I have no concept of the passage of time.

I have no idea how old I am.

I know Johnny-Joe died.

They say he overdosed after digesting the seeds he was supposed to be planting. Ha.

Six hundred and sixty-six. Johnny-Joe’s favourite number. Never less; never more. Wail at the sky, he would, if I miscounted. Sickened me. Every time I had to go into that garden with him. Well, I put an end to that little job. Stuffed all six hundred and sixty-six seeds down his old yellow throat. One by fucking one. I did it, and I never want to hear that number again. He didn’t protest much. I told him the devil said he needed him to eat them. Johnny-Joe. Ha!

Today, I have a visitor. Not once, in all the time I’ve been here, however long that may have been, has anyone called to see me. I’ve no idea what this is about. Could someone have finally remembered about me? I often wonder about the other one. The other part of me they didn’t lock away. Or maybe they did. Somewhere else.

My head hurts as the nurse pulls the shirt tight to my chest and closes up the buttons. An awful yellow yoke, with white daisies. Daisies! I hate daisies almost as much as I hated Johnny-Joe and his fairy seeds. I don’t mind the trousers, with their wide flare, though they are a little too tight.

I’m brought to the other side of this mad place. None of that peeling paint and shitty smells. It’s painted and shiny. Keep the sunny side out, at all times. I leave my ward, with its screaming and shrieking, and after a walk down a never-ending wide corridor and out through a dozen tall doors, unlocked and locked again behind me, I am deposited in a room with three chairs and a small square table. The windows are high and arched. The paint on the walls is yellow. Like my shirt. Yuck.

I pull up my socks from where they have slipped down in my shoes and pick at the elastic until it snaps and the sock folds once again around my ankle. I do the same to the other one. They have cut my hair tight to my head and combed it straight. I quickly run my fingers through it and shake my head vigorously until I’m sure it is all standing on end. Now I feel contented. I’m not going to play their game. I’m planning my own.

When the woman walks in, I feel my breath stick in my throat and the words I wanted to yell smother down into my chest. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain I remember her. My mother? No, she is not my mother. She’s the one who brought us here that day. Signed the papers and walked away. Along with a man in uniform.

It’s all coming back in such a rush, my head hurts. He’s not here today but he was with her that day. Wasn’t he upset? I close my eyes and drag the memory to my conscious state. I was so young. He was yelling something about how the foster mother should have taken both. Now I remember. The presence of the woman before me has sparked those memories of when she was here with that man, and I feel another sensation taking root in my soul. The same one that caused me to count to six hundred and sixty-six as I stuffed the miserable little seeds down Johnny-Joe’s throat.

‘You’re sixteen.’ Her voice is high and cold. ‘You probably thought I’d forgotten about you. Well, I’ve come to let you know that you’re staying here until you’re twenty-one. I think that is the right age to let you out into the world again. If I don’t die in the meantime.’

She laughs in a shrill, high-pitched way that drills a hole into my head. And I want to drill a hole in hers.

‘Behave yourself in here and I’ll be back to sign you out. A few more years. That’s all.’

She hasn’t sat down. Standing. Holding a black leather handbag tight under her arm. The sun outside comes from behind a cloud and shines in through the stained glass at the top of the window, painting her in a myriad of colours.

She opens her bag, takes out a book. Holds it out to me. Should I take it or let her hold it until her arm weakens and she has to put it back in her bag?

I step towards her. She steps backwards.

I smile. I know I have a smile that can strike fear into others. Her mouth droops and I think she’s going to scream. She doesn’t. Her eyes seem blinded by the light coming from the window. I could jump on her and bite out her tongue and spit it against the sickly yellow walls. And no one would hear until it was too late.

I want to do that. I really do.

But I also want to get out of here.

And if that means waiting another five years for her to come back, then I will keep on smiling at her until she leaves.

I take the book from her hand, my fingers lightly brushing against her skin.

She shivers, as if I’ve stuck an icicle through her heart.

She turns to open the door, her mission complete.

‘Where is my twin?’ The only words I have spoken aloud to anyone in years. The sound of my voice frightens even me.

‘You don’t need to know.’

She opens the door and escapes to her world, condemning me to another five years in mine.

I am patient.

I can wait.