I took him when I was fifteen. It was 1530, and I lived in a tiny Swiss village. It wasn't easy to disappear in Albin, but my father had been a woodcutter, and I knew the paths of our alm well. Since he died, I had lived with my mother- until she died, too.  Mother hadn't fared well, after his body was brought back from the lake. No one can ever get the sight of a corpse out of their head, especially when you had truly loved that person. I had never been too fond of Father, but Mother had doted on him. She went into premature labor in her seventh month, as she had been pregnant at the time of his leaving. No one was there to help but me. She died, and the boy almost did- I left her body on the bed, took my brother along with our small herd of goats, and began to walk the trails. I brought him up on the milk of Celine and the air of the mountain. He thrived, in the old hunting lodge. I felt safe there- it was obvious that no one had been there for generations- and so we stayed. I grew a little garden, and kept the goats in a little paddock. We were comfortable, passing one, two, three years in the shadow of the alm. He called me Mama, and I encouraged it- he never would know the struggles I had faced, the horrors I had witnessed. He never would have to call that man Father.  I wouldn't allow it.