After walking a couple of blocks, I sensed something was wrong for someone was following me. When I whirled around, there were four big men close behind me. One called me by my convent name, warning me not to move nor make a sound. I was paralyzed with that old terror so much that I could not move. They closed in quickly on each side; picked me up and pitched me into their car between the front and back seats.

As they sped away I was forced to lie on the floor and they covered me with a dirty rug when I begged for mercy. As I was held down under their feet and fear gripped me, I listened and realized that these were actually four Catholic priests in civilian clothing. We drove all night and through all the next day and night. The following morning we entered the suburbs of a large city and pulled to the curb. I was aching all over and cramped from being forced to lie prone on the floorboard during this wild drive.

I had no idea where we were but when I was allowed to sit up I slowly stretched my cramped muscles and aching back. I stiffened with horror when I saw we had parked in front of a convent. My heart sank and I shook in terror. I wished I had not gotten up at all. Desperately I prayed to the Virgin Mary for a heart attack and then called on St. Jude, St. Bartholomew and every other patron saint I could remember.

They dragged me from the automobile, one on each side, and instead of entering the convent, they marched me blocks and blocks down the street. At last, walking on my toes with downcast eyes, I was guided upon the porch of the priest's home, next door to a large Roman Catholic church.

They hustled me inside, down a hallway, through the kitchen, and then down into the basement. There a secret, locked door opened to reveal a tunnel which led straight back, many blocks underground, to the convent! As usual, they had sneaked me in leaving no trail, in case we were observed. As always, they were out to deceive the world and hide their dark and evil deeds.

At the end of the long tunnel there was another door but no way to open it. However, one of the priests knew exactly where the secret button was located and when he pressed it, the big, heavy door swung silently open. Behind it Mother Superior stood waiting. Her cruel face was grim and set as she snapped, "Bring her in." I had seen those merciless looks many times before and it was like the rerun of a thousand other horrifying nightmares of pain and suffering.

Mother Superior led the way without a word to another room and harshly ordered me to prostrate myself on the floor. I had no choice but to obey, as I had so many hundred of times before. Mother Superior tapped a bell and two nuns suddenly appeared and one set a strange looking object on the floor beside me. She handed the sisters each a piece of rope and they bound my hands and feet securely. They were quiet efficient and obviously had much experience in doing this.

The object on the floor was a plumber's blow torch, but I had never seen one and did not know what it was. Mother gave a quick order and a nun lit it. One nun got under my shoulders, the other at my ankles, and they lifted me up. Mother Superior came and stood over me demanding that I say I was sorry for my wickedness, recant for running away from the convent, and promise I would never run away again.

I knew I would run away again at the first opportunity and would never make such a promise. From long experience I was aware that I faced hurt and torture no matter what I said or did not say. There was no mercy or escape regardless of promises. I was an old hand at understanding the duplicity, lies, hypocrisy and treachery in a convent. Everything was designed to deceive and entrap the unwary. There was absolutely no way to win a fair hearing or trial.

When a Mother Superior dies, they always have three or four replacements, one of which can take her place. Always they are chosen for their hard, cruel and inhuman disregard for suffering and misery and lack of compassion. She must have proven herself totally loyal to the system with all its rottenness and must even relish and enjoy all the gross practices.

Mother made her demands three times and I met them with grim silence. She gave the order to lower my body down on the torch. Naturally I screamed and struggled, bucking and pitching, trying to escape the merciless fire on my back. When my clothing caught fire I was writhing and shrieking in agony as the flesh sizzled and blistered while the relentless and emotionless sisters held me firmly over the fire. Finally Mother Superior decided I had burned enough for now and rolled me in a filthy rug to smother the flames. I was like a wild creature, throbbing with unbelievable white-hot pain and misery.

After she did this the nuns dumped me roughly to the floor and I screamed even louder as the seared and blistered flesh on my back slipped. I was then carried to the infirmary where I was laid out on a slab of wood. I was placed on my stomach because my back was so dreadfully seared. My agony and torment from the burns was beyond description. Mother and the nuns then walked out, shutting and locking the door. Once again I was a prisoner of those who had no hearts or conscience and who lived to inflict suffering and torture on every helpless victim.

I begged and wept, pleading and moaning for water when nuns passed by, but they were robots, programmed to ignore suffering and they did not stop. My cruel captors thought I was surely going to die and I believed it too. When I lived on, Mother Superior called in a doctor. I often wonder what kind of lies she told him to explain the horrible mass of burns on my ravaged body. He came in for several weeks to dress and treat the burns. One miserable day crawled into another.

Months dragged by before I was able to walk. The first day I was able to be up I was escorted to the refractory where meals were served. As was customary, each nun had her own place at the tables but there was none for me. Mother Superior ordered me to keep walking over to one corner of the room. There a shelf could be adjusted to the height of a nun and on it sat my tin cup of black coffee and four ounces of bread. I had to stand with my nose in the corner to consume my meagre rations.

