They not only wouldn't take me back to Chris and Jaylene's they wouldn't let me leave. Dad blocked my way out the door. They assigned chaperones to me, the first time this had been done to me inside the house. Several accompanied me when it was time to milk Lily and Sannah. They wouldn't talk to me. Even Sarah, who had helped me escape, watched my every move, as though I could bolt and run through the woods before Dad could track me down with his car. When I was indoors, I couldn't even go to the bathroom without a sister present. They were inattentive while I was in my bedroom for a minute, and I had just managed to get the window open when Rachel remembered to watch me. She called out the alarm and everyone rushed to prevent my leaving.

Eliyah screwed all the doors and windows shut. He took away every single left shoe that I owned, so that all of my shoes were only for the right foot. This was infuriating. He could have just taken all the shoes, but no...only the left ones. Moreover, I wasn't allowed to sleep, either. Mom and Dad took turns, tag teaming as the other one slept. They lectured and scolded and tried to talk me out of leaving for hours on end. I was determined to go. I told Dad that I walk crawl on bloody stumps if I had to, but I was going. Mom kept talking about Daniel. I didn't want salt poured into my old wounds. It hurt me just to hear his name, just to think of him, happily married and oblivious to what he'd put me through...not even caring, but she couldn't quit asking me. If he wasn't married, wouldn't I still want to be with him? Didn't I still love him. I just said that these questions were stupid. He was married and I could never, ever have him. Of course I loved him, but that was an inconvenience that hardly mattered. My feelings were irrelevant, so quit asking me about him! I didn't get to sleep at all that night.

In the morning, chaperones (I thought of them as spies) clustered around me, watching every single move I made as I milked and tended the goats. I didn't get to tether them out. Someone else would do that for me, because they couldn't trust me that far away from the house. It was too far from Dad, and everyone knew that I was fast on my feet...even barefoot.

Back in the house (my time outside was painfully short), they were calling my Father's house. They had Marie on the phone and were tellling her some crap about my running away, and that some dirty old hippe wanted to have sex with me. I could hear Marie gasping, "Oh my!" on the other end of the phone. Lies....so many lies. My father should know that I was over 18 now, that I could leave. But on the other hand, who knows what they were being told? I went to my room, and the chaperones scuttled along warily behind me, guarding the door and windows as I collapsed tiredly on my bed.

The next thing I knew, they were telling me to get up and pack. I was going to go to my father's house. I said I didn't want to. They told me I had no choice. What about my goats??? What about Laddie? Too bad, they said. Maybe I could get them later. I had only a very short time to get my things together, like 15-30 minutes, and they loaded me up and drove me towards Twin Falls. I was furious, just seething with anger. They had no right! And then, when we were travelling through some large city, probably Coeur d'Alene, and travelling towards Moscow, then Mom told me something that turned my fury to a white rage.

Daniel wasn't married. He had never written me that letter. Sarah and Raphah had, consulting his older, real letters carefully, picking out the kinds of things he would say, repeating fragments of his language and writing style. Daniel was still alone over in his cabin on Wrenco Loop, probably wondering why I had lost interest in him, and with every second that passed, we were speeding away from him. Well, I hit the roof. I screamed and shrieked and yelled and went bat shit crazy, but still the car continued on its way to Moscow. I demanded that they let me out right now. I would walk or hitchhike back, but damn it, I was going to go find Daniel and talk to him myself. They ignored me and continued driving, farther and farther away from him. My fury turned from rage into a rare cold, frozen sort of anger, the sort where I could have killed someone (such as Eliyah) without even a fraction of regret or emotion. I pulled out a notebook and began writing Daniel a letter. My entire family had betrayed me. I didn't trust anything they said to me anymore, would never trust any of them again. The whole family had been in on this fraud. I wondered if they'd written a letter to him that was ostensibly from me. If they said anything at all to him, he shouldn't believe it, because it would probably be nothing but lies. We were driving through the golden, rolling hills of the Palouse now. Mom was saying that he had been writing me, but she'd started confiscating all his letters, because she didn't feel he was good for me. I said I wanted his letters back, every last one of them. I silently wondered how many of the letters I'd written he had actually received, because I never, ever got to deliver them myself. They always travelled to the post office by the hand of my sister or parents. I was shaking, I was so angry. My pen pressed indentations into the paper and my handwriting looked hostile as I wrote to Daniel that I had always loved him, that I hoped we could still be married.

Then they posed a question to me: If they turned back and brought me hom eso I could talk to Daniel again and sort this mess out, would I promise not to run away? I did not even think twice. Yes. I would promise that.