“Hmm.” Her father made a gruff sound as he took a swig from his mug. When Wendy had been younger, he had made his coffee so sweet with hazelnut creamer that she and her brothers fought over who’d get a sip.

Wendy shifted her weight between her feet.

“If you see him again—” He raised his hand, pointing a finger at her. He was very good at making her feel small, even when he was sitting down. “You call the police and tell me immediately, do you understand?” His voice reverberated against the walls.

Wendy nodded. “Okay.”

He dropped his hand. “Day after tomorrow I’m going into work late so I can take you down to talk to those detectives,” he told her.

She knew better than to argue and that she didn’t have a choice, anyway, so Wendy nodded again.

Mr. Darling pushed himself up from his chair, and went into his study. The door closed, and a moment later, Wendy heard the light clinking of glass.

Wendy dragged herself upstairs, dreading what tomorrow would bring.

At the top of the landing, she came face-to-face with the door to her old room.

There was nothing new about it. She walked by it every day, but now something made her stop. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, yet her eyes were fixed on the doorknob. She extended a hand and rested her fingertips lightly on the cold, aged brass.

She wondered if her brothers’ bunk bed was still pressed up against the right wall. John’s bunk on the bottom was always properly made—it was the second thing he did every morning, after putting on his glasses. Wendy remembered how his hair stuck up in the back, his eyes barely open as he crawled along his bed, tucking in the corners.

Michael, on the other hand, always left his bed unmade, which irritated John to no end. He always slept with his socks on, just in case one of his feet slipped out from under his comforter at night. Everyone knew an uncovered limb was just asking to be chomped off by a monster.

That fear had actually been Wendy’s fault—the premise of a story she had told her brothers one night before bed. The fact that Michael always woke up with one sock missing only seemed to perpetuate the story. It got so bad, in fact, that even in the summer, when heat hung thick in the room and Wendy and John slept on top of their sheets in little more than their underclothes, Michael still huddled under his comforter, socks safely in place.