The Devil Crept In

I loved Ania Ahlborn's last book, "Brother", so I was really looking forward to this one, and it was great. So much good horror lately! Steve is a troubled ten year old boy living in Oregon. He stutters and is picked on relentlessly both at school and at home by his mean older brother and his abusive stepfather. Steve has one ally in the world: his twelve year old cousin, Jude. Jude disappears one day and everyone in town thinks he just ran away, since he's a known troublemaker. Steve doesn't believe it though, and tries to help search for him. Jude comes back after a few days, but he's changed. He doesn't remember where he was or what happened to him, he's very distracted and keeps running back into the woods, and he's being mean to Steve. The ending was really great, threw me for a loop in the best possible way.