On my left, Landry sniffles. She wipes her eyes, then swipes her hand beneath her nose. On the other side of the casket, Daniela’s nose is red from the cold, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. No one is unaffected.

Jake takes my right hand, and the look he gives me feels like a glimpse right into my soul. This wasn’t our baby. Lullaby Doe had nothing to do with us. Yet I feel connected to her in a way I can’t quite describe. I feel like I let her down, in a much more personal way than everyone else here feels.

Because I found her? Because we’re family? Because everyone here thinks I’m responsible for her death? Whatever the reason, as the pastor finally bends his head to pray over the tiny casket, I find my own eyes damp with tears.

After the prayer, the preacher introduces Cabrini Ellis, who steps forward to sing an a cappella version of “Brahms’s Lullaby.” Which turns out to be the “Lullaby and Goodnight” song that plays in just about every music box ever made.

I don’t even know all the words, but it seems especially appropriate for a baby the internet has named Lullaby Doe.

No, wait. The internet didn’t name her. Landry did. My sister named this baby, in the guise of the Crimson Cryer. How have I not realized that before?

I turn to look at Landry, just as she bursts into hysterical sobs. I put my arm around her, and she looks up at me, tears streaming down her face. Agony shining in her eyes. And suddenly I realize that this is more than the vicarious grief the rest of us are feeling.

My entire existence narrows into this one devastating moment of epiphany, and I see what’s been right there in front of me the whole time.

Lullaby Doe was my brother’s niece. Because Landry is her mother.

“Oh my god,” I whisper.

Then my sister turns and runs away from the graveside service, her long dark hair flying out behind her.

Chapter Nineteen

NINETEEN

I race after Landry, and the freezing air stabs at my lungs like icicles shoved all the way through my body.

How could I not have seen it? How could I not have known?

Because she’s thirteen years old. That’s how. She’s just a kid. We were trying to hide all the bad things from her, and she was—

“Landry!” I call softly, trying to get her to stop without shouting over Cabrini’s voice as she sings the lullaby that sent my sister into hysterics. Maybe no one else knows why she ran. Maybe they think she’s just sad, like everyone else is. Or that she’s sad because her niece—my baby—is in that box.

God, please don’t let anyone else have figured it out.