Days and nights, flowing into each other. The same faceless people speaking to her in alien tongues, oblivious of the dangers threatening her.

The ones without faces were wandering in and out of her room, holding out tiny cups with poison-tablets that they made her swallow. Meanwhile, voices were addressing her from inside the radiator and the Devil was hiding under her bed, waiting for her to get up. If her feet so much as touched the floor he would grab her, dragging her down into the big hole down there. Underneath, in the cellar, his black men would be waiting to work her over with their burning hot instruments.

She didn’t want to sleep, didn’t dare to. The pills they gave her made her lose consciousness all the same. When she was asleep there was no telling what they did to her. That was the reason they put her to sleep.

One unending nightmare.

When she refused to get up they stuck a tube into her down there. They wanted to pump in more poison that way too. The stuff was yellow and they kept it in a plastic bag next to her bed. Then the Devil could top it up whenever he wanted to. When she tore the tube out, they tied her hands.

There was a man dressed in white who came to make her talk. He pretended to be kind but was only after her secrets. He would pass on what she told him to the men in the cellar.

Darkness and light following each other. Time ceased to be. New hands made her swallow the white poison-pills.

Then, one day, she suddenly understood what they were saying to her. They sounded kind, concerned to make her feel comfortable. They were protective and listened to her. One of them wheeled her bed across the room to let her see that there was no hole underneath it. Afterwards she agreed to be taken to the toilet and they removed the tube from her private parts and the yellow poison-bag from beside her bed.

The next day, everyone who came to see her had a face and smiled. They fixed her bed, plumping her pillows and chatting to her all the time. They still wanted her to take poison, though. She was ill and in hospital, they told her. She had to stay until she got better.

Then where would she go? She tried not to think of the ‘afterwards’.

More days and nights passed. The voices from the radiator stopped speaking so much and finally left her in peace.

Sometimes she would go outside her room. There was a TV set at one end of the corridor. None of the other patients spoke to her, because they were all enclosed in their own worlds. Often she simply stood at the window in her room, leaning her forehead against the cold bars and observing the traffic outside. Everyone was getting on with life without her.

They took her for walks in the hospital park sometimes, but never let her out alone. The winter snow was melting by then and there were snowdrops growing in the borders.

Beatrice Forsenström came to visit her. The man who wanted to make Sibylla talk came as well. Beatrice was immaculately groomed, but there were dark shadows under her eyes. She kept her handbag in her lap when she and the man settled down next to the bed.

The man looked nice. He smiled at her.

‘How are you feeling now?’

Sibylla was watching her mother.

‘I’m much better, thank you.’

The man seemed pleased.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’

Sibylla swallowed.

‘Maybe because I did something silly?’

The man was looking at her mother, who had lifted her hand to her mouth. Sibylla had made the wrong answer and her mother would be sad. No, disappointed.

‘Don’t worry, Sibylla. You’ve been ill. That’s why you’re here,’ the man said.

She kept looking at her hands. No one said anything for a while. Then the man rose and spoke to her mother.

‘I’ll leave you two alone now, but not for long.’

They were on their own in the room. Sibylla was still looking at her hands.

‘Please forgive me.’

Her mother suddenly got up.

‘Stop that at once.’

Oh no, she had made Mummy angry as well.

‘You have been ill, Sibylla. There’s no need to apologise for that.’

Then she sat down again. For a brief moment their eyes met, but this time her mother looked away first. Not soon enough. Sibylla had a perfectly clear idea of what was going on behind those eyes. Beatrice was furious at her daughter for putting her in this situation, which was beyond her control.

Sibylla went back to studying her hands. There was a knock on the door. The man who wanted her to speak came back in, carrying a brown folder. He came to the end of her bed and spoke to her.

‘Sibylla, there’s one special thing both your mother and I want to talk to you about.’

He glanced at Beatrice, but her eyes were fixed on the floor and she was clutching her handbag so hard her knuckles were going white.

‘Sibylla, do you have a boyfriend?’

She stared blankly at him.

‘Do you have a boyfriend? I have a reason for asking.’

She shook her head. He came to sit next to her on the edge of the bed.

‘This illness you’ve been suffering from, it can have physical causes, you see.’

Is that so?

‘We’ve tested some samples we’ve taken from you.’

Yes, I know.

‘The results show that you’re pregnant.’

The last word went on echoing though her head. She had a vision of the brown checked blanket.

She alone would be his. Only his. And he hers.

Together.

Anything for just a second of such closeness.

Anything at all.

She glanced at her mother. Beatrice must have known all along.

The man who wanted her to speak put his hand on hers. His touch triggered a pulse of emotion that flowed through her body.

‘Do you know who the father of the baby is?’

The two of them, together. Linked forever.

Sibylla shook her head. Her mother kept looking towards the door, her whole being longing to open it and get out of there.

‘Your pregnancy is already in its twenty-seventh week, so a termination is not really an option for you.’

Sibylla put her hands on her stomach. The man who wanted her to speak smiled at her, but somehow didn’t look happy.

‘How do you feel?’

How did she feel?

‘Your mother and I have been discussing this.’

Somebody started screaming in the room next door.

‘Because you’ve not yet come of age and your parents know you better than anybody else, their views are taken very seriously. As your doctor, I fully support their decision.’

She stared at him. What decision? They couldn’t do things to her body, could they?

‘We all agree that adoption would be the best thing for your baby.’