That is the part people do not understand about why abused children stay silent.

It is not only fear.

It is that a skilled abuser makes sure, ahead of time, that no one will believe them — poisons the well before the child can ever reach it.

Roland had made us, in the eyes of everyone who might have saved us, into liars, so that the truth, if we told it, would sound exactly like the lies he had promised them we told.

For three years, it worked.