Tell me more about what the lake looked like.

It reminded me of glass, especially when it was so still.

Now I never went from one side to the other, just because we weren't allowed.

But before I became a maiden, there was a floating dock out there, and I went swimming from the floating dock and we would jump off and see who could grab the most sludge from the bottom and bring it up, as kids do.

I remember sitting at Alamoth and there were decks we were right up against the lake, and I'd go out there in the morning sometimes and the lake would just look like glass.

Sometimes you'd hear a beaver slap his tail or, you'd see ducks swimming, you'd see all the mys rising up with the sunrise coming up over it, and then you'd hear the loon call.

It was a very beautiful, peaceful place.

Sounds like it.

During the winter it would completely freeze over, so it was just.

This huge vast snow and ice, and then come springtime you'd start to hear the ice breaking up and this cracking sound almost like trees falling, that would get really loud.

It would just echo through all the trees.

As you know, the winters in Minnesota can be freezing, so I loved it when I could hear the ice starting to crack and you could see everything was melting, you new spring was right around the corner.

At first, adjusting to being a maiden was a scary, lonely prospect, filled with shame and fear.

But as the years blew by, Lindsay started feeling differently about it, and she started feeling differently about Victor.

It's hard to imagine how that shift would happen, But then I think about how people have this ability to adapt and cope, to find the light in the corners of a dark room, and how after years of sinking into that darkness, you might appreciate those folds of light.

When Lindsay was a teenager, Victor had the Maidens read Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic poem about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.

It's kind of surprising and that the story actually follows Satan as the protagonist.

The story often unfolds through his eyes, and basically Satan comes up with a scheme to tempt Adam and Eve into sin.

Satan convinces Eve to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is forbidden.

Then God banishes them from their paradise.

Paradise Lost is kind of it's a book about the fall of Adam and Eve and how our world became cursed.

It was just weeks of us going to the carriage house and we'd make food and a fire, and we'd play music and we'd read the book.

Paradise Lost is this mysterious book.

It's full of hidden meaning.

But Victor used it in a very literal way.

His point was simple, look at how great this paradise is.

If you fall from grace, you'll miss out.

He asked the maidens to imagine their own version of paradise and pushed that fantastical promise one day they'd get their own planet, a place they could design themselves.

So, you know, we were all talking about what we wanted them to look like, and how Victor would be able to come visit all of us, and how great it would be because of our dedication to in this life, to him and to the Church.

What did you imagine your little heaven would be like or what would be there?

How would you spend your time there?

Oh, gosh, I wanted my heaven to look like a huge treehouse, but like I wanted it to be in the jungle, and I wanted, you know, the if you're trying to get from one cliff to another and they have those swinging bridges, tons of those through the trees and just treehouses connecting all to one another with monkeys and flowers and streams and what are That's kind of how my picture in might Heaven looking.

Like that sounds like a fun place to be.

Yeah.

He talked about how we'd be able to basically just fly on over to each other's almost like stars.

I would just be able to fly over to one another and visit each other.

And it was definitely a season of for me at least, coming together and really bonding with the maidens and sometimes a lot of fun, lots of laughs.

And I remember in those times thinking like, gosh, like how lucky am I out of all the people in the church, that He's spending time with the ten of us.

Lindsay remembers when she was assigned to light the lantern on the bridge by the pond, the one they kept lit so Jesus could find them when he returned to bring them to Heaven.

I remember thinking that lighting the lantern one night with one of the maidens walking up, like, can you believe out of all the people in the entire world, like we are the ones out of all the girls.

And I remember saying, do you think that there's life on another planet?

And maybe they have their own set of maidens over there?

Like what would they be called?

You know, like just thinking maybe there was another pocket on somewhere else, like way across the universe, ten girls who were dedicated to living their life for Christ.

And I was like, I'll still be eighty years old walking with my cane through the snow to light the lantern.

Was Sometimes Lindsay felt like she was in the garden of Eden and she could stay in that garden forever.

All she had to do was resist eating the apple from her cocoa punch.

In iHeart Podcasts, This is the Turning River Road, I'm Alan Lance Lesser and I.

America Lance Part five Paradise Lost in the Past, Lindsay got in trouble for all kinds of things, like when Victor thought she smiled too much and took her instruments away for a week.

Sometimes it felt like no one had her back.

The maidens reported on each other, and she even got yelled at for waking up late.

But over time, Lindsay grew more at home with the maidens, especially when River Road decided to sell the Shepherd's Camp their headquarters.

