A child goes missing, and a family starts to spiral into depressed desperation. The missing girl’s sister narrates the story, cataloguing the increasingly upsetting circumstances caused by not knowing the truth. The way Barker calls back to the opening paragraphs in the closing ones is striking.

The summer my sister disappeared, our lawn shriveled during a rainless July. Dad shut off the sprinkler because we were strapped for cash. We sold our home on the far side of a brittle cornfield and moved into a four-story apartment complex, my sister’s belongings stacked into a basement storage unit, barricaded behind chain link. My new room was a blank box, echoing with an emptiness that disrupted my sleep.