Willow crept downstairs, but the sound of her Dad's snoring coming from the living room made her halt. The scuffling in the kitchen continued, even though she knew her brother was still asleep and obviously so was her dad.

As she tiptoed passed the coat hanger, she picked up an umbrella. As a weapon to use against an intruder; it was a weak one, but for the moment it was the best she could come up with, so she was going to stick with it, no matter how ridiculous she looked.

She raised it high as she headed into the kitchen, ready to strike should she have to.

Charlie's head lifted when she spotted Willow and she stifled a laugh at the determined look on the girl's face.

'Looks like you're about ready to go into battle.'

Willow froze, her heart hammering so much she almost dropped her weapon. Her eyes searched the room until she saw Charlie's head just above the countertop.

'Oh, it's you.' Willow went to lower the umbrella but stopped. 'Wait, what are you doing here?'

'It's okay, you can drop the umbrella. I'm just looking for ingredients for pancakes,' Charlie responded, going back to digging around in the Denzel family's cupboards.

Willow placed her makeshift weapon against the wall and sat. 'I mean, why are you here in the first place? No offence, but I don't think you'd just come to make us pancakes.'

Charlie stood and dusted off her leather trousers. She would have loved to have a change of clothes, especially after how she'd behaved the night before. But it felt like a suitable punishment. A walk of shame, a little different from the ones she was used to.

'It's a bit of a long story, kid,' she admitted.

'I've got time.'

Charlie smirked at Willow's persistence. Even at 5.30 am, the girl was on it.

'We need ingredients for pancakes and since the shop won't open for another hour and a half, we'll have to go to my place.'

Willow groaned. 'Why are you so obsessed with making pancakes?'

'Because pancakes are how I deal with my hangovers.' Charlie chuckled. 'Now dress warm, it'll still be cold out this early and I don't have a car.'

Willow's face flashed to Charlie's as she tried to figure out all the puzzle pieces.

'Okay,' she said reluctantly, knowing this would be the only way she'd find out what had happened.

Ten minutes later, they were walking out in the brisk morning. Charlie had had to borrow a coat of Neo's to keep out the morning air. Her halter top, whilst gorgeous for getting drunk in, was not suited for a casual walk so early in the morning. Even her choice of footwear made her wonder whether their journey was worth it, but no matter what, she still needed pancakes.

'So what's going on with you and my dad? And don't try to hide it, I can tell,' Willow argued.

Charlie held her hands up in surrender. 'Okay, you got me. But honestly, things are just complicated and after last night I'm not sure if there is anything going on between me and your dad.'

Willow wasn't used to adults talking to her so frankly. Her dad usually liked to keep the harder parts of his life a secret, particularly his relationships with other women.

Willow could count on one hand the number of times he'd brought a woman home since they'd moved to Marton, and Charlie accounted for two of them.

'But you like him?'

Charlie focused her gaze on the treeline in front of them whilst she tried to sort out her muddy thoughts. A dull headache was making itself known behind her eyes and analysing her feelings was the last thing she really wanted to do.

'Maybe.'

Willow grinned. 'I knew it. So what's the problem?'

Charlie's eyes slid down to the teenager, but looked away when Willow's gaze met hers. She ran a hand through her hair, not entirely comfortable with the conversation.

'Look, Willow, I'm not great at letting people into my life, especially when it comes to men.'

'But why?'

They both jumped as a gate clanged open and a dog walker emerged from her garden.

'Morning, Mrs Templeton...' Willow trailed off as she saw the woman take one look at them, spin around and head back into her garden. 'What was that about?'

Charlie's eyes narrowed at the house as they passed, a nosy face was pressed up against the windows, before the curtains were pulled back in place, obscuring their watcher from view.

'That was one reason why I'm not great at letting people into my life,' Charlie admitted, a frown still on her face.

Willow looked back at the house in confusion. 'What's Mrs Templeton got to do with anything? Why'd she ignore us like that?'

'It's not you she's ignoring, it's me,' explained Charlie, wishing that she could pick up the pace and put some distance between her and the woman, who was no doubt watching them leave through her upstairs window. Unfortunately, her footwear was hampering the escaping.

Willow crossed her arms over her chest. 'Okay, now I'm just really confused,' she muttered.

Charlie chuckled a little at her frustration. 'There's a lot of bad stuff that's happened in my past. Some locals that know about it don't know what to say to me or how to react, so instead...'

