“I said no.”

But the truth was, there had been a moment. While he and his dad were busy preparing to tell the lake about the Returned, Cooper and Rider had waited inside Henry’s bedroom.

“Doesn’t take a second for a rotten idea to seed,” said Marge. “Maybe he put a plan in Cooper’s head. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was a good thing he did too, given what was about to happen to him. But what do you care? You couldn’t care less if Cooper was planning on blowing the whole world up, only that he might want to do it without you.”

Blood burned the base of Peter’s skull like the fever. “That’s not true!” And it wasn’t. It just wasn’t.

“Does Perfect Peter even know what he’s fighting for?”

“We could be happy here.”

Marge huffed. “Is that so?” She forced Peter’s gaze and the grimace in her eyes deepened further. “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Peter shook his head. “But—”

“Go home.”

“But what just happened?”

“Just go home. Go watch the pretty lights or TV, or come watch the damned movie. Because if it’s a quiet life you’re after, then you’ve come to the right place after all. All the world will ever want of you when you go back is for you to be quiet.”

Marge opened the door to the auditorium and a shaft of light from the movie’s projection broke across her back, forming a halo of thin hair across her head.

“Dreamland, dear boy,” she said, her dark eyes glittering. “Keeping us quiet in our place in the dark.”

The doors to the auditorium slipped back into place and she was gone.

A few minutes passed before Peter realized he was back inside the ticket booth. He didn’t remember crossing the lobby, or pushing the red curtain aside to take his seat. But the cold plastic of the stool beneath him told him he was there. So did his reflection. The Other Peter looked back at him again, faint, from inside the glass like a stranger. They were bound by the laws of nature to hold each other’s gaze. But if he didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn the Other Peter’s eyes darted over his shoulder to Marge, as if it understood the things she spoke about more than he did. But two could play at that game. Peter looked right though his reflection to the street outside and the snow flurried across town.