Wendy wasn’t sure how long she had stood there when a small noise broke her from her trance. She withdrew her hand and tripped back a step. She hadn’t noticed she’d been perched on the balls of her feet like a bird ready to take flight. Wendy pressed both hands to her chest, feeling it rise and fall with a deep, steadying breath.

She heard the sound again, but it wasn’t coming from the door in front of her.

This time she knew it was the quiet whisper of a voice.

Wendy’s heart clenched painfully. She leaned forward to peer around the corner, down the hallway that led to her parents’ room. All the lights were off and the small strip of space at the bottom of her parents’ door was black.

Wendy’s hand brushed the wall as she crept down the hallway where it was less likely she would step on a squeaky floorboard. She’d done this enough times to know how to linger outside her parents’ room without being seen.

With her hands gripping the doorjamb, Wendy huddled against the wall and pressed her ear against the door. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing, ears straining to catch any sound coming from inside the room.

Wendy pressed closer to the door, hoping with every fiber of her being that it had just been the wind, even though it was a humid, breeze-less day in the middle of June.

“My sweet boys…”

Wendy squeezed her eyes shut.

Her mother’s voice had a light ring to it. A melody that Wendy never got to hear anymore. One that was lost in the woods, along with her brothers, and that now only passed her mother’s lips when she was asleep.

“I miss you so much…”

One night, not more than a week after Wendy had been moved into her new room, she went downstairs to get a glass of milk. On the way back to her room, she thought she heard Michael’s voice coming from her parents’ bedroom. At the sound, Wendy dropped her glass with a quiet thud on the carpet and sprinted on tiptoe to her parents’ door. She pressed her ear against it and heard her mother say, “My sweet boys.”

And then she heard John’s voice. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it was him. It was John and Michael, just inside the door.

Wendy had shoved the door open only to find the room dark. Moonlight from the open window spilled over her mother’s sleeping form. She was lying on her side, light brown hair gathered in loops on her pillow, one hand resting above her head. Her delicate fingers looked like they were reaching for something.