Chapter 4. Thunder

CHAPTER 4

Thunder

Wendy felt a stirring deep inside her bones. It had first started when they found her in the woods. An uncontrollable shaking. Not the kind she would get after swimming too hard for too long, or the shiver she got from playing in the icy water at the coast. It wasn’t even the sort of terrified quiver you got in your hands or knees. This was at the very core of her body, like a small creature living deep in her chest, shaking her ribs like the bars of a cage in a wild frenzy. It was an immobilizing tremor.

It was her fault.It was all her fault. Wendy was the eldest—she was supposed to look after John and Michael. She was supposed to take care of them, and she’d failed. She was the only one to return.

Her brothers were still missing, and it was her fault. Everyone knew it—Wendy, her parents, everyone in town.

There must’ve been some way she could have brought them back with her. Why hadn’t she? And why couldn’t she just remember?

Wendy’s fingers flexed against her sides. She couldn’t let the shaking start, because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to make it stop.

“Do you understand, Mrs. Darling?” Detective James watched Wendy’s mother, but she just stood there, fingers pressed to the base of her throat, staring at him.

Detective Rowan watched Wendy. Wendy’s shoulders shuddered.

“We think that this boy, Peter, might somehow be involved with Wendy’s disappearance,” Detective James continued.

Wendy couldn’t look at them. She focused her eyes on the ghost of a water ring on the table.

“There’s a possibility he escaped from wherever your children were taken. There’s a possibility that if he knows Wendy, maybe he knew John and Michael as well.”

Knew.

She didn’t like the sound of her brothers’ names coming from this stranger’s mouth.

“We also believe he might somehow be related to the string of disappearances in town, since they all occurred near the woods.”

The trembling in her chest started to wind its way up Wendy’s spine. She wanted to cry out, scream, run away, maybe just explode.

“Mrs. Darling?” As Detective James took a step toward her mother, the door to the study swung open.

Wendy’s father stood in the doorway, filling the frame. He had salt-and-pepper hair, but a dyed mustache. His nose was large and bulbous, and his forehead had deep-set wrinkles even when he wasn’t frowning, which, to be fair, wasn’t often. He was in the same suit he’d worn to work at the bank yesterday. The dull black material was rumpled. The pinstripe shirt underneath was wrinkled, and his tie was missing.

Mr. Darling’s face was red. His small eyes under thick brows darted back and forth between the two detectives before sweeping over to his silent wife and, finally, landing on Wendy at the table. His fingers gripped the wooden doorframe so hard it surrendered a small creak.

“Who are you?” He had a booming voice. “And what are you doing in my house?”

While Detective Rowan squared her shoulders and watched Mr. Darling placidly, Detective James quickly flipped through his notebook. “Um—George Darling?” Wendy’s father did not reply. “I’m Detective James, this is Detective—”

“Detectives?” The lines in her father’s face deepened. “What’re two detectives doing in my house?” His eyes shifted to Wendy, full of accusation.

Wendy’s shoulders hunched up and she shrank lower in her chair. Already she was in trouble. This didn’t bode well.

“There was an incident last night—”

“What incident?”

Detective James started to recite the story again, but Wendy didn’t pay attention. She didn’t need to hear what she had been through last night. Instead, she watched her mother, who seemed to have come out of her trance a bit.

Mrs. Darling pulled out a chair and sat down. Without sparing Wendy a glance, she leaned forward, elbows on the table, and pressed her face into her palms.

Wendy’s body gave another shudder. Maybe they were both thinking the same thing.

That no one had hope of finding John and Michael.

The detectives didn’t mention it as a possibility. Her mom hadn’t shown any sign of relief.

Wendy looked down at her hands, remembering the blood caked under her nails.

No. No one else would expect to find them alive, but Wendy held out hope. There was something in her that knew they weren’t dead. It was a gut instinct. Wendy didn’t believe in much, but she believed in that, and she held tight to the feeling—the faith that they were out there, somewhere, even if no one else agreed.

Right now, she couldn’t stand listening any longer. She needed to get out of there. To get some fresh air and clear her head.

Wendy pushed back from the table and stood up. She made for the front door, but her father’s arm shot out, a finger pointing at her. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

Everyone was staring at her again.

She crossed her arms, trying to hide her shaking hands. “Jordan’s,” Wendy croaked.

His eyes bored into hers. “Don’t go anywhere else.” Wendy nodded and sprinted out the door.

She wanted to get away and get to Jordan. She was the only one Wendy could go to. Jordan never doubted or questioned her. She listened to what Wendy said and believed her, unlike everyone else in town.

“Wendy, you okay?”

The sudden voice made her jump. She turned to see her neighbor, Donald Davies, picking up his newspaper from his front porch in a dark red robe. He was a tall and slender man who only wore flannel shirts in various shades of red plaid when he wasn’t in a business suit. He had curly brown hair and a thick, dark beard. Mr. Davies and her dad worked at the same bank. Wendy had been babysitting his boys—ten-year-old Joel and seven-year-old Matthew—for years. He always gave her a big tip, and whenever she tried to give it back, Mr. Davies insisted she use it for her college fund.

“Mr. Davies, hi,” Wendy said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She glanced down at the newspaper in his hand. Ashley Ford’s picture smiled at her from the front page.

“Is everything okay?” Mr. Davies repeated, stepping down from his porch. Wendy could only imagine how she looked. Probably like she had just seen a ghost. Mr. Davies looked pale and his eyes kept cutting over to the police car parked in front of their house. He squeezed the newspaper in his hands.

Wendy forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, already starting toward the Arroyos’ house again. “I’ve gotta go, though—I’m late to meet Jordan.”

Mr. Davies blinked. Wendy was usually very neighborly and would stop and chat with him if she had the time, but right now she didn’t have the energy for it.

Her mind buzzed. She needed everything to slow down so her head could catch up. Her own skin felt suffocating. She wanted out. She wanted to run away. She didn’t want to be met with more stares and whispers when she went into town. She didn’t want to pretend she was fine.

But Wendy refused to let herself cry. It had taken so long to board everything up the last time. Wendy didn’t think she could manage it again.

The six months between running off into the woods and being found were just a black void in her mind. When she was in the hospital, the doctors had tried to get her to press against it, to poke and prod and see if she could remember anything, but she couldn’t.

Of course she wanted to remember. If she could just remember what had happened, then she could find her brothers. Those lost memories held the secrets to finding them.

All that she had been left with were horrible dreams that made her wake up in the hospital screaming and left ghosts of images in their wake. Trees, Michael’s smile, John’s shoes, screams of laughter, and a pair of eyes like stars.