When I was brought back that night the shelf was bare and Mother marched me to another place, past three statues. They had taken all my vegetables out of the tin pie pan and piled them on the floor with the two ounce bit of bread and tin cup of coffee. I was to sit on the floor and eat off the floor and this was forced on me for months.

One day I asked permission to speak with Mother Superior. I told her that if she would not make me commit sin I would break no convent rules. She loftily informed me that if I kept all the rules, one day I would be allowed out in the courtyard for a short recreation period.

Years ago I had learned never to trust in or believe the lies told by the conscienceless Mother Superiors in convents. They were past masters of deception, manipulation and sadistic cruelty. This one long ago had told me that my life was to be one of constant penance and suffering because I had dared to attempt escape from the convent. Absolutely everything she was big enough to inflict on me, she did with a vengeance, not minding what it was. Hers was an all-out campaign to break me completely, and nothing was too cruel, painful or inhuman for her to devise.

One morning, for a penance, I was taken to a long metal horse watering trough which served the nuns as a bathtub. I was ordered to strip off my clothes, slip on a muslin nightgown and get into the tub of water. Mother Superior seized my head and pushed my face forward into the filthy water, then up, then back into the water. I was scarcely able to get my breath and strangled as she kept this up continuously. I became so exhausted I crumpled in the tank, so weak I could no longer resist or even struggle against the fear of asphyxiation and drowning. The mental and physical pressures of such punishments are difficult to describe.

Two little nuns pulled me from the tank, limp and half-conscious, gasping, gagging and choking for breath. They held me firmly while two others began to beat me thoroughly with cruel, cutting, flagellation whips, whose chains and sharp metal teeth bit viciously through and shredded the thin wet muslin nightgown. I was soon soaked with my own blood, badly lacerated all over.

In the convent, complaining and murmuring are strictly forbidden and bring swift and harsh punishment. Therefore you learn to bear everything without hope of any relief. I had developed a festering infection on my finger which grew worse day by day. Terribly swollen and painful, it throbbed so I could ignore it no longer. It should have been lanced to relieve the pressure. That day I was assigned to kitchen duty and I knew that I would have my hands in hot, soapy water all day long, scrubbing and cleaning.

When I asked Mother Superior for permission to speak to her she glared at me but gave consent. Laying my finger on the kitchen work table for her to see, I explained how dreadfully painful it was and asked if I might switch duties with another nun to keep it out of the water until it was better. She glanced at it and quick as a flash, snatched a meat cleaver and before I realized what was happening, savagely chopped of the side of the infected finger.

Although mercifully, unconsciousness caused me to slump to the floor, they quickly revived me. Mother Superior snapped at me angrily and said, "Now you quit fooling around making excuses and get busy scrubbing." I had no choice but to obey and slaved away in the hot, soapy water all day long, fainting several times from the endless pain.

So life went on, one dreary day after another, with dreadful and agonizing penances being imposed one after the other, limited only by the demonic imaginations and devices of the heartless and ruthless Mother Superior. These awful women have to be totally demon possessed to do what they do.

One day I was again taken down into the furnace room where the coal burner was located. It too was used as a torture chamber and as usual, my clothing was stripped to the waist. I was forced to lock my arms around a large hot water pipe and my hands and feet were tightly bound to it. Mother Superior then shoved the poker into the hot coals of the furnace to heat it red hot.

This done, she slowly and painstakingly burned three crosses on my back, returning the poker to the coals when it cooled. Horrible screams ripped from my throat and pitiful, whimpering pleas for mercy gurgled out once more, but of course there was none. My nostrils burned again with the sickening acrid stench of my own burning flesh. Awful convulsions of rage and pure hatred for my tormentors boiled up in me.

After over twenty-eight despairing, miserable months of captivity, these evil people had almost managed to destroy me for the second time. The utter hopelessness I experienced is very difficult to define or describe in words to one who has never gone through it.

Mother Superior summoned eighteen of us to follow her on another day. As usual, we were afraid for we never knew what awaited us when we were called out. Silently we trailed her as she led us to the kitchen on the first floor. Handing us seven bean bags she unlocked the door leading into the outer courtyard which lay behind the high walls. We were actually being allowed a recreation period!

We could scarcely contain our joy and amazement as we walked out into the fresh air and sunshine, for the first time. To those who have never been deprived of such ordinary things this may seem strange, but we walked only a few steps off the patio and fell eagerly on our faces in the lush green grass, smelling and clutching it greedily.

To lie there in this way was like heaven, unbelievably wonderful and satisfying to our deprived senses which had been imprisoned inside the sterile convent walls and caverns for so long. We lay there side by side reveling in the air, grass and the sunshine and must have been a strange sight indeed. We were literally intoxicated by it all.

While lying there, a coal truck lumbered up to the heavy iron gate of the courtyard. A man took a wheelbarrow from the truck and began to load it. After unlocking the gate, he pushed it open to bring the coal to the basement chute around the corner of the building. We all lay quietly still after stealing hurried looks to see what was happening. Quickly we turned our heads away, for it was punishable sin to look on any man other than a priest or bishop.

