“Open the door, please,” I pleaded. I pounded my fist on the rough wood.
The noise from a scuffling of leaves trailed away, then nothing but silence answered me.
I slid down with my back to the door to sit on the packed dirt floor. I pushed my bonnet back off my hair and sank my head into my hands. I’d been attacked, after all. At least I hadn’t been hit over the head before being locked inside. Who had whispered the threat? It could have been man or woman. Not Abial, because the person had said “you” and “your” instead of “thee” and “thy.” So Hazel or Currie. Reuben or even Wesley. Or, I mused, Abial disguising his Quakerly manner of speech. Yes, any one of them could be my jailer.
Why did I do something so stupid as attempt a bicycle ride home from the beach after the sun had set? I could have easily stayed in the house, safe and secure. Or at least left the shore well before dusk. In frustration, I stamped my feet where I sat. But doing so only raised dust, which made me sneeze. Clearly Dru and Tilly’s housekeeping didn’t extend to the outbuilding.
I had to get out of here. For one thing, I had a need to pass water. I was thirsty from my ride, and a bit hungry, too, but if I had to, I knew I could go without drinking or eating until tomorrow. Surely someone would come looking for me when I didn’t meet my father at the train or appear at the Memorial Meeting. Still, I was determined to find a way out. I had no desire to sit in this dusty, flimsy structure for up to twenty hours.
Flimsy. Was it flimsy? I stood. If, in fact, the building was old and poorly constructed, maybe I could push it on its side. Or break down a wall. But with what? The shed didn’t include a window, even a small one. My eyes had adjusted to the dark as best they could, which wasn’t much.
I braced myself and pushed against the side wall. It didn’t budge. So much for thinking I could tip it over. If I could find a sledge or a post to exert extra pressure on the door, I might be able to break the lock. I made my way around the perimeter, feeling for what leaned against the walls or hung from hooks. At the back wall the sharp corner of a high shelf dug into my forehead.
I cried out again. When I felt the wound, my hand came away wet with blood. I patted it with my sleeved forearm. I didn’t care about staining my clothing at this point. I stilled. Crying out. A house sat to each side of my aunts’ abode. Would a neighbor be able to hear my entreaties?
“Help! Please help me,” I yelled with all my might and pounded on the door with my fists. I waited, repeating my shouts every minute. “Help!” I pressed my face close to one side of the shed and yelled again, then tried the other side.
After some minutes, my voice grew hoarse from shouting and my fists ached from the pounding. I abandoned my frantic efforts. I sat again, hugging my knees. The other homes were too distant from my prison and they must have already shut their windows for the night. No one was coming to rescue me. Tears welled in my eyes and my throat thickened. This was supposed to have been the happiest week of my life. I was finally married to David. I’d tasted the full fruit of intimacy and found I loved it. I had a new home awaiting me back in Amesbury.
Instead the week was a disaster. I was a failure. I hadn’t found Frannie’s killer. I hadn’t convinced Currie to go see his ailing mother. My dear husband and I were apart, and I missed him terribly. Why did I even think I could go around investigating homicide? I had no training nor a team to back me up. It was dangerous work.
My calling was to a very different occupation. Why didn’t I stick to helping pregnant and birthing women? I was good at it, and my services back home were in much demand. Midwifery didn’t normally put my life in peril. What did I think I was doing raising the suspicions of a person who had already committed one murder, someone who might be feeling desperate at the thought of exposure? And now look at me. I was alone and locked in a filthy dark shed until tomorrow with no one the wiser—except my jailer.
I closed my eyes, miserable at my plight. I prayed for clarity but found only darkness. When a sob welled up, I choked it back.
No. I sniffed and straightened my glasses, not that they did me any good in the dark. I wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity. I had only myself to rely on. I could rest here. I could try to sleep. Except . . . what if my attacker set the shed on fire? Or came back with a firearm. Bullets could likely make it through this old wood. I would be trapped and without defenses. Maybe that was the person’s plan all along. It didn’t make sense to simply lock me in and leave me until I was discovered.
