After a few days, I was awake more than I was asleep. I could do no more than lift my head from the pillow, and I had a terrible cough that hurt every bit of me. But I was well enough that I could be left to myself while Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen got on with their work upstairs. Once a day, Daddy George came down with a tray. He stuck me with a needle in my backside, and it was terrible sore, but he said it was what saved my life. If I was good and took the needle, I was allowed an apple or a plum, but only for them lock of days. I wasn’t to get used to having good things like that.

When I was all alone, the children gathered around. They didn’t speak, but I talked to them. I didn’t have much of a voice, and sometimes I could hardly fit a word around the coughing, but I did it anyway.

There was half a dozen of them, sometimes more, sometimes less. All ages, from a wee tote who could barely walk, to a girl who was near my age. One time, she carried a baby, all covered in blood, and I screamed and screamed till Mummy Joy came down the stairs to see to me. I never saw that baby again. I think it was in the house somewhere, but they kept it hidden from me after that.

As the days went by, I got a wee bit stronger and the cough started to fade. Soon I was able to sit up in the bed, then stand on my own two feet for a wee bit. All the while, I talked to the children. I showed them the room, and my bed, and the wardrobe. I showed them the dollies I’d made from sticks and twine.

By the time I was fit to get back to work, I knew why the children had followed me back into my world: they needed someone to care for them. So that’s what I did. I was their mummy now. So when Mummy Joy telt me we were going to try to get out of that place, I didn’t know what to do.

31: Sara

31: Sara

Sara climbed into the passenger seat of Tony’s van. She had called him as she reached the edge of Morganstown; he had suggested she wait in the forecourt of the small filling station that stood at one end of the main street. A good choice, as it happened, because she was able to stay behind a cage full of gas canisters, watching for the van, ready to hide if she saw Damien’s BMW.

“What happened?” Tony asked as she buckled her seat belt.

Without thinking, her hand went to her jaw, and she saw the realisation in his face. It caused hot shame to break within her.