Dennis still wasn't working and hadn't been the entire time we were at the house in Highland Flats. I have no idea how we paid the rent or if it was ever paid at all. The woman who owned the place called one day. She was upset about the hayfield, worried that he would try to cut the alfalfa in the hayfields and sell it. We hadn't done so yet, but this is exactly the sort of thing he would have done. She told us we had to leave. Mom and Dennis were nearly frantic. There were almost no jobs in these parts and no rentals to be found. The only certain thing was that we'd be moving.

I was privately distraught. I have always formed a strong attachment to place, (whereas I care deeply for relatively few people, who then maintain a place in my heart for life) and having finally adjusted somewhat to the Idahoan lifestyle, the last thing I wanted to do was to move. I walked through the barns and brooded, sorted through the treasures (polished pebbles and stones, cobalt blue marbles, sardine tin keys, that sort of thing) in their band aid tins and little boxes, went out and leant against the horses, trying to derive some comfort from their warm animals presence. I looked up at Roman Nose mountain, which overlooked the farm and thought of how I would miss it. I couldn't take this land, this place, with me. I'd never see it again. My soul rebelled against the idea.

Pawnee's hoofbeats clattered distantly, then closer, and George drew up by the far corner of the dairy barn. I went over and talked where we couldn't be seen from the house. I told him that Dennis was planning to move, and that I had to stay. I hated Dennis, he was mean, and I wanted to live with someone else. George said that Bonnie and Lowell were foster parents, perhaps they'd take me in and I could stay with them. We lit upon this possibility with youthful optimism and discussed it awhile. But, I said, I wasn't sure my dad would let me, that he would give me up to them. He still retained legal custody of my sister and I. Maybe I should move back there. I had had enough of Dennis. When my mom sent for us, one of my dad's requirements was that the plane tickets be round trip, without a return date specified, so that if we changed our minds, we could come back easily. George said that didn't sound quite right, that the tickets were probably expired by now, and who knew if my mom had even kept them? I would probably have to move with the rest of the family unless we could convince my mom and Dennis to let me stay.

In the house, they were making moving preperations already. Over the next few days, I tried to convince them that I should stay, that I was happy here, and Bonnie and Lowell could have me. They were both teachers, so they could continue my homeschooling. Their reaction to this prospect was hostile and pointed. There was no way they'd let me go to live there, I belonged with my family, and the only reason I wanted to stay was because I had a crush on George. George had too much influence on me, the devil was trying to seduce me, and it was a good thing we were moving so I'd never see him again. They inserted a lot of nasty remarks about Bonnie and Lowell, who I had thought were their friends. In time I would learn that my mom and Dennis had no real friends, no one whom they trusted or did not attack behind their backs. They had no sense of loyalty, no lasting bonds. The only certain things about their friends was that in time (and usally not very long) the friends whom they had once spoken of so kindly would become the villians in whon no good trait could be found. Noone was exempt from the paranoia, the suspicion....including the members of our own family.

Everything was packed up. Lady and Sugar had been returned to Bonnie and Lowell, along with Cisco. The big Airstream trailer (this had been here waiting for us when we arrived, since Dennis had brought it to Idaho on an earlier trip) was crammed full of stuff and hitched up to the crewcab. This time, the cats and dogs could come with us. We were moving to Priest Lake, a place I'd never even heard of before. Well, they were moving to Priest Lake. I was laying on my belly in the middle of the alfalfa field. There was so much commotion that I thought perhaps they would overlook my absence and leave without me. I laid there for a long time and listened to them, waiting anxiously for the engines to start, to hear the sound of the vehicles grow smaller as they went down the road. Instead, there was a lot of hollering and shouting and ordering as always, and it seemed to stretch on for hours. My stuff was already carefully packed away in the same boxes I'd used in the move from Running Springs. I didn't especially mind if I lost the stuff, as long as I could stay. And then, the dreaded sound: my mother calling me. I heard her asking the others where I was. I hoped she would get distracted and turn her attention to something else. She tended to not have a long attention span, and to get easily flustered. Alas, she kept calling me, and she walked around the barns calling, calling, saying that everyone else was ready to go, where was I? Eventually, realizing that she wasn't going to give up and I would have to go, I stood up and trudged to the truck reluctantly.

We drove out of Naples, past Elmira. Lots of drama from mom when the trailer started fishtailing on the curvy road. I didn't care. I didn't even look at the scenery or pay much attention to sleepy-town Sandpoint. All I could think of was that with each mile that passed under our wheels, we were that much further from Naples, from George, from the horses, from everything familiar. We drove for what seemed like three hours.

It's funny, I don't even remember arriving at the new house, or exploring the area. I was assigned a bedroom in a large 2 story kit-home log cabin, the sort that has milled logs which are all precisely the same shape and diameter and are stained. It smelled like cedar. I don't remember anything much about the first month or so except that I hardly ate or left my new bedroom. Time was a fog. I cried and brooded and would hardly talk to anyone. I didn't go outside. I hated Dennis for constantly disparaging George, and my dad, and the entire Hill family, for pretending to be so righteous and holier than thou, for always looking for the worst in people and picking on them for it. I didn't even unpack most of my stuff for weeks. I could have had a bed, but I just laid a few blankets in the closet and holed up in there all day long, reading the bible, searching for verses that would illustrate how rotten Dennis really was. the room was almost bare except for a little stack of clothing, the blankets in the closet, and the bible. I arranged these few things obsessively, meticulously, and drew comfort from the stark desolation of the space mirroring the way I felt. When mom begged me to participate in family stuff or to act happy, I told them I wanted to go and live with Bonnie and Lowell, and turned a deaf ear to all their reasons why I couldn't. I was sick and tired of Dennis' bandying bible verses around out of context, or quoting them incorrectly, or making it out to say something it didn't just to suit his own purposes. I determined that I'd read enough of it to stand up to him, because he couldn't argue against the bible.

I don't know how I came out of this fog, but it was a gradual thing. A plastic milk crate appeared in my room, and I filled it with books...the few books that I had. I found a glass wine bottle whose shape pleased me, and I filled it with water and just enough food coloring to be the perfect shade of blue. A wider mouthed wine carafe was filled with the marbles and polished stones. Another crate appeared..I set a scrap piece of plywood across the two and made a desk. I began to draw again. I drew a mouse crouching in terror in a corner, with a cat approaching slowly, its back to the viewer. The cat was Dennis, I felt like the mouse. I drew lots of horses.

In time, I joined the others in exploring the outdoors. There were wild strawberries of suprising intensity. There were thimbleberries, dry, mealy things with a tart, bright flavor, thinwalled and shaped like a thimble. The house was fairly close to the lake, maybe 1/4 mile away. We ran far and wide. There were only two bicycles; my sister's and a folding one that Mike usually used, so I would run through the woods and brush on the deer trails, taking shortcuts they couldn't, trying to beat them to the berries. Mom got the idea that a lichen locally known as "elk ears" was valuable to artists, so Mike and I then tried to outdo one another in collecting elk ears. They were frequently found in swampy areas, but also in a forest of tamarack (larch) where the fallen logs were so large that I had to climb over them. A neighbor moved out of their house, and we discovered columbines going to seed, collected the seeds, and traipsed around trying to sell them to our neighbors. We climbed trees and built forts. The girls stayed home and made cookies and sewed frilly lace heart shaped pockets to fill with potpourri. I was gone for hours at a time, often not returning until sunset, out walking around, skirting the edge of the lake, savoring the solitude.