Selling the camp made them millions of dollars, which gave them a financial boost.

Victor moved to the maidens to a farmhouse at maiden Love, River Roads dairy farm.

This meant they saw less of Victor.

From Victor and the Shepherd's Camp, Lindsay didn't feel so watched.

The space allowed the maidens to find each other.

River Road had this little pottery business where the maidens would make dinnerware and cups and mugs and vases and wine coolers and even sinks.

Everyone had a roll, like one maiden who was really good at glazing, one maiden really good at carving.

Then some of the adults in the fellowship would take the pottery and sell it at shows and pop up shops.

Lindsay loved it late nights at the shop with the maidens singing while they worked, and when they were done they crawled into bed.

At the farmhouse, the walls slanted down where the beds were, so you know, if you sat up straight, you may hit your head.

We lay awake in bed, and I was coming up with tons of different stories, little funny stories to make them laugh, because because there was so much hardness to our life.

In some ways, it's sweet that you were telling them stories.

When you're one of the two youngest, you'd think that it would be like the oldest maiden telling stories to the younger girls, or something that seems like the real Lindsay coming out.

Yeah, those years I started blossoming more.

I mean, I still got reproved all the time and yelled at but there were moments of I think the real me trying to come out and shine.

Lindsay was growing up, moving from middle school awkwardness to a teenager with ideas and creativity to share, and the maidens were growing too.

Instead of being pitted against each other, they were becoming true sisters to each other.

They were Lindsay's family.

Now.

She went by Lera, the name Victor gave her when he put her in charge of the music, and she flourished in the role.

Victor gave her a tiny Panasonic tape recorder she could use for her songwriting, and once the Maidens worked up the songs.

They recorded them for real and mixed them and made CDs for the fellowship.

Lisa and Anna did some harmonies.

Sometimes Nicole would do some harmonies.

If you hear the flute, that was nicky.

Katrina did the drums, Sarah played the bass.

Drug clost Guy Saver, holding your.

See you, the bond that the Maidens shared, it was deep, it was real.

It was beautiful what we had in the midst of such terrific circumstances.

In Lindsay's mind, those were beautiful years.

Two thousand and five, two thousand and six, two thousand and seven.

Even Victor seemed more at rest.

And he had a baby grand piano there and we would just sit there and play music, and I remember figuring out on my guitar and just how happy he would be.

He'd be so happy and praising you, and when he smiled, he had those smile lines, and it would just make you feel warm and really good and that you were doing really well.

He was very like playful in some way, wanting to hear your thoughts and your ideas, and when he wasn't around, I would miss that feeling of the praise and almost feeling like I was finally being heard and valued in a way.

Often, a couple of maidens walked Victor to where he slept at the end of the night, then they'd return with a request.

One maiden would be asked to return to Victor alone.

And we all knew what was going on.

Nobody talked about it.

But when somebody would come back and say, oh, you know, Victor wants to see you, and it's eleven at night or something, you knew what was going to happen.

And how often it happened honestly depended on how Victor thought you were doing at the time spiritually, maybe how you looked physically, so it could happen as much as, gosh, seven ten times a month to maybe once a month, you know, depending on how you were feeling.

For ten years, Lindsay says, Victor's right hand woman, Jan gave the maidens two books, both about relationships and sex.

One of them included graphic how to instructions on sexual positions and how to please your partner.

Lindsay thinks Victor wanted them to have these.

I was still very awkward with him, and it got easier over time.

That first time was so hard and definitely the ones after that, but they got easier and it wasn't you know, physically, it didn't hurt as much.

I think, having that mindset of you know, it's God's love for me, it was It's like hard to say because it's so sickening, you know, and I think I don't know when it was withheld or when you knew like he wasn't happy with you, or you could tell he was giving other maidens special attention.

It made me feel really bad about myself of what I was doing wrong and why I wasn't being picked more or was God upset with me for something?

And then being with him in that way it felt like God did love me, like he was showing his love through Victor towards me.

I would say in the beginning, it wasn't something that I craved.

It wasn't like, oh, gosh, I hope he chooses me tonight for me to feel fully comfortable and even like comfortable with my body.

It took years later on it definitely almost became a privilege to take care of him in that way.

Makes me feel really awful to say, because it's really hard, you know, like thinking back on those years, like why I mean, why did I think that way?

Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man and thinking to the point that if I died for him, that would be the greatest honor.

