Much to the despair of Laura, David, and everyone else in their family, John’s condition only worsened. Dr Mullins tried everything he could, but in vain. Everyone knew what was coming, but it didn’t hurt any less when David went into John’s room to check on him, only to find his cold body. Not two weeks away from his fifth birthday, John Murdock had passed away.
While everyone was grieving, Laura took the news especially hard. Even once she was well enough to leave her room, she stayed in there for days on end. She blamed herself for John’s death, for spreading the pneumonia to him, for not being there for him when he needed her most. David tried to comfort her, but in vain. Any time it seemed she'd made progress with her grief, it would all be undone. Forgetting the pain she felt when she first heard that he’d died felt as though she was forgetting her son altogether, and she couldn’t find it in herself to betray him like that. The more miserable she was, the more she cared. At least, that was how she saw things.
Charlie had spent his Winter break with Fred, and had only been back at Edgewater for a few days when he received the news of his brother’s passing. He hadn't expected the news, but who would? He was allowed a week out of school to grieve with his family by the headmaster, so Charlie returned home for the first time since the Summer. Most of the time, he was met with smiles and laughter upon arrival, but that wasn't the case this time. The brutality of the situation hadn’t entirely hit him until he saw their piteous faces, where it suddenly became real. He lost his brother, and he wasn’t coming back, ever. He was never that close with John, but now he was never going to be, and the very idea devastated him.
David and Laura decided to not have a service. Although they appreciated the words of sympathy, they felt that John's death was a matter left to the family, and only the family. The closest they had to a service was the afternoon the entire family went to the graveyard and mourned together. It felt strange to cry at where his gravestone would be set, when he wasn't even there; he was to be kept in the graveyard vaults until the ground thawed. Even Dorothy, who didn't fully understand what was going on, was in tears by the afternoon. No one in the family could say when they'd recover from their loss, or if they ever would, but they knew John would be truly missed.