I sat on my bed, scrolling through notifications. None of them included me anymore, like I never even existed. Like this town had swallowed not only me, but everything I was before.

  It was a lie, of course. The life I'd left back in the city had long since turned into a life of ghosts. Illness does that. Especially the one that took Mom. It didn't come suddenly. It crept up slowly, biting little pieces out of everything, until nothing was left but grief.

  The guy I was seeing last year, Mark, was the first one to go, followed by my best friend, Jessica, who was all too eager to keep him company during all the times I skipped dates because someone had to watch Hailey while Dad was with Mom at the hospital.

  When I found out, I was more sad than angry. Because deep down, I understood why. Teenage relationships don't exactly have much tolerance for problems and responsibilities and grief that hover above you like a storm cloud.

  There's a saying, I think, that you only see who your true friends are when you're at your lowest. Sometimes, that truth is silence.

  I put the phone away. Looked outside.

  Underneath the pale white sky, the wind rocked the branches in a gentle lullaby.

  Elise's steps creaked on the floorboards as she scuttled around the kitchen downstairs, muffled noises cut short by the steady sound of Jack chopping wood in the backyard.

  It felt peaceful, in a way sitting in a shelter during a thunderstorm feels peaceful. The walls of the shelter they all kept me in were built of lies, and I'd had enough.

  It was time for me to develop a strategy. A battle plan for the truth.

  Not because I suddenly felt brave, or because Cold Creek had become any less wrong, but because the alternative felt like driving a car with a blindfold on, praying not to end up swerving off the road.

  And I was done praying.

  The truth was locked somewhere in the fortress made of my family's smiles and silences. A frontal attack, a direct confrontation, wasn't an option. By now, I had realized such an action would only make the walls thicker.

  Instead, I would probe around them, searching for a crack, a loose brick, a structural weakness.

  I started with the easiest of the three.

  Dad.

  The barn where he spent most of the day sat a little apart from the main house, darker and older, the wood gray with age and swollen with moisture. The door, which still hung a little bit off its hinge, was half open.

  For several minutes I stood on the porch, gathering courage before I finally managed to cut through the hesitation and walk over.

  As soon as I stepped inside the barn I was greeted by the smell of sawdust and iron. Dust motes floated in thin bands of light cutting through the cracks in the boards. Dad stood at a workbench with his flannel sleeves pushed up to the elbows, hands busy with a piece of wood clamped down in front of him. A plane sat near his right hand, and he began shaving the edge with slow, controlled strokes.

  He looked… normal. The only sane thing in this insane place, and the thought that he might in some way be a part of it was almost unbearable.

  His shoulders were tense, but his hands were steady. Familiar. The same hands that always found a way to fix things. Until they couldn't.

  He lifted his head the moment I walked in. The plane stopped mid-stroke.

  "Hey, Dad," I said.

  He set the tool down gently, straightening up. His eyebrows drew together. "You okay?" he asked.

  I bit back a laugh. I was everything but.

  "I'm fine," I lied automatically, then corrected myself, because this was my plan, not my old reflex. "I mean, I'm… still adjusting, you know?" I forced a brief smile.

  His eyes scanned my face in that way I was starting to hate, like he was searching for a lie. For a second I thought he might ask about Ethan. About Nell. About Lara and company. About all the things I hadn't told him because I knew he'd flip out.

  Instead, he nodded once.

  "That's… great," he said. It didn't sound like he was convinced, but he was letting me roll with it.

  I walked closer, letting my fingers brush the edge of the workbench. The wood was cool and smooth under my fingertips.

  "What are you making?" I asked.

  Dad's posture loosened by a hair. He looked down at the piece of wood with intense focus.

  "Swing set," he said, and a small, real softness flickered across his face. "For Hailey." He let out a breath. "I want to build her something better than the tire swing. Something more... permanent." He paused, lifting his gaze to look at me. "She's had enough change for one lifetime."

  The words hit harder than they should have, because they were true, and because I knew he was saying them to me.

  An apology.

  "Yeah," I said quietly.

  Dad picked up the plane again and ran it once along the wood, slow. I watched the curl peel away and fall to the floor.

  "So," I said, deliberately light, "how does it feel being back here after twenty years?"

  His hands paused again. Not as sharply as before, but enough that I saw it.

  "It's… not the same," he said, but didn't elaborate.

  I sat on the edge of the workbench and struck a playful tone. "Oh, come on. I've never even heard you talk about this place back home."

  The plane moved again. One stroke. Two.

  "Yeah, well, things were different back home," he said. "That changed when…" The plane faltered for a moment.

  "When what?" I pressed.

  He resumed working the plane with renewed vigor.