There was a season where I was assigned to take care of Victor, like wake him up in the morning and make him breakfast, help him organize his day.

And I think I was on that duty for about ten months, and I remember hardly getting in trouble during that time.

I remember just being almost like so grateful to him that he would choose me to have this time with him, and to get to even like know him better, to be able to work in the cabin with him in this intimate setting.

I eventually thought I did love him, like truly loved him and would do anything for him.

In her teens, Lindsay actually felt she was in love with Victor, and she has a record of this dynamic.

She wrote about her love for Victor in a series of letters to him.

The pages and pages she shared with us span years of her life.

Starting at age fifteen.

She wrote in pencil on simple lined notebook paper, the kind you'd see in school.

As I look through the letters now I can't help but notice how much Lindsay seems like she's trying to prove her love to Victor, like she's desperate to have him believe her.

On one hand, she's read reading these letters out of fear.

By this point, she's been conditioned to behave and say things to avoid Victor's angry side.

On the other hand, Lindsay has genuine feelings of warmth and admiration for him.

That's something that's really common for kids who are being sexually abused.

They often feel intense affection toward the perpetrator.

They might even be convinced they're in love.

Then later in life, when they look back, it can be hard to make sense of The letters Lindsay wrote are filled with religious language.

She talks about a relationship with Jesus Christ getting ready for his return, but they also feel like love letters.

The over the top, mosty type of writing you'd expect from two teenagers who just fell in love.

And that's what Victor said the relationship was.

He said he was her first love.

In one letter, she writes, quote, thank you for all the times you loved me when I wasn't even worth loving.

You've been a father, mother, and brother, a teacher, a shepherd, a friend, a covering, a watcher, someone who's ready to listen, the lover of my soul, a leader, somebody who's not afraid to reprove and encourage and correct forgiving, showing mercy and grace.

Not the height, depth, length, or breadth could contain all the love that you have poured of yourself into me.

In the same letter, she says she's cried so much her shirt is soaked, her eyes bloodshot, with a pile of tissues next to her.

Then she crosses out the word pile and writes mountain.

She says the tears come from thankfulness and love for him.

She signs the letter hidden in This Love with You Lera, the name Victor had given her at the bottom of the page.

It looks like she's been practicing writing her new name and his two.

She writes your lira, your lira, lira, and Victor's name four times, like what a school age kid would doodle about her childhood crush.

Sometimes, when she was reproved a lot, she says, she would seek out sex with him.

She wanted him to pick her for the night.

She wanted to feel desired to get rid of the worthlessness and ugliness.

She felt.

She might write something is on my heart that I want to talk to you about if you have time to fellowship Fellowship.

Because she didn't want to spell it out, she wrote him once I love you, I love you, I love you, and underlined the last one.

Victor left her messages too, like good morning, my dear, please wake me at six am in his love, or a note from Victor on paper printed with sunfly to my beloved Lindsay twined together my darling Lindsay of two one flesh, the great mystery.

I love you, Victor and Victor recorded himself on that tape recorder, the tool he gave her to encourage her songwriting.

The activities she cherished the most.

Oh Leah, make a joyful noise unto the Lord God, bless you dear.

After a night of praying with Victor and the maidens, Lindsay wrote a song before bed.

So it goes.

Sometimes the days seem so long, and my heart starts aching within, of missing you, of missing you.

Driving away from your place, the tears started rolling down my face from missing you, from missing you.

Soon we'll be together forever.

Until then, nothing can sever the chords of love that entwine you and me, always coming back one day until then, this is what I'll say, that I'm in the fight and in love with you, that us victor.

Part of it makes me sick reading that, ugh, trying to think of how, Let's see, this was in two thousand and four, so I would have been seventeen.

And why do you think you wrote that?

Do you think you felt that way at the time, or that you were trying to appease him or a bit of both.

I think at the time I definitely felt that way.

I mean, it's crazy you hear about this stuff in like domestic violence situations where people get so conditioned to living that way and then the person will abuse them and then they'll leave and then they'll say no, but I really love you and I won't do that again, and blah blah blah they'll go back and it's this revolving door.

And I think I had been so conditioned at that time to want his love so badly and want to be in good graces with him, because I felt like that's how I was going to get to heaven.

The heaven in my mind, wasn't about God.

It was all about being with Victor for all eternity, which just shows me now how screwed up that totally is that Victor made himself to be this godlike figure.

Lindsay was finally at peace with her life and the way it had been planned for her, but her best friend Jess felt something else.

