Speaker 1: Lindsay still has photos from when she was a maiden,
Speaker 1: when she lived in Alamoth and served as Lira, the
Speaker 1: keeper of music and the spiritual battle they all fought together.
Speaker 1: Pictures of her in long dresses performing music, were huddled
Speaker 1: with the maidens around Victor in a big hug. A
Speaker 1: photo of Victor kissing her forehead as she plays the guitar,
Speaker 1: Victor embracing her in front of the bridge over the
Speaker 1: pond where Jesus was supposed to find them. But when
Speaker 1: she goes through her memorabilia, the photos, her diary, the
Speaker 1: thing most on her mind isn't the man who called
Speaker 1: himself an apostle, the man she obeyed no matter what,
Speaker 1: who raped her for ten years. She doesn't think first
Speaker 1: of her parents or her siblings. When she's reminded of
Speaker 1: her childhood. One thing is always at the four.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the maidens. And the day that
Speaker 2: our parents dropped us off was July twenty third, two thousand.
Speaker 2: Victor did have a celebrate that anniversary every year with him.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the anniversary of their commitment to Victor.
Speaker 1: It was when the ten girls found themselves bound together,
Speaker 1: living as a family, for the next decade, ten girls
Speaker 1: and women aged twelve to twenty three, supporting each other
Speaker 1: through everything.
Speaker 2: I still miss them, you know. I don't think there's
Speaker 2: a day goes by that I don't think of the
Speaker 2: maidens even more so than my own siblings. I think
Speaker 2: of them as my sisters, And sometimes I just wish
Speaker 2: that I could have met them under different circumstances, you know,
Speaker 2: or that somehow we would invol and out and come
Speaker 2: back together, you know, and been able to share in
Speaker 2: this grieving and healing process together. And it just really
Speaker 2: makes me sad that that didn't happen either sides with Jess.
Speaker 1: Jess, the youngest maiden, the girl with red hair, Lindsay's
Speaker 1: best friend, who came forward with her to get Victor
Speaker 1: put away while the other maidens were still in River
Speaker 1: Road or even visiting Victor in prison. Jess and Lindsay
Speaker 1: had each other through the questions, the police interviews, the
Speaker 1: media coverage, the manhunt, the plea bargaining sentencing. It was
Speaker 1: always Jess. Three years later, in March of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Lindsay was at home when she saw a post online.
Speaker 1: It was from Jess's brother. She didn't know what it meant.
Speaker 2: Her brother posted something on Facebook asking to pray for her,
Speaker 2: and I immediately messaged him what is going on? What
Speaker 2: is going on with Jess?
Speaker 1: From her Cocoa Punch and iHeart podcasts, This is the
Speaker 1: Turning River Road. I'm Alan Lance.
Speaker 3: Lesser and I'm Erica Lance Part nine.
Speaker 1: Jess. The day of that sentencing hearing back in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen was like coming out of a tunnel. You can
Speaker 1: see it even now in the photos they took that day.
Speaker 2: This is me and Jess after we were in court.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it was October twenty, twenty sixteen. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: both look really happy. We look really happy, you know,
Speaker 2: And you can tell even from a picture that there's
Speaker 2: a light in somebody's eyes. You can see the light.
Speaker 2: We're both smiling so big, and she's kind of in front,
Speaker 2: and I'm standing behind her and my head is over
Speaker 2: her shoulder and we have our heads together.
Speaker 1: They had both dyed their hair. Lindsay's, which is usually
Speaker 1: curly brown, was straight and black in this picture. Jess's
Speaker 1: hair was short and platinum blonde, almost white. They had
Speaker 1: their survivor bracelets on the ones Jess had made. There
Speaker 1: is something about that photo where both of you just
Speaker 1: looks so happy.
Speaker 4: M h.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you captured that moment.
Speaker 2: To see a comparison. I think I told you about
Speaker 2: that play.
Speaker 1: Lindsay pulls out another picture of her and Jess. This
Speaker 1: time they're young girls and pigtails and sailor costumes as
Speaker 1: from before they were maidens. When the Children of River
Speaker 1: Road Fellowship put on a musical set on a ship
Speaker 1: the community built, Jess and Lindsay had a duet together.
Speaker 2: This was when early nineteen ninety nine. Jess and I
Speaker 2: were in the crow's and as singing. I had just
Speaker 2: turned twelve and she was eleven.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, that's us, and you've got little sailor
Speaker 1: hats on, and we were in the middle of singing
Speaker 1: because our our mouths are open. They were already friends,
Speaker 1: but that was the start of them really being a pair.
