Aftershock

"Snap out of it! You knew when you opened that can of worms, there would be more than one worm in it!"

That went through my mind as I tried to slow the paranoia and panic slamming doors in my head. Slowly my heart and my breathing returned to normal as I tried to re-order my thoughts. Attempting to untangle the mystery of what's going on.

I began with step one about what's known.  So far I have a sort of who's who. Will there be a path to follow? I don't know...

I know this, it's time to line up more clues and see how the cookie crumbles.

Step two

Girl 15 oldest child. The name changed three times. Two identities per change for a total of six changes. Currently uses one of the aliases as permanent ID. 90lbs, ill, rundown upon arrival.

Girl 14 middle child. Name change three times no double identity for a total of three changes. Currently uses legal identity as permanent ID. 89lbs, ill, rundown upon arrival. Required hospital care denied.

Girl 10 youngest child. No name changes. Her natural father removed her from the home at age five.

Environmental conditions - girls lived in the attic. Cots for beds, little else. Living restricted and in isolation.

Parents did not attend school functions of any kind or have an interchange with any officials. Upon the oldest girl reaching high school age requiring her to leave the island, relocation commenced to another area of semi-isolation surrounded by forest.

Systematic premeditative conditioning both mental and physical began in preschool years.

I'm looking at what I've written. I know that the answer is in there somewhere but I needed another clue. It made no sense to me that someone could hate children so much. I wondered what it was that we did so bad as to cause such hatred, such pain and such loneliness.  Confusion, that's what my life has been at its best...confusion.  When Despair comes it drags down the soul and takes away the will to move forward. I open my bedroom door with a crack. I can see my grandparents each in their respective, chairs. Oma is talking to Opa in Dutch. Opa is Poo pooing waving his hand as if to blow off whatever it was she said.

After lining up all the clues, I could see there was a pattern.

Do you dear reader? Do you see the pattern that I see?

A round and round Hell Ferris wheel turns clanking and screeching with each revolution. 

Very soon, an important clue will come my way. Understanding a large chunk of clues began to make sense.

But it comes from an unlikely place. It comes from the end of a rolled-up newspaper.