And there’s me, just standing there in my dressing gown, feeling helpless, wondering what was happening in Seb’s head, in Seb’s dream.

Except it was your dream, wasn’t it, Malky? How much can he control it?

Is he still being held captive by the main man? He’ll be terrified. That is, if he’s still dreaming. Poor Seb.

I start crying for him – and for me as well, because it’s all my fault.

Chapter 16

The next hour is a bit of a blur, to be honest.

There’s me getting dressed because I have to go with Mam to the hospital with Seb. There’s Fit Billy carrying Seb downstairs and lying him down in the ambulance, Mam crying …

There’s me and Mam in the paramedics’ car following the ambulance to the hospital.

There’s Mam on the phone to Dad, shouting, ‘I don’t know, Tom, I just don’t know! Nobody knows …’

There’s the people at the hospital – doctors? Nurses? I can’t really tell – who meet the ambulance and rush Seb inside, and then take me and Mam to a little side room …

There’s Mam asking again and again if Seb is going to be all right, and people being gentle and saying things like, ‘We’re waiting for results,’ and, ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ but even I can tell that they’re not saying, ‘Yes, your son will be all right,’ because they can’t, can they?

We sit in a beige-coloured room with a faded wall painting of characters from the Narnia books while Seb is taken for tests, and Mam calls Dad again, and Mormor and Uncle Pete, and her cousin Barbro in Sweden and tells the whole thing again and again.

She’s crying a lot, and it all makes me cry once more, and then I start to think again about what might be happening to Seb and I feel sick.

And then, maybe an hour or so later, a lady in a green hospital top with short sleeves comes into the small room, closing the door behind her.

She gives us a nervous smile and introduces herself. ‘I’m Nisha. I’m the Emergency Trauma registrar, and I have …’

Mam interrupts. ‘Is he awake yet? Can I see him?’ She is on her feet, practically shouting.

‘Please sit down, Mrs Bell.’ We all sit, and it seems a bit calmer that way. Dr Nisha takes a deep breath and I really think she’s going to say he’s died or something. ‘At the moment, Sebastian is stable, and his condition is not thought to be life-threatening.’

Mam sighs a little and grabs my hand hard in hers. ‘So you know what’s wrong with him then?’