappear like the leaves falling from a tree in autumn. I would always remember those days with tears in my eyes. If I could have talked to my four-year-old self, I would have whispered,
“Run! Run like hell and don’t look back!”
But of course, this is only wishful thinking. No one can turn back the hands of time—no matter how much one may wish to.
One afternoon, when I was nearly four, I was sitting on the sidewalk in front of my dad’s house. My two-year-old sister was sitting nearby, tearing up grass by the roots and eating the dirt. I had a headache and was holding my pounding head, watching her. A few weeks earlier, I had been attacked by a dog at my aunt’s house. The giant Great Dane had taken my entire head in its mouth and had clamped down on it. One eye tooth had narrowly missed my right eye by less than half an inch.
As a result, I had spent some time in the hospital and, after my release, I can vaguely remember looking in the mirror and being startled when I saw the wounds that would eventually heal into scars. There was one under my right eye, one long scar that went down my left cheekbone and a few other small ones.
On that particular morning, as I sat there, I watched a yellow Jeep pull up into the driveway. My mother was in the passenger’s seat, and in the driver’s seat was a man with long, gray hair. I smiled and waved a tired wave; their radio was blasting rock music and I remember how much it hurt my head. My father yelled for my sister and me to go into the house. I grabbed my little sister and started walking to the house. The man in the Jeep frightened me with his intense gaze. I hated how he was staring at me—it was very unsettling, so I ran toward the house with my sister, but the man jumped out of the Jeep and grabbed my arm.
“Where are you going, gorgeous?” he asked with a grin.
“My dad is calling me,” I stuttered.
“That’s okay,” the man said. “My name is Brian, and you are going to be my daughter now.”
I looked at him in confusion. Why would I be his daughter?
My dad was yelling at my mother and pushing past her toward us. She was holding papers that I assume were custody documents. Brian pulled me and my sister over to the Jeep and pushed us inside. My mom got into the front seat and Brian started the engine. I watched in confusion as my father went over to Brian’s window and yelled at him to let us out, but Brian drove past him into the street. I waved to my father and he waved back. That would be the last time I saw my father.
I was frightened and confused, but there is no way that I could have known at that time how bad my life was going to get. There was no way that I could have known that my mother’s new forty-seven-year-old boyfriend had been wanted for child molestation back in the seventies. There was no way to know that he had escaped by fleeing to Alaska and working on fishing boats before circling down to Arizona and becoming a gold miner in the hills. I could not have known this then as I clung to my frightened sister.
For the next three hours, we drove north into the Bradshaw Mountains of northern Arizona. When we arrived at the mine where Brian lived, Mamma got out and opened a heavy metal gate. We crossed a creek and then drove about a half-mile up a hill to a small flat place in the road. There I saw a tiny thirteen-foot trailer sitting next to a tall mine shaft. I woke Samantha and apprehensively followed Mamma and Brian inside the trailer. It was so small, there was barely enough room to stand. After a minute of everyone just standing in the middle of the room, Brian picked Samantha and me up and set us on the top bunk.
“Okay girls, go to sleep,” he said.
Still in my day clothes, I fixed my sister a place and then lay down myself.
