“I don’t like it any more than you do, son. But he’s a state marshal. If we find anything here today we’ll have to report it back.”

Peter glanced over his shoulder, looking for the single handcuff beside the bench he’d found Cooper shackled to that night. If only he hadn’t been in the woods that day. If only a great many things.

“And what about Cooper?”

“We’re not here just because we’re worried about him, Peter,” said the sheriff. “But for him. Try and keep that in mind, OK?”

“OK.”

“I know it’s hard. And there ain’t a single soul out there who’d think otherwise, ain’t that right, Teddy?”

Teddy nodded more times than was necessary. “That’s right. It’s very pretty here, Peter.”

Another shooting star passed over the mountains and Peter held a sigh in his chest. “Yes.”

“It must feel like coming home,” said the sheriff.

Home, Peter thought. But he didn’t answer. “It’s that island. The one with the steps leading off the jetty up through the pines. Henry’s cabin’s on top of the hill. That was Selma’s home before him and that’s where Rider spoke with Cooper.”

The sheriff pulled down his trapper hat by the ears, clapping both hands together to warm them. “Then let’s go. The sooner we get this over and done with, the sooner we can get back home.”

They travelled out across the ice. Peter kept his eyes on the forest borders as they went just in case one of the Dead should follow, but nothing shook the snow from the branches at the lake’s edge or broke out from behind one of the islands to tail them like a shadow. And soon they made it to the jetty of Cabins Creak, taking the steep flight of steps up through the pines to the crest of the hill where Henry’s cabin cowered beneath an open sky, frosted with spears of ice hanging from every window.

The front door resisted them, as if the wood had started to grow back like skin over a wound now the cabin no longer had any inhabitants to disturb it. But it was just iced over. The sheriff leaned into the door, jostling the handle about and with a loud crack, it opened. He stepped to one side and Peter felt his invitation to enter first.