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Brown fur.

Button eyes.

A red bow tie circling its neck.

It’s the very same bear Dane and I found in my father’s office. Now it is gone. While I don’t know—and likely will never know—who took it, I can think of only two reasons it was in Baneberry Hall.

“You mentioned that Petra brought Buster that time you spent the night,” I say.

“Yes,” Hannah says. “Even though we never made it the full night.”

I’m well aware of that, thanks to the Book.

“Is there a chance Petra left it behind?” I say, hoping I’m not revealing too much. Hannah doesn’t need to know that, until a few nights ago, Buster was still inside Baneberry Hall. “Maybe it got lost.”

“She brought him home with her,” Hannah says. “I’m certain of it.”

That leaves only the other reason Buster could have been in the house. The one I’d been hoping wasn’t true.

Petra brought the bear with her because she thought she was leaving for good. Probably with my father. The idea sucks all the air from my chest.

Short of breath, there’s nothing left for me to do but stand and leave the cottage in a daze. Hannah follows me past the living room, where the television has changed from a game show to a sitcom. Forced laughter blares from the TV.

It’s not until I’m at the back door that I turn around to ask Hannah one more thing. A question prompted not just by that picture of Petra and her bear but by the memory of yesterday morning. Mister Shadow in the armoire, staring at me, creeping closer.

“You seem to remember a lot about the night you two came to Baneberry Hall for that sleepover.”

“It was pretty hard to forget.” Hannah huffs out a humorless laugh, as if she can’t believe that, with everything else going on, this is what I want to talk about. It makes perfect sense to me. She was there. She remembers. I don’t.

“The things my father wrote about that night,” I say. “That was bullshit, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Hannah says.

I study her, seeking a tell that she’s lying. She levels her gaze at me, indicating she’s dead serious.

“So, what my father wrote about that night—”

“It’s all true,” Hannah says, without a moment’s hesitation. “Every damn word.”

JULY 7 Day 12

The day of the sleepover began like any other at Baneberry Hall.

Thud.

I got out of bed without looking at the clock—there was no need—and went downstairs, where the chandelier was aglow. I flicked it off with a heavy sigh and descended to the kitchen to brew a pot of extra-strong coffee. It had become my usual morning routine.

By then, exhaustion was a fact of life at Baneberry Hall. Almost as if the house was purposefully denying me a full night’s sleep. I counteracted it as best as I could with midafternoon catnaps and going to bed early.

But on this day, there would be no napping. The afternoon was spent preparing for two extra people in the house. Grocery shopping, cleaning, and making the place look like a happy home, which it definitely wasn’t.

The whole point of having the sleepover be supervised by Petra was to give Jess and me some much-needed relaxation time alone. But when Hannah and Petra arrived bearing backpacks, sleeping bags, and a tray of cookies from their mother, I realized their presence only added to our stress. Especially when Maggie asked to speak to Jess and me alone in the middle of dinner.

“Can’t it wait?” I said. “You have guests.”

“It’s important,” Maggie told us.

The three of us went to the great room, leaving Hannah and Petra to eat their spaghetti and meatballs in awkward silence.

“This better be good,” Jess said. “It’s rude to leave your friends like that.”

Maggie’s expression was deadly serious. The cut on her cheek had healed enough that she no longer needed a bandage. Now exposed, it gave her a weathered, wizened look.

“They need to leave,” she said. “Miss Pennyface doesn’t want them here. She doesn’t like them. She’s been angry all night.” Maggie pointed to an empty corner. “See?”

“Now’s not the time for this,” Jess said. “Not with your friends here.”

“They’re not my friends.”

“But they could be,” I said in my most encouraging voice. “Just give it one night. Okay, kiddo?”

Maggie considered it, her lips a flat line as she weighed the pros and cons of friendship with Hannah.

“Okay,” she said. “But they’ll probably be mad.”

“Who’ll get mad?”

“All of the ghosts.”

She went back to the table, leaving Jess and me speechless. Maggie, however, was chattier than ever, and remained that way through the rest of dinner. And the ice-cream sundaes made for dessert. And the board games played after that. When Maggie emerged victorious after a game of Mouse Trap, she ran around the dining room cheering like she’d just won the World Cup.

It was so nice to see her having fun with other girls. For the first time since we came to Baneberry Hall, Maggie looked happy, even when she shot occasional glances to the corners of the room.

Those fearful looks grew more pronounced when the girls got ready for bed. While Petra engaged in a half-hearted pillow fight instigated by her sister, Maggie merely sat there, her gaze flicking to the corner by her closet. And when I lined them up to take a picture with the Polaroid camera, she appeared more focused on the wall behind me than the camera’s lens.

“They’re down for the night,” I announced to Jess after I’d turned out the lights in Maggie’s room and retired to my own. “Whatever else they need, Petra can take it from here.”

I collapsed on the bed, an arm flung over my eyes. I would have plunged immediately into sleep if something hadn’t been weighing on my mind since dinner.

“I think we should take Maggie to see someone.”

Jess, who had been applying moisturizer at her vanity, gave me a look in the mirror. “As in a shrink?”

“A therapist, yes. Clearly, something’s going on with her. She’s struggling with this move. She has no friends and doesn’t seem to want to make any. And all this talk of imaginary friends—it’s not normal. And it’s not a plea for attention, either.”

In the mirror, Jess’s face took on a wounded look. “Do you plan on throwing that back at me every time we discuss our daughter?”

“That wasn’t my intention,” I said. “I was just making a case for why we should send her to someone who might be able to help.”

Jess said nothing.

“Either you have no opinion on the matter,” I said, “or you don’t agree with me and just don’t want to say it.”

“Therapy’s a big step,” she finally said.

“You don’t think Maggie has a problem?”

“She has imaginary friends and trouble making real ones. I don’t think we should punish her for that.”

“It’s not punishment. It’s getting her the help she needs.” I sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. “These aren’t typical imaginary friends, Jess. Miss Pennyface and Mister Shadow. Those are scary names, given to them by a scared little girl. You heard what she called them—ghosts. Imagine how terrified she must be.”

“It’s a phase,” Jess insisted. “Brought on by this move and all the things that have happened with this house. I worry that sending Maggie to a shrink will make her feel like an outcast. To me, that’s a far bigger concern than something she’s going to grow out of as soon as she gets used to this place.”

“And what if she doesn’t grow out of it? What if this is a legitimate mental disorder that—”

A scream cut me off.

It came from Maggie’s room, shooting down the hallway like a bullet. By the time the second scream arrived, Jess and I were already out of our bedroom and running down the hall.