'They pretend you're not there.' Willow finished for her.

'Exactly.'

'But Mrs Templeton is so nice.'

'She is,' Charlie agreed. 'But that doesn't mean she'll want to talk to me today of all days.'

'Today of all days?' Willow recited. 'What does that mean? Why wouldn't she want to talk to you today?'

Charlie sighed, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut. The teenager was overly inquisitive and yet Charlie found she rather enjoyed her company, even if it meant being bombarded with questions.

'How much do you know about the case your dad is working on?'

Willow's head snapped back to look at Charlie. 'Not much. He doesn't like to share his work with us. I know there's a missing family and that they're connected to the murders that happened there twenty years ago, but I learnt that at school.'

'And what did your school friends say about the murders?' Charlie hedged, intrigued to know a little of what the local gossip was saying about her.

'Just that a boy killed his two friends there. Why? What have they got to do with you?'

'They were my best friends,' Charlie murmured.

'You knew them?' exclaimed Willow.

'Twenty years ago today, I went to Felton Pond with my four friends to celebrate the end of exams. We were around your age, just kids needing to blow off some steam. That was the last day I ever saw Lucy, George or Jack.'

It stunned Willow into silence. She'd thought Charlie was cool, maybe a bit of a badass, but she'd never guessed she would be involved in something like that.

'Twenty years ago today?' Willow asked. 'Guess that explains the hangover.'

Charlie chuckled, glad at Willow's attempt to cut the tension.

'Every year is hard, but this is the first time I've been at Marton for the anniversary and let's just say I didn't handle it well.'

'People do silly things when they're drunk,' grumbled Willow.

'Too true kid, but that doesn't mean that we can't make amends for those silly things.' At least Charlie hoped she could make amends to Neo for the way she'd behaved. She wanted to just curl up in a hole and disappear for a while, but there was no time for that. Jane and her family were still missing and Neo's investigations were just leading to more questions.

'And what if it's not something you can make amends for?'

Charlie's step faltered as she noted the edge of desperation in Willow's tone.

'Something happened that you want to talk about?' Charlie offered, feeling entirely out of her depth. Neo was the parent, not her.

Willow played with the rings on her finger. She had to tell someone, and that someone couldn't be her dad.

'The night I got drunk and there was that boy...' she started.

Charlie screwed her eyes shut. 'Did he do something to you?' She'd reassured Neo that she hadn't seen the boy do anything, but could she have been wrong? Was there now a sixteen year old boy out there that she had to pay a little visit to?

'No, nothing. But he's telling everyone that we did.' Willow kicked a pebble out of her way and watched it go flying.

'Ahh,' Charlie said, things now making more sense to her. 'And that's leading to rumours?'

'Even my friends believe them and they were there that night. I don't know what to do.'

'Sad to say, but there's not a lot you can do.' Charlie wrapped an arm around the young girl. 'Take it from someone who knows, your true friends will stick with you, and the rest can just stick it. In a year's time, you'll be in a different place with different people and you get to decide what your future holds. Not some boy that should know better.'

Willow sniffed. 'It's just hard. I wish I'd never gone out with them.'

'Hindsight is wonderful and yet entirely useless to change the past. But the future is another matter. You're telling the truth and eventually everyone will realise it.' Charlie gave her a squeeze before pulling her keys from a pocket and ushering Willow inside her house. 'I think we definitely need those pancakes now.'

'I think that would be good,' replied Willow, rubbing her eyes.

As Charlie filled up a satchel with some ingredients, Willow looked around the quaint cottage to take her mind off her problems. Her eyes landed on an old photo lying on the table, surrounded by a bunch of loose papers and a map.

'Is this you and your friends?'

Charlie paused and glanced over her shoulder, swallowing the lump in the throat as she looked at the photograph in Willow's hand. Lucy was tucked between George's legs, holding Jane' hand, who sat next to her whilst Jack laid out grinning at the camera and Charlie was sat on his back.

'That's them,' she whispered before turning back to her cupboards.

'You all look happy.' Willow touched the glass, her fingers grazing over their smiling faces. 'And this is where it happened?' She turned to peer at the map, knowing that this was where the Bennett family had also gone missing.

'Felton Pond and Felton Manor.' Charlie came to look at the map, pointing out both places.

'You think the Bennetts are still there?' asked Willow.

'Something tells me they are.'