Confused, Wendy looked around. She’d heard her brothers, but they weren’t there. She checked behind the door, but there was no one. Wendy carefully walked up to her mother’s side.

Her eyes were closed, her lashes splayed across the dark circles under her eyes. Her lips parted and she said, the ring in her voice already starting to ebb, “Please come back…”

That was when Wendy discovered her mom was talking to her missing brothers in her sleep. She must have imagined her brothers’ voices. It was nothing but the murmuring of her mother, in some state between sleep and wakefulness, speaking to people who weren’t there, and who might never come back.

When Mr. Darling came home, he had found Wendy at the top of the stairs. She was crying, the neck of her nightshirt dark and damp with tears, as she tried to soak up the spilled milk with a rag.

Without a word, her father gently took the rag from her hand, picked her up, and carried her to her new bed. He flicked on the string of fairy lights and rubbed her back until the hiccups went away and, from sheer exhaustion, she fell asleep.

Now, Wendy let herself slide to the floor. Her cheeks were wet and her nose ran onto the hand she pressed over her mouth.

Eventually, her mother had stopped talking in her sleep. She hadn’t done it in years, but now it was happening again. Wendy let herself take a gasp of air before she pulled her knees in and tucked her head down.

“Sleep, my darlings,” her mother’s gentle voice came from the other side of the door. And then everything was silent, except for Wendy, who remained huddled on the floor, trying to force down the lump in her throat.

Wendy was sweating profusely and her head throbbed. She needed fresh air. She needed to get out of the house, away from her mother’s words and the clawing feeling of being trapped.

Wendy pushed herself up from the floor, ran down the stairs and through the kitchen. She jerked back the sliding glass door and flew into the backyard.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins and pounded in her chest. Chains rattled as she shoved aside the swings and ducked under the abandoned swing set. She felt like she was trapped in a nightmare. All of the secrets and haunted memories she’d tried to outrun were catching up to her.

Wendy ran, and her feet were ready to carry her away, to take her anywhere else, to escape, but she had led herself to a dead end.

Her scrambling only took her a short distance until the faded, dilapidated fence corralled her in and she found herself face-to-face with the woods. The sun had just set, giving everything, even the bright green trees, an orange glow.