As they stood at the door, everything was silent. There were no whispers, no murmurings, just a pull in her chest that urged her to go inside. Wendy took the key and slid it into the lock. Suddenly, the idea of going into her old room overwhelmed her. Until now, the locked door had stood like an entrance to a tomb. What if she couldn’t handle it? What if she was met with a flood of memories? What if the ache for her missing brothers hurt too much?

She looked at Peter and, as if sensing her distress, he moved, lightly pressing his shoulder against hers, and gave a small nod. Wendy turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

At first, she could hardly see anything. The only illumination came from the moonlight that streamed through the large bay window on the opposite wall. Wendy blindly moved her hand along the wall until she found the switch. With a flick of her finger, strings of fairy lights lining the four corners of the ceiling illuminated the room. Her father had rigged them up when Wendy was born.

She slowly stepped into the room, drinking it all in. Peter hung back, leaning against the doorframe, giving her space but watching intently.

John’s and Michael’s beds were set against the left wall while Wendy’s was pushed up against the right. They each had their own dressers and a large bookshelf took up room next to the bay window.

It didn’t feel like a preserved monument to her brothers. In fact, everything looked exactly how she remembered it, but with more dust. It was like John and Michael had just walked out a minute earlier. There was an opened box of colored pencils on the small table in the corner. Michael’s backpack was slumped with its contents spilling out in a corner by his bed. A book was laid open on John’s. Even the comforter on Wendy’s old bed was pulled back, probably from when she had woken up screaming the first and last time her parents tried to have her sleep in it after being found in the woods.

Wendy let out a soft laugh. “It’s like they never left,” she said quietly into the room.

Peter stepped inside and looked around, then over at her old bed. “Pink floral, huh?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. The corner of his lips twitched, threatening to curl into a grin.

“I had a very different aesthetic when I was little,” Wendy told him firmly as she followed him inside. “I wonder how they’ll change it when they come back,” she mused, trailing her fingertips along the edge of the blanket on her old bed. Peter’s eyes shifted to the floor.

She turned to the bay window.

The seat below had a soft pad and storage underneath. Wendy knew it was filled with more books.