Restless at night, Elisabeth laughs to herself – that would be a rather modest way of describing the full extent of her nocturnal demons.

‘Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything much you can do or medicine you can give me for my nighttime terrors. Besides, I’m a big girl.’ Elisabeth stares pointedly at the clock above the door: seven minutes left. She doesn’t want to get into a deeper conversation about any of this; if she starts to talk about her dreams she can’t be sure she could stop herself building the horrific images in her mind again. It can stay boxed up and maybe touched upon someday.

She leaves Olivia’s office on the ground floor and walks down the empty corridors and up the sweeping staircase of Villa Vinternatt back to her room, passing a couple of unknown faces along the way. They look more like visitors than drug addicts, but you never know – Elisabeth knows the same has been said about her. Occasionally new people arrive. Most of them go back to shooting up in a matter of weeks, and Elisabeth can always tell who isn’t going to last – she can practically smell the desperation for another hit oozing from their pores. She hasn’t made any close friends here – friendships are in fact gently discouraged, as they exponentially increase the risk of setbacks. She is encouraged to think of the other residents at Villa Vinternatt as co-healers. There are a couple of people she prefers to others, but mostly Elisabeth keeps to herself, or speaks to her mother or Kristina on the phone during free time in the afternoon.

In her room stands a wooden easel positioned toward the window to give the best light onto the canvas. It’s Italian-designed, a gift from her parents after twelve months clean. She looks out of the window now; the view is beautiful and she never tires of it. The rich green pines of Nordmarka forest in the distance with hundreds of trails for enthusiastic hikers, each path leading to somewhere new. The frothy gray sea, great big rolling waves chasing back and forth in the narrow sound.

She spots a sparrow sitting on the narrow ledge below her window, cocking its head and chirping merrily, and wants to believe it is the same one she has seen many times before, and painted, too. The sparrow shakes off water droplets from its squat, fluffy body, after taking a bath in a drainpipe. Its movements are so precise and so fast, eyes darting everywhere to make sure it’s safe. Another sparrow joins it and they both indulge in splashing about, dunking their beaks into the rainwater dammed in the drain blocked by twigs and leaves from the weekend’s summer storms, when lightning and thunder tore at the skies. Elisabeth wishes she could be like the little birds, oblivious to the dangers of what really lies out there.