She runs up the hill, along the rocky path, and through the little thicket. It’s much farther than it seemed yesterday, when she was sitting on Aunt Märta’s carrier. Breathless, a pain piercing her side, she reaches the yellow frame house and pounds on the door.

Auntie Alma opens, takes her by the hand, and draws her inside. Nellie, still in her nightgown, eyes red from crying, is at the kitchen table. The moment she catches sight of Stephie she throws herself into her arms.

“Stephie, Stephie,” she sobs, “I want to go home! I want my mamma!”

“What on earth is wrong?” Stephie asks sharply.

Nellie just cries harder.

“Take care of Nellie,” her mother had said when they were leaving. “Comfort her when she is unhappy and frightened. You’re the big one.”

“Did something happen?” Stephie asks her, forcing a kindly tone into her voice.

Nellie nods mutely.

“What?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Nellie whispers.

“Tell me.”

“I wet my bed.”

“What?” Stephie says again in alarm. Nellie stopped wetting her bed five years back.

“I just couldn’t hold it. I tried but I had to pee so badly.”

“In your sleep?”

Nellie shakes her head.

“You were awake? So why didn’t you go to the toilet?”

“There is no toilet,” Nellie explains. “You have to go outside, to a special place in the backyard. A smelly little building.”

“Was that what stopped you from going?”

Nellie shakes her head again. “No, it wasn’t that,” she mumbles.

“What was it, then?”

“I didn’t dare. It was so dark out, and I was scared they would come and take me away.”