After that I told him I was tired and came in here to hide inside my doss bag and write in this book. I can hear him out back. He’s fixing up the chicken coop. Seems like he’s back to normal. All the crazy behaviour, talking to himself and staying up all night, that’s all stopped now. And the scary thing is that it’s stopped since he trapped me in that room. It’s like whatever demons were drilling into his head have been destroyed and I was the sacrifice. For days he transferred those demons to me, planted monsters in my head, made me believe I was going mad, that the world outside had ceased to be, had been destroyed by evil forces, and that only the two of us remained.

But he was lying. The world hasn’t been destroyed, it has carried on as normal. This morning, after breakfast, I went and stood by the lake and looked out towards the village. There must have been a dozen cars went past, a few lorries and a couple of delivery trucks. Life was still going on. Beautiful, ordinary life. The trees and the hills weren’t battle-scarred and scorched like he told me, they were just as green and lush as they’d always been. In fact, they were more lush, more lovely than I have ever seen them. Because once you’ve been denied light and air and basic human needs, like I was in that room, you start to switch off, bit by bit. In that room there was no colour, no sunshine, no laughter, no animals, no weather, no smells. But most importantly there was no warmth, no comfort, no love.

That is what I craved more than anything while I was in there. Love. The feeling that someone cares. A kind word, a cup of tea set next to your doss bag, kind eyes, a gentle voice asking how was your day. And I realize that in these last few months there’s been one person who made me feel loved, one person who, according to him, needs to be destroyed. Well, I won’t let him. Isobel is the only friend I’ve got, the only kind person in this dark world, and I intend to fight for her with every breath in my body.

For so many years, he tried to tell me that I wasn’t a person or a girl, that I was a soldier, a number. But he did that to stop me asking questions, to keep me under his control, to stop me being me. I know that now. So, today I become myself again and it starts by bringing back the name my mother gave me, a name that means decency.

I like the way it sounds when I say it aloud, the way it echoes softly like a whisper. From now on, dear friend, or whoever is reading this old journal of mine, you are in the company of a girl, an ordinary thirteen-year-old girl who likes reading and cooking and talking to her friend, Isobel. So, without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Grace.