“Yeah. Perhaps it’s just the name of that group he’s hanging out with.”

Teddy started to fiddle with his woollen hat. “But didn’t Cooper already know that word before you got here?”

Peter nodded. “Then, what?”

Teddy pulled on his pompom, teasing strands of flattened wool out with his fingertips until it was completely round again, but said nothing. Peter looked back up towards the ridge and the red glow throbbed beneath the boughs of the trees.

“But what if it’s something else? What if they’re planning something bad?”

Teddy stopped what he was doing. He took a step closer and the distance between them seemed to disappear altogether. “So, what do we do now?”

But Peter didn’t know.

“If Cooper, Becky and Tokala don’t attend the reintegration meeting tomorrow, I guess we’ll know where they stand, won’t we?”

“Why?”

Teddy merely shrugged. “Well, then we’ll know that they’re not interested in coming back to the real world, won’t we? And we’ll know they don’t care about the rest of us, either. After all, Peter, what will we do about the Dead if the Returned aren’t around to help us?”

Peter nodded. Teddy was right. And somehow, right there and then, a pact was made.

Peter reached the cabin in the desert. Inside was another way through. He crossed the front stoop, taking note of the same matching toothbrushes and towels inside as the cabin before, and left by the back door. He passed through a forest of dense fern, where tightly coiled fiddleheads unfurled into broad blades even though it was night, and made his way towards another cabin.

The third cabin interior was completely dark. Peter fumbled for the same toothbrushes and towels, but didn’t find them. He reached out, searching for the timber walls. But there weren’t any. It was as if the cabin was made of pure darkness. Only the scent of the bed and their bodies mingling marked the cabin out as the same one as before. And their scent was strongest here. A sliver of light on the floor highlighted the back door. Peter called Cooper’s name inside his head and the door was open.