Speaker 1: These two little girls caught up in the bigness of
Speaker 1: singing a duet for the whole camp, so long before
Speaker 1: they'd have to stand together in front of another audience
Speaker 1: in court years later.
Speaker 2: We were so excited. We were the only ones who
Speaker 2: got to go up into this like huge tower that
Speaker 2: they had built. I remember being nervous, and I think
Speaker 2: she was nervous, but somehow we just helped calm each
Speaker 2: other down and climb up there and sing the song
Speaker 2: Like a ship so far from home, wandering gamesleep.
Speaker 5: Alone, storm, tossed by the troubles of this world, dune
Speaker 5: by the something in the Mutiny of Sin.
Speaker 2: There I was alone, a singing man. Oh man, gosh,
Speaker 2: I haven't sang this in a year. It's funny on
Speaker 2: the brain, and I can't remember that. That's the word.
Speaker 2: Really sweet memory that I have of the two of
Speaker 2: us from early on, before you know, things turned. But
Speaker 2: I look at this. This was early nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: and by that summer, my parents are having me sleep
Speaker 2: in a camper with Victor. And I feel so sad
Speaker 2: for these little girls because like they don't even know
Speaker 2: that that innocence is slowly going to be ripped and
Speaker 2: torn away from them.
Speaker 1: Jess was like a sister to Lindsay at age twelve
Speaker 1: and at age thirty, and that was a big deal
Speaker 1: because Lindsay's birth sisters weren't in their life anymore. They
Speaker 1: supported Victor. But after Victor pled guilty, Lindsay and Jess
Speaker 1: took that picture their black and blonde hair and bracelets
Speaker 1: that said Survivor. They left Minnesota and went back to
Speaker 1: their homes, Jess to Wisconsin and Lindsay to New Jersey.
Speaker 2: She kind of cut off contact with me.
Speaker 1: Lindsay tried to reach her again and again, her DMS
Speaker 1: and texts and calls went unanswered, and.
Speaker 2: When I didn't hear from her, I reached out to
Speaker 2: her husband. I reached out to her brother, like, Hey,
Speaker 2: is everything okay with Jess. I've been trying to message
Speaker 2: her and they'd be like, yeah, think she just needs
Speaker 2: some time to heal. And I kind of accepted that.
Speaker 2: At the time. I was like, Okay, maybe this is
Speaker 2: her way of moving on, which really sucked because I
Speaker 2: wanted to move on with her. It was almost like
Speaker 2: she just kind of wanted to maybe forget, and unfortunately
Speaker 2: that didn't include me.
Speaker 1: It was almost four years later, in March of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: that Lindsay saw that post from Jess's brother.
Speaker 2: Her brother posted something on Facebook asking like to pray
Speaker 2: for her, and I immediately messaged him, like what is
Speaker 2: going on? I think it took him like two days
Speaker 2: to get back to me, and when he did, that's
Speaker 2: when he said, she is on life support and I
Speaker 2: was like, what what happened? I Am coming out there.
Speaker 1: They'd found Jess after she tried to take her own life.
Speaker 1: It wasn't her first suicide attempt.
Speaker 2: She was like, we found her. They tried to resuscitate her,
Speaker 2: but she had been dead for too like brain dead
Speaker 2: for too long. And I messaged him back immediately saying,
Speaker 2: please don't take her off. I want to come say goodbye. No,
Speaker 2: he said it would be too late, there wasn't time,
Speaker 2: and nah, I think it was like an hour later
Speaker 2: he I sent me back and said that she was gone.
Speaker 2: It didn't feel real.
Speaker 1: Lindsay had cried many times over the previous decades. She'd
Speaker 1: had a lot to cry about. Often it was silent,
Speaker 1: with tears on her face or pooling on her pillow,
Speaker 1: tears that could have filled that tear bottle her dad
Speaker 1: gave her many times over. But that's not what happened
Speaker 1: this time. This time she screamed, not in silence, not
Speaker 1: into a pillow. This time it was loud, just.
Speaker 2: So sad, wishing I could have helped her, and that
Speaker 2: wish she would have reached back out to me. And
Speaker 2: you know, I we all went through a lot of
Speaker 2: similar things, and of course we all had our own
Speaker 2: experiences being a maiden, things that others didn't, that I
Speaker 2: didn't see, that she didn't see. For me, I felt
Speaker 2: like I had lost the only person who really knew
Speaker 2: what I had went through, you know who I mean. Yes,
Speaker 2: the other maidens knew, but they weren't supporting Jess and I.
