Cedar Sweep Skeletons in the closet.

I think it's just down to the two of us now, Starr! Wanna conclude it?

Towhee paused at the cracked threshold, her heart pounding hard in her chest, her entire body thrumming with it. Although her breath came short and her throat was beginning to hurt, she shouted her pack mates' names again... and again... and again. In between, she looked to Fen to read her expression, her apprehension growing when it became clear nobody was answering their calls.

She finally dove into the grove, determined to ignore the horrific anxiety and plumb its every depth until they found their comrades. But even as Towhee scoured the width and breath of their homeland, Fennec trailing at her hip, they turned up no one at all. It was the greatest mystery since the Roanoke colony (not that she knew about that): somehow, their trapped loved ones had disappeared without a trace.

"It can't be," Towhee barked. "It makes no sense. They have to be here. They have to. Where could they have gone?" Frantic now, she fired off questions to no one in particular (though she shot her daughter a stricken glance every few seconds), even as she continued running back and forth. "I don't understand. What the fuck? Where are they? Where are you.....?"

But there was nothing for it. Inexplicable though it was, they were gone.