Rebecca Yoder Was 12 Years Old When She Disappeared. I look closely at the wrinkly newspaper and see a grainy black-andwhite photo of myself, a photo I never even knew was taken. You can’t tell that I have mousy brown hair or mossy eyes like my mother’s. This is wrong, this all wrong, I think to myself. I am Rebecca Yoder, and Rebecca Yoder is dead. two weeks prior In my Amish community, we rise with the sun. Every day, we greet the dusky morning sky with outstretched arms before the men go to the fields and the women tend to the house. And if you’re me, every single day you think of a way that you could get out.
Being twelve, I of course live with my family. The presence of family is of utmost importance to many Amish and especially to my father, who wants us to do everything together. If anything happens, the whole family knows about it. There’s no hiding. My mother is the most caring person I have ever met, and will probably ever know. She has dark, silky hair that I wish I would’ve inherited. My hair is mousy brown, dull, and impossible to work with. At least it’s hidden under a bonnet. I think I’m my mother’s favorite, though she would never admit it.
I like to help her around the house, and she tells me I say a lot of things that get her thinking. I really believe that I could convince her to leave with me. I have an older sister Corrine, who’s bossy and has dark hair just like our mother’s. She knows every nook and cranny of the farmland and fields surrounding us. When she isn’t in the house cooking, she’s outside with the horses, they’re her favorite. She acts like she knows everything there is to know about the farm, and that’s because she does. Still, there’s a lot of room for her to be more humble. Two years younger than Corrine is Natasha.
Natasha is just like Corrine, her dark hair cascading around her, swallowing me whole. She’s quiet, does what she’s told, and doesn’t really make a bit of a difference here at the house. I’d never say that out loud, but it’s true. She isn’t influential and doesn’t do anything significant that substantially enhances the household. I wish we were closer, because I feel like she might be a lot like me. But, we aren’t, and it’s as simple as that. Thave Gabriel, who is a year older than me but three inches shorter than me. I think – no, I know – that he is jealous of me.
Not only my height, but of everything I am able to do. We don’t get along too well, so I do my best to stay out of his way. He’s my dad’s favorite, and he gets his way most of the time. Most of his time is spent out on the fields pretending he’s hard at work. He does just enough to make things look like they’ve been changed and cleaned up. That leaves my father. He’s a hard man who hardly cracks a smile, and a laugh is even rarer. He believes whole-heartedly in the Amish customs and beliefs and he’s strict about how our family follows them. He wants our family to be perfectly Amish and godly.
I think if he really believed in God so much, he’d realize we’re humans, not robots. I don’t get along with my him too well, but I deal with him because he’s my dad. I conform with the teachings as much as I can. If a family member leaves or disobeys the Amish order it’s an embarrassment to the family. Besides that, he does a lot for the family, like most of the harvesting. For that, I cannot complain. I work in a tiny corner shop that sells homemade cheese and spices. Working here, we have a functioning computer and electricity so that everyone can see what we have and tourists aren’t freaked out.
I never understand why tourists intentionally come here to buy our things but judge our lifestyle and look at us weird. Mama told me that we can make money off of them, so I need to be quiet. My curious eyes lurk through the store windows, searching for my next prey. I people-watch from my window whenever I get the chance and make up little background stories for the people I see. Things like if a woman is recently divorced or has a small dog named Fluffy that eats her shoes. I hate always being told to quiet what I feel. I’m not always angry with tourists for staring at us like circus freaks, if anything I understand.
I look at them the same way, but with more adoration. I would give anything for their free-flowing hair, gleaming and beautiful, not tucked away by thirty bobby pins. I want their cars, their families, their friends, their clothes, and their schools. I want their freedom. I want to be them. So one day, I decided I was going to be one. I was going to be a normal human being walking the streets wearing jeans and a t-shirt. As soon as I got my footing and where I needed to be, I would start a fire and throw my bonnet and dress in.
I would watch the smoke rise to the endless sunset and throw my head back with laugher. one week later, one week prior My hands move on the keyboard like lightning. The crash of the keys like thunder, words raining onto the screen. Biggest city near Sugarcreek, Ohio. Thousands of search results pop up and I click the first one. Akron, only 40 miles away. I’m at work during a slow hour. The use of electricity and internet being shunned, the work computer is strictly for cashiering and seeing the availability of products. Today I’m using it for something different. I’m planning my escape route.
I am young and have developing passions. I will not suppress what I truly want to pursue to get married way too young, grow up, and become a housewife. I love my family, and I’m doing this for the sake of myself with no intent to hurt my family. But I cannot tell them what I am doing. I cannot tell them goodbye. the night of “I forgot to feed Elise today,” I say in the middle of dinner. It’s a winter Thursday night. My whole family looks up at me, my dad looks particularly stern. “I’ll do it after we finish eating and washing up, I promise. I’m sorry. ” He nods. And that is how I do
Just after the dishes are cleaned, I make my way to the barn, but I don’t really go. Instead, I walk toward the fields, where I’ll walk around the perimeter until I reach the clearing and I run. Looking at the fields from afar, they look like they could fit in the palm of my hand. Walking through them, I realize how vast they are and how much I’m going to need to pick up the pace. I briskly hustle through the fields until I can see the clearing at the end. I have tunnel vision. I pause for a few seconds to look back. I can see the tops of the fields and my house as big as my pinky fingernail.
Then, I break into a sprint. I’m not far past the clearing when I feel something isn’t right. Cold steel churns through my body. It makes its way down as it slithers down my throat, swallows my heart, twists around my spine, and winds its way through my intestines. Fear eats me alive. I feel like I’m being watched, I should go back, I should do something. However, I perceive it as a feeling that was going to inevitably coke with running away. Running away shouldn’t feel right, I guess. So, I ignore it. I keep running and running until I feel something physical.
A heavy foot cracking into the bottom of my spine. Timmediately fly forward. I wish I could scream, regain footing, hit the person back- anything, something. But my adrenaline isn’t working right, I’m staying right there on the ground where I’ve been knocked, defenseless and cowering in fear. Just as I’m about to turn my head to reveal who is harming me, I feel something slice my head from the top of my head to the middle of my nose, which has been knocked crooked. A shovel, perhaps. I black out before I can feel the cool metal slide out to hit me again.