Speaker 2: So it was like the only true sister who we
Speaker 2: had lived through this together, and she was gone.
Speaker 4: It's hard for me every day because she was brilliant
Speaker 4: and talented and just an absolute shining light of a person,
Speaker 4: and she had so much more to offer the world.
Speaker 3: This is Justice's Sister. Gray odins twice.
Speaker 4: She genuinely just wanted to close that chapter of her
Speaker 4: life and move on, and she tried so hard to
Speaker 4: move past it and to build a life outside of it.
Speaker 4: She tried everything she could to run from her demons,
Speaker 4: and she couldn't.
Speaker 3: Unlike her older sister, Gray was born into River Road Fellowship.
Speaker 3: Victor actually named her when she was born, a name
Speaker 3: she doesn't use anymore. Gray was six when the announcement
Speaker 3: came that her sister had been chosen for something special.
Speaker 3: Jess who was twelve, would be a maiden.
Speaker 4: Now it was all of the firstborn daughters of the
Speaker 4: head families. They were supposed to be basically like nuns
Speaker 4: for our church. Like I don't understand, ah, Like how
Speaker 4: these people genuinely believed that none of this was nefarious.
Speaker 4: I don't. It makes me so livid, it's so angry.
Speaker 3: Of course, six year old Gray couldn't follow what was happening,
Speaker 3: but the announcement was a turning point once it came
Speaker 3: she lost her big sister. They exchanged letters the first year,
Speaker 3: but then even that wasn't allowed anymore. Gray says they
Speaker 3: had no contact for six year years. The only time
Speaker 3: Gray might see Jess was at big church gatherings on
Speaker 3: days like Easter or Pentecost, but even then it was
Speaker 3: from afar.
Speaker 4: We weren't even allowed to talk to her at those
Speaker 4: gatherings because she was one of the maidens, Like they
Speaker 4: were like the nuns, and you know, we're just the peasants.
Speaker 4: We weren't allowed to approach her. She was off limits.
Speaker 4: But there was a lot of brainwashing that first year
Speaker 4: after she left, to the point where by the time
Speaker 4: I was like eight, I didn't know who she was,
Speaker 4: or that I'd even had a sister. They went through
Speaker 4: so much like work to get me to forget her existence,
Speaker 4: to the point that when she moved back when I
Speaker 4: was twelve, I had no idea who she was. Who's
Speaker 4: there the like leaders in the cult, like the trustee,
Speaker 4: these the elders were what we called them.
Speaker 3: Why do you think they didn't want you to know?
Speaker 4: One of the main tactics that they used was isolation, manipulation,
Speaker 4: twisting the narrative. And I think for the maidens because
Speaker 4: they were just terrified teenage girls. The more that they
Speaker 4: isolated them and cut them off and made them, you know,
Speaker 4: on a pedestal, the less the girls felt like they
Speaker 4: could leave, the more trapped and helpless, like he was
Speaker 4: their protector and they weren't allowed to leave him. I
Speaker 4: was robbed of my childhood. She was robbed of her childhood.
Speaker 4: But we were also robbed of each other.
Speaker 3: At first, when Gray and Jess were both outside the cult,
Speaker 3: their relationship was rocky. They went some periods without speaking.
Speaker 3: Gray moved to Germany for her job in the military
Speaker 3: and Jess was back in Wisconsin. But then Jess reached out.
Speaker 4: She said, Hey, I'd like to try to be friends.
Speaker 4: I know, we don't really know each other. We were
Speaker 4: robbed of being sisters, and we started to really become friends.
Speaker 3: She remembers one time they took a long drive together
Speaker 3: and told each other everything that had happened in the
Speaker 3: years they'd been apart, and.
Speaker 4: I think that was the day that we really started
Speaker 4: to actually be sisters. The next two years were just amazing.
Speaker 4: We would talk everay down on the phone, we would
Speaker 4: video we got to know each other and just bond.
Speaker 3: Just flew to Germany for a month when Gray's daughter
Speaker 3: was born. Gray and her daughter flew home to visit
Speaker 3: Jess four months later, and it was just.
Speaker 4: A glimpse of what we could have had and what
Speaker 4: was stolen from us. And I think it made it
Speaker 4: so much harder to see the childhood that we could
Speaker 4: have had.
Speaker 3: But the time was happy because they had found each
Speaker 3: other again.
