I'm crazy, she thought. But not crazy. I feel far more clear than I have in.... I can remember.

She craned her neck through the door of her room into the hospital's hallway. It smelled of mildew, and the walls bore a powdery gray mold in the cracks. Ceiling tiles piled up on the floor at one end. It was as though

     she were in an attic

the place had been abandoned for years. There was no one to stop her. And so finally, Emma walks out the front door, unassisted. The entrance behind her is labeled not The Bentwood, but The Briar.

Emma has arrived in the Barrens.