Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall Read Free Book Online

Rachel was lucky to inherit our mother’s rich dark hair, slender figure, and wide, bright smile.
    In addition to Rachel’s marriage being a tremendous honor for our family, it was also incredibly exciting to me that we would be invited to attend the wedding ceremony at Rulon Jeffs’s sprawling thirteen-plus-bedroom residence in Salt Lake. For us, Uncle Rulon’s tan brick house was considered a mansion. It was constructed of top-of-the-line materials and equipped with expensive appliances, and it had an enormous garage to accommodate his fancy Cadillac. We would be able to witness the ceremony in the prophet’s living quarters on the main floor, which was treated as his private sanctuary.
    The wedding took place on April 30, 1993. Because it was the prophet getting married, the marriage was “sealed” by my father, who had been temporarily ordained to fill the role usually played by the prophet. Not only was Rachel’s marriage important for religious reasons, it also afforded my sister many opportunities that other women in the community didn’t have. As a wife of the prophet, she was elevated in status, viewed as a worthy angel on earth. She was well provided for and had access to credit cards and cash. Even though it appeared to us that Uncle Rulon’s wives were lucky and blessed to be members of his family, like all FLDS women, they were still considered property of their husband and the priesthood. They were expected to keep sweet and be submissively obedient.
    After the marriage, Dad sometimes allowed me to stay over with Rachel at Uncle Rulon’s Salt Lake compound, where she had a room on the second floor. In my young mind, I always felt that I was staying at Buckingham Palace. It was a great honor to any member to be graced with the opportunity to be on the prophet’s property. During my sleepovers, I sometimes got to watch a kid-friendly video on the small TV that Rachel kept hidden in her closet.
    While we had been able to watch TV when I was much younger, life had grown more constricted under Rulon Jeffs’s direction. In an attempt to cleanse the people of all outside influences, he’d banned television, films, and video games. Through Uncle Warren, we’d been told that the prophet had ordered that all the books in the school library that were not priesthood-approved be burned, claiming that those who read the unworthy books would take on the “evil” spirit of their authors. The library was then restocked with books that conformed to priesthood teachings.
    Warren also had a house on his father’s compound, where I was sometimes invited to play with his daughter Shirley, a classmate at Alta Academy. While his house was nowhere near as big as his dad’s, it had plenty of space for his five wives and their many children to spread out.
    Though he was harsh and intimidating at school, I liked Uncle Warren and he seemed like a caring father to my friend. But my feelings about him began to change when I entered the second grade. I was in the middle of schoolwork in Mrs. Nicolson’s class when I heard my teacher’s name called over the loudspeaker. I watched her pick up the telephone and look in my direction. I was to report to the principal’s office at once. I had no idea why I’d been summoned, but I’d been at Alta Academy long enough to know that it wasn’t a good thing to be singled out to see Uncle Warren.
    My legs felt heavy as I climbed the carpeted stairs to the third floor, where he had his office. The walls of his office were covered in cheap wood paneling, and he was seated behind a large desk that faced the door. Our eyes met as soon as I stepped into the doorway. He was smiling when he told me to sit down in one of the chairs facing his desk. I was about to receive my first lesson on boy/girl relations.
    Warren had been told that I was holding the hand of my seven-year-old male cousin while playing outside earlier in the day. This was true, but I had no idea why he was bringing it up.