Speaker 4: I finally got my sister back, like I finally had
Speaker 4: what I should have had my whole life, only to
Speaker 4: lose her two and a half years later. I think
Speaker 4: that's the most unfair part of it. Obviously, a lot
Speaker 4: of is unfair and how much we were robbed of,
Speaker 4: but just each other and what could have been. It
Speaker 4: is really hard.
Speaker 3: Gray got a message from Jess one day that things
Speaker 3: were not going well.
Speaker 4: Because things were just she was in a really bad
Speaker 4: place in Wisconsin, and she was like, I can't do
Speaker 4: this anymore, like I'm tired, I can't keep fighting, like
Speaker 4: this is bad. And I was like, just come out here,
Speaker 4: you can reset. Come stay with me for a few
Speaker 4: months or indefinitely. Europe is amazing and it has been
Speaker 4: so healing for me. And I was like, just just
Speaker 4: come stay with me. I'll take care of everything like
Speaker 4: I got you. I will save you. We'll figure this
Speaker 4: out and face it together. And she killed herself five
Speaker 4: days before she was supposed to fly here to Germany.
Speaker 4: I thought I could save her, and it just I
Speaker 4: couldn't save her, and it wasn't enough, and it should
Speaker 4: have been me. I have so much survivors and I
Speaker 4: I feel like I will never be even half the
Speaker 4: person that she was. I hope wherever her spirit and
Speaker 4: her energy is, that she is finally happy and at peace.
Speaker 3: We've heard lots of beautiful things about Jess, that she
Speaker 3: was kind, the sort of person who helps younger kids
Speaker 3: find frogs, who gives them her books so they can
Speaker 3: fall in love with reading too. Someone who liked tattoos
Speaker 3: and funky haircuts. Someone bold and artsy and beautifully weird.
Speaker 3: Someone with a massive Julia Roberts smile, too magnificent for
Speaker 3: the box Victor wanted to keep her in. There's some
Speaker 3: video footage of the press conference right after Victor was
Speaker 3: sentenced the day of the survivor bracelets of the photo
Speaker 3: with Lindsay and Jess's heads pressed together, the photo full
Speaker 3: of light. Watching the video, I'm always by how frank
Speaker 3: Jess is. She seems so genuine, like grounded and honest,
Speaker 3: the way I think we all wish we could be.
Speaker 3: In the video, a reporter asks them, why do you
Speaker 3: think Victor agreed to the maximum sentence instead of going
Speaker 3: to trial?
Speaker 4: Jess answers, objectively, there seems to be nothing in it
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 1: Why do you think he really took this too?
Speaker 2: I think he wants to cover himself and his followers,
Speaker 2: and if we want.
Speaker 6: To trial, I mean every detail, every account, and everything
Speaker 6: that we remember would be put into record and be public,
Speaker 6: not just for us, but for him and for him
Speaker 6: to say, you know that he's trying to spare us.
Speaker 4: The pain of a trial, and I mean.
Speaker 6: We prepared for that, we were ready to do that,
Speaker 6: We were definitely.
Speaker 4: Going to go ahead with that, and so for him to.
Speaker 6: Say that he's doing it to spare us, it's very cowardly.
Speaker 1: It's offensive because.
Speaker 6: We are completely prepared.
Speaker 7: And want our story to be told and want the truth.
Speaker 6: And we've had each other to remind each other that
Speaker 6: we're strong, our survivors.
Speaker 3: Yet, when Jess went back to Minnesota with the TV
Speaker 3: reporter who broke the story and launched the pursuit of Victor,
Speaker 3: she stood in the road outside the camp. A field
Speaker 3: of shallow snow was like a flat white frame around
Speaker 3: her face. Here, Jess was back at the Shepherd's camp
Speaker 3: as an adult, and she started to choke on emotion.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I will ever get away from it,
Speaker 3: she said to the camera. Every day I can't get
Speaker 3: away from it. I mean, how do you you know,
Speaker 3: It's like you grow up somewhere and you go back
Speaker 3: to visit part of you is still there, that's your home.
Speaker 3: In the months after Jess died, Lindsay sort of shut
Speaker 3: down and shut others out. She knew they didn't get it,
Speaker 3: not really, No one but her could understand what she
Speaker 3: had lost by losing Jess.
Speaker 2: And it was right when COVID was starting, so everything
Speaker 2: was crazy, but it was almost like I wanted to
Speaker 2: live in the sorrow of it for a little while,
Speaker 2: feel all of those emotions. I remember, like months after
Speaker 2: just I'd wake up in the middle of the night
Speaker 2: and just like talk, you know, talk to her, even
Speaker 2: though I know like she couldn't hear me. But I
Speaker 2: remember vowing, I will never let our story not be heard.