  "When your mother… when Diane…" His hands trembled, just a little. I took hold of his forearm. The plane stopped.

  "Dad." His reaction tore something in me open, something hidden, yet unhealed.

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  He met my gaze, and for one endless moment, in his eyes I saw a grief so vast it looked like a void. He blinked and it was gone. He simply looked tired, in the way of a man carrying a burden too heavy for too long.

  I released him and continued, very gently. "Mom told me you guys met here. On the side of the road, northwest from town."

  Dad's eyes closed for half a second, like the name pressed against something raw inside him.

  No. It was too much. I needed to back up.

  "I mean," I rushed, trying to soften it, "I remember her saying her car broke down. She was so mad about it. She told the story like it was the world's greatest inconvenience."

  Dad's breath left him in a slow exhale.

  "She was furious," he said, and there was a ghost of warmth in his voice now, a memory slipping through a crack. "She'd been driving all day. She hated asking for help."

  "And you helped her?" I asked, as if I didn't already know the answer.

  Dad's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "I did," he said. "I had a truck back then. I stopped when I saw her on the side of the road."

  "And she wasn't weirded out by some random guy in the woods?" I asked.

  "It wasn't the woods," he said a bit too fast, then caught himself. His jaw tightened at the word.

  "I was thinking," I added casually, circling back, "after you guys fell in love and decided to get married, you left and didn't talk to your parents for twenty years. I mean, Hailey and I thought they were dead until a couple of months ago."

  The plane stopped.

  Dad's gaze sharpened, then smoothed, like he was forcing himself to stay calm. He set the plane down again, slowly.

  "Kelsey," he said, a warning buried under my name.

  I lifted both hands. "I'm not pressing. I'm just saying it's weird."

  His jaw flexed. He looked away, toward the open barn door, toward the pale sliver of forest beyond, like it was listening.

  "It was complicated," he said.

  "In what way?"

  His lips pressed tight. "Your mom couldn't stay here."

  "Why?"

  He paused, a small intake of breath. "Well, she had a life, a career. We agreed it was for the best."

  That still didn't explain why he hadn't gone home or spoken to Jack and Elise for two decades, but I recognized evasion when I saw one.

  And this one was an impenetrable wall.

  Fine. I marked it and moved on.

  I let my fingers trail over the wood again, as if I was just curious.

  "Can I ask you something else?" I said.

  Dad's gaze came back to mine. "Depends."

  I almost smiled, even though I didn't feel like it. That was the closest thing to honesty I'd gotten in weeks.

  "Why did you tell me not to go into the woods?" I asked, making my voice casual, like I was asking about the weather. "Is it because of wolves?"

  The change in him was instant.

  His shoulders tensed. His hand, the one nearest the plane, jerked a fraction in reflex. His eyes flashed, then faded into a practiced blankness.

  If I hadn't been watching him like my life depended on it, I would have missed it.

  My pulse jumped.

  Dad recovered fast. Too fast.

  "Yeah," he said, and his voice was too even. "This is mountain forest. It's thick. There are wolves, bears. People get lost."

  He reached for the plane again like it could steady him, then started shaving wood with extra force, like he was punishing the plank for my questioning.

  "Right," I said quietly, even though my skin was prickling. "Makes sense." I lied, deciding not to push. Not yet.

  Instead, I stepped back and nodded toward the wood.

  "So, the actual swing set," I said, forcing the topic back into safe territory. "Hailey's going to lose her mind."

  Dad's shoulders loosened a fraction.

  "Yeah," he said, softer. "I hope so."

  I let the silence sit for a moment, watching him work. Then I stepped out of the barn and into the cold air like a person who wasn't seconds away from spiraling.

  The yard spread around the house, half-dead grass, scattered leaves, trees pressing in at the edges like the world was trying to close us in. The tire swing hung from a thick branch near the side of the house, and Hailey was on it.

  She was laughing.

  Really laughing, head tipped back, hair flying, cheeks flushed pink with cold and joy. Her boots kicked forward and back, and the rope creaked with each swing.

  For a second, the sight of her hit me so hard my chest constricted.

  Because she looked safe.

  She looked like a kid again, not a little refugee dragged across states by grief and silence. Not a child sleeping with her teddy clutched like armor.

  I stood there and watched until she noticed me and squealed.

  "Kelsey!" she shouted, waving one hand wildly. "Look!"

  "I'm looking," I called back, and tried to smile like it didn't hurt.

  She pumped her legs harder, swinging higher. "Dad made it! It's the best swing ever!"

  Of course he did.

  He was trying.

  He was trying so hard it was breaking him. And it still wasn't enough.

  I looked up at the house. And saw Jack.

