Cassie marked another day on her homemade wall calendar. She judged her days by Karonen’s arrival with breakfast, usually muffins with fruit, and coffee. Adding her marks, she came up with 395 days. He never asked her to read or speak with Methodist, which made her wonder. When would Karonen tire of feeding and taking care of her? During the last month of her ‘visit’ as Karonen called it, he had seemed happier, even though he didn’t speak with her often or stay for more than the time it took him to deposit her breakfast tray and pick it up later.
While depression had affected her for the past year in captivity, it was alleviated when Karonen ran a TV cable to her cell, allowing her to at least keep up with news. That is how she learned of Seth Tryton’s disappearance during the past month. She asked Karonen about it, but he ignored the question, causing her suspicions to rise. If Karonen had abducted another person and replaced her, she had to know. Somehow, she knew she had to find out for sure and make contact. The only question was how she could do it.
Karonen never left her cell unlocked anymore. He hadn’t since her escape and recapture more than a year earlier, but he did allow her to roam untethered within her cell. The video camera still worked, tracking her every move. She knew, if Tryton were here in another cell, it wasn’t close. She had called and rapped the cell bars with the table chair. There had never been an answer. If she was to find out for sure, she had to escape from her cell somehow, and search the caverns. There had to be connecting tunnels and caverns; he was possibly imprisoned in one of those.
She felt her best chance was somehow attacking and overcoming Karonen, but he always insisted she stay at the far end of the cell when he arrived with her breakfast and when he left later to retrieve it. Getting close to him was problematic. She identified three other possibilities of escape: Karonen slipped up and left the cell unlocked, she picked the lock, or she dug her way out.
Cassie had observed and plotted for a long time, but none of the options ever seemed doable until she finally worked a leg of the chair loose and used it as a chipping tool. If he knew about her success, Karonen never let on that he knew what she had done, or was doing. For the past week, while Karonen appeared to ignore her, she discovered she was able to direct the video camera away from the area she had chosen to dig into the wall, allowing her to chip and scrape at the rock and dirt for long periods of time. She made slow progress, but knew if she continued working at it she would be able to carve a hole large enough for her to wriggle through.
Whenever she finished digging, she slid the small bookcase in front of the dug out area in the wall and scattered the loosened rock and dirt around her prison. It was a time consuming procedure to empty and replace the books from the shelves. Fortunately, Karonen was a creature of habit and visited only at select times, allowing her to avoid discovery.