Speaker 2: I will never let the story die. I will share
Speaker 2: it with whoever will listen until the day I die,
Speaker 2: because Jess is never to be forgotten. I will make
Speaker 2: sure the world hears of what we went through, of
Speaker 2: the amazing person you were. I am not going to
Speaker 2: let anyone forget about what happened to us, no matter
Speaker 2: what it takes. I want to be that voice and
Speaker 2: that light and.
Speaker 7: Share Jess as a nice story.
Speaker 3: The Maidens had been Lindsay's sisters since she was thirteen.
Speaker 3: They were her role models, her confidence, her friends. Jess
Speaker 3: was gone, but what about the others. Some of them
Speaker 3: had defended Victor after his arrest. Some were Facebook friends
Speaker 3: with Lindsay. Surreal acquaintances whose lives she could watch unfold
Speaker 3: in pieces and glimmers and Facebook posts and pictures. But
Speaker 3: talking about her past with us and all of these
Speaker 3: interviews reignited something in Lindsay. She wanted to reach out
Speaker 3: to them again. She sent Facebook messages to a few
Speaker 3: former Maidens and one of them told her she'd like
Speaker 3: to meet. We'll call her Kelsey to protect her identity.
Speaker 3: Kelsey still lived in Washington. In Seattle, Lindsay flew out
Speaker 3: there on the day of their meeting. Lindsay took forever
Speaker 3: to pick just the right outfit. Kelsey always had a
Speaker 3: great sense of style, and she wanted to impress her.
Speaker 3: She wondered if they could be friends, or if Kelsey
Speaker 3: might resis see Lindsay as the person who had betrayed
Speaker 3: her and the Maidens.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm walking up to the coffee shop. Definitely so nervous,
Speaker 2: had butterflies in my stomach, freaking out kind of. But
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna be really good, hopefully. Yeah, what
Speaker 2: do you even say? Like? Hello? Is that a good starter?
Speaker 2: I guess that's a good starter. Okay, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: go for it. I'm waiting in the coffee shop, just
Speaker 2: kind of sitting there and I see her at the
Speaker 2: corner across out the window, and I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, and I didn't want to just stare at her,
Speaker 2: so I kind of looked away. And then she walks
Speaker 2: in the door and she's like, Lindsay, we can give
Speaker 2: you each other hug, you know, like some tears came,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't that awkward. We got coffee, we sat
Speaker 2: down and.
Speaker 3: They started talking about their lives now Kelsey had gotten married,
Speaker 3: had a career. Lindsay told her how she'd gone to
Speaker 3: college and had a daughter.
Speaker 2: And she told me when we were meeting that the
Speaker 2: idea of travel always appealed to her. And she was
Speaker 2: telling me how back when we were maidens, she would
Speaker 2: read an atlass just for fun to see all the
Speaker 2: places in the world. I didn't know that about her.
Speaker 3: All of the maidens had had to keep some parts
Speaker 3: of them selves secret.
Speaker 2: She shared with me that once Jess and I went
Speaker 2: to the cops, things just got really crazy. People knew
Speaker 2: what was going on, but it was always hush hush.
Speaker 2: It was just rumors or maybe like if they had
Speaker 2: read an news article from somewhere being out and doing
Speaker 2: cleaning jobs or whatever. And in the beginning, she's like,
Speaker 2: we did think that you and Jess, you guys are
Speaker 2: bringing on like the persecution, that Victory was being persecuted.
Speaker 2: And at that time she still wanted to remain faithful
Speaker 2: and thought she was doing the right thing, she said.
Speaker 2: Eventually some of the other maidens started leaving. So many
Speaker 2: of the maidens left, things were really breaking up, she said.
Speaker 2: At the end, it was only her, I think one
Speaker 2: other maiden there.
Speaker 3: Lindsay's mom lived with the last two maidens at the time.
Speaker 2: And so she said that she went and bought a car,
Speaker 2: and my mother went and helped her buy a car,
Speaker 2: which it's not her fault at all, but it just
Speaker 2: kind of stung a little bit that here my mother's
Speaker 2: supporting her to go buy a car when she wrote
Speaker 2: a letter to the judge and said all those awful things.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it just struck a chord.
Speaker 3: Yeah with me, I'm sure that felt like a stab
Speaker 3: to the gut, yeah, Lindsay says. Kelsey told her she
Speaker 3: booked a ticket to Minnesota to visit Victor in jail.
