“No. Lucas just seems very tired today.”
The grandmother looked at the boy. Fear appeared on her face.
“Last night was difficult again,” she whispered.
“What was difficult?”
Margaret did not answer. She took Lucas by the hand and quickly walked away. Her behavior only strengthened the teacher’s suspicions.
At eleven o’clock that night, Mrs. Carter stood outside Margaret’s old house with two police officers and a social worker.
Behind the curtain of the only illuminated second-floor window, someone’s shadow was moving.
They knocked on the door several times. There was no answer. Then they heard a heavy thud from inside. A few seconds later, the boy’s muffled scream came from upstairs.
“Grandma, let me go!”
Mrs. Carter’s hands began to tremble. One of the officers knocked again, harder this time.
“Ma’am, open the door. Police!”
They heard hurried footsteps inside the house. Something fell to the floor, and then Lucas shouted again.
“I want to get out!”
The officers did not wait any longer. They opened the door and rushed upstairs.
The boy’s bedroom was locked from the inside. When one of the officers forced it open, the sight before them made everyone stop.
Lucas was lying on the floor. Soft protective restraints were wrapped around his wrists. Margaret was kneeling beside him, holding his shoulders with all her strength. The bedroom window was wide open.
“Step away from the child!” the officer shouted.
Margaret did not move.
“Please, don’t untie his hands.”
“Let him go now!”
The social worker tried to approach, but Margaret cried out desperately:
“He isn’t awake!”
What happened next — read in the comments 
Mrs. Carter looked at the boy. Lucas’s eyes were open, yet he did not seem to see any of the people standing in the room. His expression was empty, and he kept whispering the same words.
“I have to go to them. They’re calling me.”
Suddenly, the boy jumped to his feet with unexpected strength and ran toward the open window. The police officer caught him at the last possible moment. Lucas struggled to break free, but he did not recognize anyone.
“He’s asleep,” Margaret said through her tears. “Please close the window.”
A few minutes later, the boy slowly calmed down. When he heard his grandmother’s voice, he rested his head against her shoulder and fell back into a deep sleep. Margaret took a folder filled with documents from the closet and placed it on the table.
After the car accident, Lucas had developed a severe sleepwalking disorder. Nearly every night, he got out of bed while still asleep, opened doors and windows, and tried to leave the house.
The first time, Margaret had found him standing barefoot in the yard. The second time, he was on the stairs leading toward the roof. Two weeks earlier, he had opened the second-floor window and already had one leg outside when she caught him.