Jess, the youngest maiden with red hair and a giant smile, the one person Lindsay could be herself with.

Lindsay didn't know it, but Jess was ill at ease.

We didn't get to interview Jess, but we do have some recordings that were made of her later on.

They're a little grainy and hard to hear, but she explains what happened.

You can feel the dread in her voice.

At that point.

I was nineteen years old and extremely uncomfortable living the way we were stock.

I didn't want to.

Jess as talking about how uncomfortable she was living there at nineteen, and that she didn't want to be a maiden with Victor anymore.

I didn't want to be with Victor.

Jess had actually tried to escape once years before, back when she was middle school aged.

She ran into the woods behind the shepherd's camp.

She thought she'd walk until she hit Pokola Road and get to Finnlassen to find a phone, but once she was in the woods, she got scared.

Then Victor found her.

He yelled at her to come back, and for some reason she did.

She turned around and walked back to him, and appter by the hair and dragged her inside.

She never tried to escape again.

But years later, in two thousand and eight, Jess couldn't take it anymore.

She was nineteen years old and had been a maiden for seven years.

Victor said, I'm going to ask you one more time.

Is this what you want to do?

Here's one last chance to leave, and Jess finally got up the courage to say, yes, I want to leave.

She was the only maiden who did.

She said she wanted a family of her own.

I wanted to get married and have a life of my.

Own, and so she did.

Because that's the trick with cults.

Most of the time, you can leave, you do have a choice.

The point is that you're made to feel that you don't, and Jess had reached the point where she couldn't take it anymore.

Jess would leave the maidens, but not the Fellowship.

She told Victor she'd get married instead, the one other path a young woman in River Road could take.

So Victor planned it all down to the man she would be with.

Jess says it was almost like an arranged marriage.

She says the guy Victor chose was strict and loyal to him, so he knew he would keep her in line.

Victor had told her no hard feelings, but Jess said there were definitely hard feelings.

She felt it from Victor and from all of Alamoth, all the maidens.

You know.

Victor announced us that she was leaving and that she was going to be getting married.

That was the plan to a young man in the church.

And oh man, I was so mad at her for leaving.

Lindsay was in shock.

Jess wasn't just leaving Victor.

Jess was leaving her.

Ugh.

I remember hating her for it because in the early years we had talked to maybe running away.

Never knew how we knew we'd get in trouble, somebody would find us, and we're back right where we started.

And I think those memories of us, you know, when we were twelve or fourteen thirteen, talking about running away, like just so many memories came back good ones, bad ones, and I just kept thinking, Wow, Like she got out, she did it, she left, and I think I felt so stuck.

I didn't know how to get the guts to do something like that, and I was so mad at her, but I was also really happy for her.

I thought she would lose her place among the maidens in heaven, and that was a big fear of mine too, And I was like, I am definitely staying a maiden, and I'm going to stay in my commitments.

Seeing just leave and all the reactions only made Lindsay cling to her commitments more.

She didn't want to lose her status in the next life.

The idea of not being with the other maidens in heaven terrified her.

But things slowly started just going very differently.

Jess left in two thousand and eight, soon after some strange news hit members of River Road Fellowship.

A woman in River Road contacted the police.

She said that Victor had coerced her to sleep with him.

He told her it was her responsibility as a woman in the church to take care of him sexually, and the woman said she wasn't the only one.

She told police.

Victor met with many of the adult married women privately in his lodge, and on many of those occasions he had sex with them.

Now this secret was out in the open, not just to River Road but to outsiders, and with the potential for a gossip swirling, Victor told the maidens himself.

He said he'd had sex with some of the married women in the group.

There was just something that didn't sit right with me about him sleeping with the married women, Like it just felt wrong.

I think it was because they were married.

I was like, ah, this just does not feel right.

Even though Victor chastised his followers every day, it was the only time Lindsay remembers him saying he'd made a mistake.

He said the temptation had been too big.

He referenced the Bible to make excuses.

He compared what he did to some of King David's transgressions, and he likened people coming after him to persecution.

Victor came up with a short phrase that became a catch all excuse for his actions that echoed across River Road.

Everything was the blood of the Lamb covers it all.

The blood of the Lamb covers it all.

Which, yes, Jesus Christ died for our sins.

Absolutely but you can't go around and sleep with other men's wives and just think that the blood of the Lamb is gonna cover your sins and you not change, truly repent and change your behavior.

But Victor didn't just have his followers approval to worry about.

