Grief was sharp and all-consuming. Wendy lay curled on her side. The image of her brothers lying in the snow, red pooling on white, burned through her mind. They had fallen at the base of the tree. That was why her subconscious kept reminding her, making her hands draw it with such urgency. It was trying to make her remember, and Wendy saw now why she’d fought so hard against it. She had been hiding from it, but she couldn’t escape being haunted, and now she feared she never would.

Her brothers had been killed, and it was all her fault.

She was their older sister. She had known they weren’t supposed to go off into the woods on their own. If she had said something, if she had made them turn back sooner, none of this would’ve happened. They would still be alive. She was supposed to take care of them and protect them, but she’d failed. And failing meant losing her brothers and, even worse, destroying her family. If it weren’t for her, they’d still be whole.

And now? Not if, but when they found out, they would truly see it was Wendy’s fault.

For years, they’d been left not knowing, all because Wendy couldn’t face the truth. Had she really been lying to herself this whole time?

Wendy curled up tight. She buried her face in her knees and her fingers in her hair. Her sobs wracked her body, primal and uncontrollable.

She thought of Mr. Davies, drunk and stumbling on John and Michael in his bright red jacket.

Mr. Davies. She could hardly believe it. He’d shot John and Michael. He’d killed them, and all this time, he’d never confessed. It made her sick, thinking of how kind he had been to her growing up—checking in on her, tipping her extra when she watched his sons in order to save up for college. Had he been trying to make up for what he did?

Anger smoldered between Wendy’s ribs. He was her father’s friend. Mr. Davies had allowed her and her parents to suffer. Their mourning had dragged on for five years. He’d not only robbed them of John and Michael, but he’d kept them from knowing the truth and finding closure. It had torn her family apart.

She wasn’t the only one who John and Michael had been ripped away from. Her parents had suffered, too, and still did. Wendy hadn’t just lost her brothers. She’d lost the soothing touch of her mother rubbing her back when she was sad. She’d lost her father, firm but gentle, talking her through her worries and nightmares. Now, her mother and father were just ghosts of their previous selves. The Darling home had lost its light and laughter. Wendy’s childhood had ended the day she and her brothers went into the woods.