Speaker 2: She was only able to see him, I think through
Speaker 2: a monitor but she was like, as I sat there
Speaker 2: looking at him and hearing him, I just got such
Speaker 2: the icky feeling and knew I never ever wanted to
Speaker 2: support this person ever again. And that was the last
Speaker 2: time she ever saw him ever, like put any time
Speaker 2: into defending him or anything like that. She made it
Speaker 2: very clear that she loved me, and she was very
Speaker 2: thankful for what we did. I think, which is healing
Speaker 2: for me to hear.
Speaker 3: Lindsay heard back from another former maiden too. This maiden
Speaker 3: had been nineteen when the ten of them are chosen,
Speaker 3: and sort of the head of the Maidens, someone Lindsay
Speaker 3: had always looked up to. Of course, Lindsay wondered how
Speaker 3: she took it when she went public with her story
Speaker 3: and took Victor down. Lindsay had last messaged her in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty to give her the news that Jess had died.
Speaker 2: She said at that time, we probably agree on more
Speaker 2: than you think. Finally we were able to schedule a
Speaker 2: time to talk. Just last Friday. She called me and
Speaker 2: I was like hello, and she's like, Lindsay, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it's so good.
Speaker 7: To hear your voice.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yours two. And I think we
Speaker 2: started laughing, and she's like, it's so good to hear
Speaker 2: your laugh. You sound exactly the same. It was so
Speaker 2: good to hear her laugh again. And she said, for
Speaker 2: her own healing, she does not go back into the
Speaker 2: past at all. She's basically closed that door. She said.
Speaker 2: The one thing she loves to do now all the
Speaker 2: time is laugh She loves to laugh, and it's one
Speaker 2: thing that her boyfriend has said about her that he
Speaker 2: loves being around her. Kashill giggle at this or laugh
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 3: She was usually more serious when Linday knew her. Of course,
Speaker 3: the Maidens laughed and had good times, but everything with
Speaker 3: the Maidens felt important and heavy.
Speaker 2: And being almost like the head of the Maidens, she
Speaker 2: had to carry such a weight, being responsible for the
Speaker 2: ten of us. To hear her just that feeling of
Speaker 2: lightness and happiness was really good. It made me really
Speaker 2: happy to hear that.
Speaker 3: For a long time, Lindsay has felt separate from the
Speaker 3: Maidens she loves so much. She and just took the
Speaker 3: risk of speaking out about what happened, breaking one of
Speaker 3: their most sacred rules. And for Lindsay, part of that
Speaker 3: sacrifice was losing the Maidens along the way. She saw
Speaker 3: their photos bridesmaids in each other's weddings. She pictured the
Speaker 3: rest of them, the Maidens, still close to each other,
Speaker 3: somehow together while she was out here alone. When she
Speaker 3: talked to these two maidens again, she thought, maybe this
Speaker 3: could be the beginning of something. But she learned in
Speaker 3: their conversations that some of them don't keep in touch
Speaker 3: as much as she thought.
Speaker 2: I think in my head, I was like, Okay, if
Speaker 2: this goes well, we'll just go back to being how
Speaker 2: we were, texting and maybe calling and planning. I just
Speaker 2: had this weird hope that we'd be able to reminisce
Speaker 2: on like more of the good stuff and like really
Speaker 2: bond and click and be like sisters again.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But when she talked to these two former maidens, she
Speaker 3: wasn't sure she fit in their lives anymore.
Speaker 2: It could be that it's too much of a reminder
Speaker 2: of the past. It was almost like all the Maidens
Speaker 2: we were made into this beautiful pot and then it
Speaker 2: all got smashed into pieces, and we've had to grow
Speaker 2: individually and heal individually, and we just don't fit together anymore.
Speaker 1: Next time. On the final episode of The Turning, Hey
Speaker 1: Lindsay's Erica, Hi, Hey, how are you doing good?
Speaker 7: How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good?
Speaker 1: So what's up?
Speaker 4: It's been crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna jump right into what's been going on.
Speaker 1: The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's written and produced by Erica Lance and me. Our
Speaker 1: story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed by
Speaker 1: James Trout. Grace Doe is our production assistant. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Our executive producers are John Piratti
Speaker 1: and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch, and Katrina Norvell and
Speaker 1: Nikki e Tour at iHeart Podcasts. You can follow us
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Speaker 1: via email The Turning at rococo punch dot com. I'm
Speaker 1: Alan Lance Lesser. Thanks for listening.