The police were involved now, and that meant he could face legal trouble because in Minnesota it's a felony for clergy to have sex with people they're guiding spiritually.

But he shared it in a way that made you feel bad for him, getting you to think like, oh, woe was me and the burden that's going to be on me?

And are you ready to stay in your commitments and defend me and defend your faith if things go crazy?

And at that time, yes, I was.

I was totally in, totally committed, ready to take a bullet for him if needed.

The news about Victor's extramarital affairs was only the first in a series of shifts in River Road Fellowship and in Lindsay's life, because it was around this time that another legal issue came up.

One of the ten maidens was originally from Brazil.

She had some visa issues, so she actually had to move back down to Brazil for a while, but maidens couldn't live alone.

They always needed a partner, that was the rule, So the rest of the maidens took turns living with her in Brazil until the visa could be sorted.

Lindsay was one of the first to volunteer.

She would move to Brazil for six months to stay at the maiden's side.

Suddenly, Lindsay found herself on a plane to Brazil, her first trip alone in her life.

I remember being so awkward because I brought my guitar with me and I had to carry it on in People We're like saying nice things like, oh, you're gonna play something.

Oh my gosh.

I remember being just so self conscious.

People probably thought I was a freak.

I just probably had no social skills really because I hadn't been around I mean, back then I would have called them unbelievers, you know, but I hadn't been around people outside of the camp for so long.

When Lindsay got in the plane, she saw something she never had before, screens on the backs of seats.

The last time I flew was I think nineteen ninety seven, and now it's two thousand and nine.

September one, two thousand and nine.

So I sat down, and I remember it took me like two hours to decide if I was even going to watch something, because I thought for sure Victor would find out it was going to be on a bill somehow, or like they would be able to track it, somebody would tell him.

But then I was like fuck it, and I I put these headphones in and started scrolling and found this teenage British movie called Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging and Designed to shit.

I remember like laughing and thinking the boys were cute, and you know, it was like a little teenage rom com, you know.

But then part of me too was like, oh my gosh, I wish I had had a life like this, wish I was able to go on a first date and wear these kinds of clothes, do my hair in this certain way.

I remember finishing the movie and that was it.

In case they found out, I was like, I can't do more than one, Like I will be really in big trouble.

I'm just this huge sinner on the plane watching this movie.

I remember really liking the movie.

The fear was still there that would hang on to her for years to come, but without Victor's constant supervision.

There was nothing standing between Lindsay and the outside world.

Once she got to Brazil, information wasn't as restricted.

Being in Brazil and basically seeing people live their normal lives was so eye opening and almost surreal.

It was almost like, oh my gosh, there's a whole nother life out here.

People can live outside of the camp.

When Victor came to visit, it had been months, far longer than she'd ever been away from him since becoming a maiden.

She started to feel more distant from him.

I do remember being standoffish towards him.

I wasn't as full and open as I once was, and I remember I didn't want to end up in a situation where he would have sex with me, and so I made sure that you know, I never mean that opportunity available to him.

River Road Fellowship was beginning to fracture after the news of Victor's affairs came out.

He left, and they started to keep Victor's location secret.

Sometimes Lindsay didn't even know where he was.

He traveled around, including up north to right by the border of Canada.

Minnesota didn't seem like a safe place for the group anymore.

So Victor decided to move their headquarters from Minnesota to Washington State.

They left behind the properties and farms and businesses they'd built up for so many years.

Many followers relocated to Washington, including the Maidens.

The people who didn't move would have to follow him from Afar.

By the time Lindsay came back from Brazil, her parents had moved home to Pennsylvania without even telling her.

They'd be loyal to Victor long distance, and instead of flying home to ment Minnesota, Lindsay went from Brazil to Washington.

She joined the other Maidens near Spokane.

They lived in a house in a regular neighborhood, set a little farther back from the houses, on a hill among the trees.

To make money, the maidens knocked on doors offering cleaning services.

This was a huge shift.

After years of avoiding outsiders.

Now Lindsay spent her days in other people's homes.

Something in her mind began to turn.

I think it was about three months after being there.

Nicole and I were watching March of the Penguins.

Nicole was an older maiden, the one considered the head of them all.

She was also the daughter of Jan, Victor's right hand.

Neither of us were feeling very well, so we were on the couch in the basement watching March of the Penguins.

Morgan Freeman is the voice, which I didn't know him at the time, but it was one of the approved things we could watch.

While watching, Lindsay did something she'd never done before.