  He stood near the woodpile, sleeves rolled up, splitting logs with an axe like it was nothing. He moved with efficiency, each swing clean, exact.

  But what stopped me wasn't the strength.

  It was the lack of… anything else.

  No heavy breathing. No sweat on his temples. No sweat stains on his shirt. No redness in his face from exertion.

  Just the steady, controlled motion of chopping one log after another.

  I stared, a cold prickle crawling over my skin.

  Maybe he was just in good shape.

  Maybe he was the kind of person who didn't sweat much.

  Maybe I was paranoid.

  But once I noticed it, my brain wouldn't let it go.

  Because in that moment I realized I had never seen Dad sweat either.

  Not in the car, not in the barn, not even when he carried boxes up the stairs. Not even... Not even back home.

  It was the kind of detail you ignore until you can't.

  Jack's eyes lifted and landed on me in a silent acknowledgment that he knew I was watching him watching me.

  Sweat, that same sweat he didn't have, now coated my palms.

  I looked away and went inside.

  Inside, the house smelled like cleaning solution and old wood, like Elise had desperately tried to scrub the underlying smells away. The kitchen was too neat. The counters were wiped to a shine. A dish towel hung perfectly straight on the oven handle.

  Elise stood at the sink rinsing something. She turned when I entered, her smile already in place.

  "Kelsey," she said brightly, smiling so wide I could count her teeth. "I haven't seen you today yet. How was school?"

  How I hated that smile.

  My own smile rose on instinct, and I hated that I was doing it too, that I was meeting her with something equally fake.

  "Fine," I said. "Just… settling, you know?"

  Elise's eyes flicked over my face, my posture. She cataloged me like she was taking inventory.

  "Well," she said softly, "you will settle, have no worry about that. You're ours."

  The word landed in a way that made all little hairs all over my body stand up on unison. I nodded anyway.

  "Okay," I said. "I'm going to rest a bit, I'm tired."

  "Of course, dear," she chirped, too pleasant.

  I went upstairs before unease could burst through my skin and walked into mine and Hailey's room. As always, it was pleasantly quiet.

  My gaze fell to my bag, the one I carried in my lap when we arrived, still sitting by the dresser where I left it.

  I unzipped it and dumped the contents out, searching for one thing.

  Mom's scarf.

  It was soft, pale yellow, worn at the edges, still holding a trace of her perfume, faint now, but there.

  I pressed it to my face and just let myself imagine she was here.

  The familiar scent hit my chest like an open wound. Floral and warm, like sunlight on clean skin.

  For one second, the battle plan disappeared, and I was just a girl in a strange town with no real friends left, a dead mother and a father who looked at the woods like they were waiting to devour us all.

  I couldn't breathe. My eyes burned.

  I sat on the edge of my bed, held the scarf like it could keep me anchored to reality and wept.

  I missed her so hard it felt like nausea.

  I wiped my eyes with my sleeve, furious at myself, then stared down at the contents of the bag scattered upon the linen.

  My gaze caught on something small and glinting in the fading light.

  The pocketknife.

  Grandpa Gerard's ridiculous, expensive pocketknife with the mother-of-pearl handle and thin silver edging.

  I'd asked for it as a joke, last year, while obsessing over a tv show where the heroine carried a blade, always ready to cut her way out of trouble. Grandpa had listened with that indulgent smile of his and bought me the most ridiculously expensive version possible, because he could, and because he knew it would piss off Dad. Originally, he'd wanted to buy me a car for my sixteenth birthday, but after my parents' resolute no, he'd gone ahead and gotten me this instead.

  I slid it out of the pouch and flipped it open carefully.

  The blade caught the light, clean and sharp.

  I wasn't sure why I picked it up. I wasn't going to stab anything, the very thought made me sick.

  Still, I closed the knife, slipped it into my pocket, and felt the weight settle against my thigh like a talisman.

  Then I stood.

  I smoothed my hair back, wiped the last of the tears from under my eyes, and walked toward the window. Hailey was still on the swing, laughing, completely oblivious to the shadows surrounding us.

  The ghost of my reflection stared at me from the glass, pale face, eyes puffy and red.

  But there was something else there.

  Resolve.

  Okay, I told myself. One conversation down. Harder ones to go.

  And even if the thought of going near Jack and Elise made me want to jump out of my skin, I knew I had no choice.

  Because it wasn't just about me anymore.

  Because if there was even a chance something in this town could hurt my baby sister, if there was even a chance those rules Dad wouldn't explain could touch her, then I couldn't afford to stay scared and small.

  And as I gripped the scarf in my fist, I made a silent promise to myself, and to her.

  No matter how dark the shadows around us become, they will never get to you.