The ground looks so far away. For a moment, I’m six years old again, and I’m staring down at Parker, begging him to help me get down. I can see his younger face, the worry in his eyes, the smatter of freckles on his nose. I shove that image away.

My brother is gone. And I have to get out of the tree myself.

When my feet reach the ground, I’m still thinking about my brother. His face is rotating through my mind, a kaleidoscope of him at different ages. The more I try to see him clearly, to really hold an image of him, the hazier he becomes. The more he seems like he was always a stranger.

Cora is buried in her notebook. She’s frantically flipping the pages, searching for an answer that I know she won’t find.

“Core,” I say, my voice quivering.

“What?” she says, not looking up. “I have to be missing something. I just don’t get what it is. Do you think we need to say something before we start the visualization? A formula or equation or something?” She flips to another page.

“I—” I start, but my mouth feels like it’s filled up with cement. “I—I—I have to t-tell you something.”

“Okay. Tell me.” She doesn’t even look up. She keeps flipping.

“I saw him.”

“Who?”

“Parker.”

At the mention of his name, Cora looks up. “What do you mean you saw him? Do you mean just now? Did the visualization actually work?”

The hope I see in her eyes cracks me open. I feel so guilty that I can’t stand it.

“I—I—” I search for the words. I back up so that I can press my spine against the giant oak tree. My giant oak tree. This tree that I really believed would make everything okay again.

Cora blinks at me. I don’t bother to blink back. I’m not okay. Nothing about what I’m about to say is okay.

“Quinn?” she prompts. She sets the notebook down and takes a step toward me. I put up my hand to stop her.

“I saw him, Core. I saw him open my dad’s safe. Not the day it happened, before. A few weeks before. But I knew—”

I don’t tell her about how narrow the hallway suddenly seemed, like a tunnel that was tightening around me. How I held my breath so tight that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. How he picked up one of the guns and turned it over, cradling it in his hands like he was impressed with the weight of it.

I don’t tell her about the look in his eyes when he turned around and saw me. How it was so vacant at first, like he was staring at a ghost instead of his own sister. And how the vacant look slowly turned to a glare and he yelled at me to go away, but I didn’t move, not even an inch. I stayed and kept holding my breath. I don’t tell her how relieved I’d felt when I watched him put the gun back in the safe.