When Charlie arrived home in the darkness after an eventful, awful afternoon in the White Forest, she worried her parents would be angry with her for staying out so late without letting them know what she had been doing. She walked through the front door and noticed right away that no one was in the living room. When she entered the kitchen, however, her family was all sitting at the table, eating dinner together.
“I’m home,” Charlie said to them. They all looked up at her at the same time, then they turned and looked at each other. Beverly Rose, a woman with graying hair and a permanently sour look on her face, wiped her mouth on a napkin before speaking.
“Char—Rose. I didn’t even realize you had gone anywhere!” She laughed shortly, and Timothy and Lexi Rose chimed in.
Rose“What do you
