“Who? Who would grab you?”

“They said it all had to go back to the land, it’s what they always said—that the land was hungry, so thirsty, and we had to make it better again. I think that’s where …” Her chin and lower lip crumpled, as if she were about to cry. “I think that’s where they put her.” She spoke her final words in a whisper.

“Put who, Anna?”

“My baby.” She dropped her head and looked directly at Heather. Her eyes were abruptly full of tears. “My baby. They took her.”

“You were pregnant at Fiddler’s Mill, and gave birth there?”

“He took her.” Anna’s voice had risen, becoming wavery and shrill. Heather felt rather than saw the other occupants of the room turning to look at them. “I gave birth to her in the woods, in the mud, and they ripped her from me while she was still covered in my blood.”

“Anna, it’s okay, you don’t have to talk about this —”

It was too late. Anna was on her feet, the seat behind her knocked to the floor. “They stole her!” she howled. “Stole my fucking baby and no one will believe me!”

The nurse appeared at the table, moving so quickly and quietly Heather was half convinced she had materialized there.

“Anna honey, it’s okay. Maybe it’s time to go back to your room?” To Heather’s mild surprise the nurse had an American accent—somehow this only made the situation more surreal, and she found herself looking at the corners of the ceiling, wondering where the cameras were. Anna wasn’t mollified by the nurse. Instead, she stumbled away from the table, tears running freely down her face.

“Where did she go? Why don’t you fucking believe me?”

Dr Parvez appeared at the entrance to the communal room, and at a nod from the nurse he took Anna’s arm gently, easing her away from Heather.

“Come on Anna, let’s get you settled, shall we?”

The woman shuffled from the room, her head down and her hair hanging in her face, still muttering about her baby, how she had been taken, how no one believed her. Heather watched her go with a tight wad of distress in her stomach. The nurse turned toward her, her mouth pursed with displeasure.

“Why would you go and talk to her about that? She’ll be like that for the rest of the day now.”

“I didn’t know,” said Heather, not entirely truthfully. “Is it true, that her baby was taken from her? That seems like quite a wild story.”

The nurse rolled her eyes theatrically, but the hostility in her posture seemed to fade a little. “Honey, Anna isn’t well, not well at all. She has lost babies, but not because any boogie man snatched them from her.” She cast her eyes downward and lowered her voice. “Two babies carried to term, but stillborn. It’s been very hard for her. It would be hard for anyone, but for Anna …” She shrugged one rounded shoulder. “The illness makes it worse, because she doesn’t just suffer the grief, her mind provides all sorts of strange reasons for it. Listen,” she picked up Anna’s half-finished cup of tea and peered into it critically. “It’s best if you go now. Dr Parvez will be trying to calm her, and you’ll not be able to speak to her again today. If you come back to see her again, do me a favor and think of better conversation starters, okay? The food, the local news, the weather. You people love your weather.”