She turned to the other Maiden and said something taboo.

She didn't even really plan it, it just spilled out.

And I remember looking over at her and telling her that I needed to talk to her about something.

And I told her that I didn't really agree with Victor sleeping with some of the married women, and that I felt like I wanted to move on from the maidens and get married someday, have a family of my own, and leave.

I can't even believe that I got the guts to tell her.

I think in my mind I was like, Victor's not here, you know, I wouldn't have the pressure from him to stay.

But Lindsay wasn't really telling the truth when she talked to the other Maiden.

Victor's affairs were her excuse when that believers might accept a strategy to be heard, but it wasn't what really drove her Brazil, the airplane, the movies, Washington.

They all came together and told her something new.

She didn't have to stay here, and she knew now she didn't want to.

I remember, she was surprised.

The maiden called her mom, Jan, who talked to Lindsay.

Jan tried to explain away Victor's actions with the line she'd heard many times before, we.

All make mistakes, and that Victor made a mistake and the blood of the Lamb covers all sins, and I would need to forgive him, and that if I did leave, I would be leaving my first love.

And somehow through all of that I stayed firm.

I literally don't know how I did that.

Jan called Victor and put Lindsay on the phone.

Lindsay was scared.

She started to cry.

When Victor picked up, he sounded emotional, like maybe he was crying too.

He asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this.

He didn't try to convince her to stay like he'd always done in the past.

Years ago.

Lindsay thinks he'd recently experienced so much change, people moving away, just leaving the Maidens.

Maybe this just felt like one more change to him.

To this day, Lindsay thinks if she had talked with him in person and not over the phone, Victor would have convinced her to stay.

Instead, Lindsay stood fast.

She wanted to leave, she said, Victor told her she had his blessing and his love through it all.

They bought her a one way train ticket to her parents home in Pennsylvania, and two days later she was on a train.

She had her guitar, her clothes, her letters and notebooks, and a stuffed loon, the maiden symbol.

In twenty ten, after ten years as a maiden, she was leaving.

And I remember being so scared, like stepping on the train for the first time, being I think overcome with feelings of so much loneliness and feeling really scared.

And they had given me this little cell phone and there were I think one number programmed in there, like my mom's or somebody.

And then I had, I think, like a walkman with headphones that I could put seeds in.

Lindsay had just a seat, no space to spread out or sleep.

Over the three day journey.

A man was in the seat next to her.

As she had been trained for years, she avoided his eyes.

I just would go to the bathroom and then back to my chair.

I just remember being like nervous to look around or to talk to anyone.

It was always in the back of my mind maybe Victor will find out, like maybe Victor will know because for ten years and even before then, from nineteen ninety eight, it was like he knew everything that was going with everybody.

So I think it definitely wasn't like getting on the train and a sigh of relief at all.

It was getting on the train and feeling scared and lonely and nervous, and I mean scared for the future the unknown.

Years ago, Lindsay had read Paradise Lost with the Maidens, the poem about Adam and Eve.

It motivated her to stay, never to lead Victor's side, never to question God's love.

When I read Paradise Lost years ago, the thing that struck me was how Satan was depicted.

You hear his inner dialogue throughout, and some scholars think Satan is not pure evil, and how he's portrayed in the poem, that he's a morally ambiguous, complicated figure, and in a lot of ways he might be the person you side with in this battle between Satan and God.

You could argue, if God or a god figure isn't leading well, even if heaven is supposedly adylic, maybe you don't want to be there.

Maybe Eve should eat that fruit.

Maybe she should gain the knowledge of good and evil.

Maybe she should leave the garden's walls.

Maybe what is forbidden is the bravest thing to do.

When I think of Lindsay on that train, I hear the final lines of Paradise Lost, the final image of the whole epic poem of Adam and Eve.

They wipe some tears, and the world is all before them.

Now they will choose where to go.

Milton writes, they walk hand in hand with wandering steps, and slow out of the garden and into the world.

Next time on The Turning.

So this started when you were about thirteen?

Okay?

So how long did it go.

On until I left turn I was twenty three.

Okay, that's a long time.

The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.

It's written and produced by Erica Lance and Me.

Our story editor is Emily Foreman.

Mixing and sound designed by James Trout.

Grace Doe is our production assistant.

Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado.

Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Albert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvell and Nikki e Tour at iHeart Podcasts.

You can follow us on Instagram at Rococoa, and you can reach out via email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com.

I'm Alan Lancelessor.

Thanks for listening.