She turned and studied the wall, forcing her fuzzy mind to focus. There were funny metal things there, she saw now. Funny little pieces of metal, like hooks. The shelf braces. One of them hung down from the wall, dangling by a single nail, and she yanked it loose. It was L-shaped, made of a sturdy, lightweight metal, and flat on both ends. Not strong enough to beat the door down, but it had to be good for something. Her mind felt sluggish and confused, whirling ideas and thoughts around in random ways, somehow missing the piece of the puzzle that could help her escape. Come on, Helen, think, you can do it, one more time.

The words came as if from a ghost, as clear as if someone had spoken beside her. Crowbar. Use the brace to pry the boards apart.

She turned, and somebody stood there, a tall, broadbacked man dressed for the fields. Helen felt no fear. In fact, she felt a great, soothing calm wash over her body, warming her legs until she could stand without shaking.

Go ahead, the man said, his voice soft and yet curiously steady. It’s simple, really. Go ahead and try.

Helen staggered to the wall and fell to her knees in front of it, slipping the flat end of the brace in between the wall boards and the frame they were nailed into that ran along the floor. It slid in a fraction of an inch, and she tried to pry them apart, but the metal end of the brace slipped out before she could put any weight on it. She tried again, with the same result.

Then she thought of the piece of plastic under the bottom shelf. With a growing sense of desperation and panic, she crawled over to the shelf and thrust her arm under it. Blood dripped from the scrape along her forearm and spattered upon the floor. Her hand felt like a slab of meat flopping around on the end of her arm, and she was about to give up when she felt something move against her fingers. The dark piece of plastic rolled out from the darkness towards her, its tapered sides making a soft clicking noise on the wood floor.

She grabbed it in her clumsy grip as best she could, and crawled back to where the brace stuck out from the base of the wall. Holding the plastic with both hands, she hammered it down on the end of the brace, again and again, until the metal was dented by the blows and wedged in as far as it would go. Please, God, she thought, and pushed on the end of the brace with all her strength.