The better plan was to do my Rose Carroll Dodge best to find a way out. I pushed myself up and smoothed down my dress, feeling the key to the house in my pocket. Could it possibly fit the lock on the shed door, too? I made my way with care to the door and ran my hand up and down the wood at the edge. I shook my head in disappointment. That would have been too easy. No keyhole presented itself. Whoever had locked me in had either jammed a piece of wood in the latch after clicking it closed or had clicked shut a padlock. The door to the shed had been open all week, so I hadn’t paid attention to what kind of latch it had.
The roar of a train grew near. It clattered by with a huge noise, being only a few yards from the shed. I took a deep breath after it had passed. I’d stopped my survey of the shed’s contents when my forehead met up with the shelf’s corner. There had to be something in here I could use as a tool. I felt my way back to the shelf, ducking this time, and continued gingerly around the perimeter. I felt like Laura Bridgman, the deaf and blind woman Charles Dickens had written about in American Notes, who learned everything through touch. My blind friend Jeanette had told me about a young student recently arrived at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston. Jeanette said Helen Keller, also deaf and blind, had acquired language through finger spelling. She apparently had a keen intelligence and was learning to read Braille.
What I needed to feel for was not so fine-tuned. I came across a wooden rake and hefted it, but it was too lightweight to be of use. A hoe leaned against the wall next to the rake. I felt the blade, which was rusted and chipped away. I discovered a small hammer hanging from a nail, a tool far too puny to do me any good. I sighed and took another step. My foot hit an obstacle. I leaned down to feel a rock about the size of the football my nephew played with. Perhaps my aunts normally used it to prop open the door. Maybe it would help me open it once again.
I hefted the heavy stone and tried battering the door at around waist level, where the latch should be, but I couldn’t get much leverage. I hoisted the rock over my head with both hands and battered the top of the door, over and over. As someone who believes in nonviolence to her fellow humans—and practices it—I felt remarkably good exerting such force on an inanimate object. Thud. Whack. Thud.
The door wobbled more with each hit but remained in place. On my last attempt, one of my hands slipped. The rock rotated. My ring finger came between the rock and the wood. “Ow!” I yelled.
I lowered the stone to the ground for a moment to suck on my finger and catch my breath. This was an old shed and an old door. There might be more than one way to open it. If I pounded on the hinges, maybe I could break them. I felt on the right side but there was no hinge. Of course. The hinges must be on the outside, because the door opened out. Maybe I could loosen them from in here. I used the stone to pound some more, but when I leaned my shoulder into the door, it still didn’t budge. I kicked at where the lower hinge should be, resulting only in my big toe aching.
Back at the left side, I set down the rock. I was stronger than many of my sex, but not strong enough to break down a door with a stone. If only I had a prying tool of some kind. Oh. I might not have fully explored every inch of the shed. In fact, I hadn’t run my hands over the high shelf. On my way back there, my hip clipped the handlebar of one of the bicycles, causing it to fall away from me, taking the other one with it. Wreaking havoc with bicycles was worth it. I returned to the door grasping a two-foot-long metal bar with a flat claw at one end and a hooked one on the other, a tool my father had dubbed a crowbar. Could it act as enough of a lever to help me open the door?
I managed to wedge the flat end between the wide vertical boards at the hinge side of the door. Applying a mighty effort on both my part and the iron crow’s, I pried the board closest to the right free from the top hinge. Finally something was going my way. The bottom one screeched as it came away, the board falling toward me, the wind rushing in. I stepped aside to let the wood fall where it may. It hit the bicycles with a thud. I slid sideways through the opening, grateful I had a naturally slender build.
A moment of fright overcame me. Had my attacker waited outside the shed all this time to finish me off? When no one materialized, I raced toward the back door of the house, crowbar raised in one hand, house key in the other. The snick of the lock shutting me safely inside had never sounded so good.