A wild thought flashed through my mind. If I had what it took, I could dart out of the open gate ahead of him, as he was slowly making his repeated trips to the chute. Indecision paralyzed me, however, and I could not move because I had been so conditioned by fear to obey the rules. He made several trips and finally pitched the wheelbarrow on the truck and closed the outer gate. My heart sank as I heard the sound of the gate swinging shut, however I started up. My hearing was so sensitive after being in the convent silence that it seemed the gate sounded different when it closed. Could it be that the catch jammed and did not lock? It was impossible, but supposing it were true?

With such thoughts surging through my brain, my heart seemed to be pounding so loudly that I glanced cautiously at the other nuns to see if they heard it. However, they were still luxuriating in the fresh green grass, the sunshine and fresh air and were noticing nothing. Very carefully I eased to my feet, moving quietly so as not to disturb them, and slipped over to the gate.

Furtively, I looked back to the convent to see if I was being observed. As I got closer, I panicked and began to run. When I hit the big gate it swung open so easily I lost my balance and tumbled headlong into the cinder path, skinning my face, hands, and knees. Quickly I leaped up and shoved the open gate closed and the spring lock clicked, locking it securely. I did not want to attract attention by running, but my feet just flew down the sidewalk.

It was incredible! I was free once more! I was outside the prison walls of the convent at last. It was a beautiful day but very windy, causing my habit and veil to blow around my face. I could scarcely see where I was going. Suddenly, I bumped into a man and in desperation I seized his arm and gasped in a frightened voice, "Please help me! Hide me quickly. I have just escaped from the convent."

This frightened him and he looked shaken, but he said, "Come with me and I will put you in my barn." He had just put a load of fresh hay in the building and I began to climb up the ladder to hide in the loft. He stopped me, saying he had thought of a better place for me to stay. I followed him into his house where he quickly explained to his wife what was happening. They opened an access door in the corner of the kitchen ceiling and boosted me up there into the attic.

This precious couple, in their thirties, were very good to me. They sent up pillows, blankets food and water. I hid there all night and through the next day. At dusk I told them that I must be on my way, to flee in the darkness. From them, for the first time, I learned exactly where I had been imprisoned for over two years. They supplied me with maps, and, as we checked them, found that I had been kidnapped 650 miles away. The maps were then marked so I could find my way back to Uncle John's house.

The lady packed a shoebox with food, gave me seventy-five cents and insisted that I change into some of her clothing for the trip and carry mine along. I was still hairless so she gave me a stocking cap. I had to go barefooted for I had no shoes or socks, and my friends had nothing which would fit me. I was undoubtedly a peculiar sight, dressed in clothing three sizes too large for me, as I began my trek to safety trying to hitchhike cross-country.

I walked and walked until my feet were so sore and I was so tired I felt I could go no further. When I stopped at a house to ask permission to sleep on the porch or in the garage, the lady took one look at me and slammed the door in my face. Wearily I plodded back to the road, heartsick, frightened and thoroughly discouraged. Only the thought of the horrors behind me kept me from giving up completely.

These comfortable people, secure in their warm homes, comfortable beds with full stomachs could not relate in their wildest imaginations to what was going on so close by. The truth was too terrible to be believed, therefore nice people just deny it. Exhausted, I stumbled and half fell into the ditch until the lights in the house went out. I then crept out, slipped up alongside the house and lay down to fall into a fitful sleep. I was glad I brought along my heavy, holy habit because I wrapped it around me to keep out the biting night chill.

When dawn broke, I nervously roused myself and again began to walk. I was filled with fear because I didn't know what the people might do to me. After I had eaten everything I brought with me, I stopped and begged food along the way. Some were gracious and gave me a nice meal, others abruptly refused and slammed the door in my face.

Days and weeks went by as I painfully walked across the countryside. No one offered me shoes and my feet got so bad I wept and begged to die. For fourteen weeks I walked and hitchhiked, begging for food and a place to lie down to sleep. Finally I was about twenty-five or thirty miles from Uncle John's, according to my maps.

I asked at a railway depot if there was a train to Uncle John's town and discovered there was a one car train which would come in five hours. From the meagre store of coins which had been given to me, I counted out money, bought a ticket and lay down on the station bench to sleep. Although I was very hungry, no one offered me food.

I caught the train and when I arrived at Uncle John's house he said, "My God, Charlotte, where did you come from?" Then he showed me a letter from my dad stating that my own father was the one who had put me back into the convent. The letter said I was in safe keeping and that they knew where I was. My father was terrified because my invalid mother was so sick. Every time any member of the family, especially my father, went to confession, the priest would solemnly announce, "There will be no absolution for your sin until Charlotte is back in the convent."

The priest assured my dad that if my mother died she could not go to purgatory but would have to go straight to hell. My tormented father believed this and desperately feared this dread sentence on his beloved wife. To him, betraying me to the convent was not as bad as condemning my mother to hell. As I heard this, I was again filled with wrath and furiously assured my uncle I never wanted to see my father again. I was raging, deeply hurt and felt terribly lonely.