“I mean, you’re living proof that if people are isolated and scared enough, they can be turned against anyone.”

“That’s not true. I was just—”

“You were just what? Scared?”

“Yes.”

“Terrified? Hell. All any of us is, is terrified, Peter. Terrified of each other. Terrified we’ll never get it right. Terrified of getting it wrong if people aren’t what we think they might be.”

“But you put the idea into my head.”

“No!” The sheriff stepped forward. “No, no, no, son. You don’t get to put that one on me. You got there all by yourself. Weren’t you the one who assumed Timberdark was something terrible between the Returnees just because Cooper kept it secret from you? Weren’t you the one who saw terrible things in the woods without knowing what any of those things actually were? So, you see, I don’t know how it is that you have me so different from you.”

Peter glanced at the embroidered snowflake in the middle of the rug and cleared his throat. “Because—”

“Because what? Tell me how we are not alike?”

“Because of what I’m going to do with those things now I know better.”

“Oh?”

“On the dossier it says that you ignored explanations made by the Returnees about why humankind had been threatened with extinction. What did they mean by that?”

The sheriff’s eyes glinted in the candlelight. “It was nothin’. Nothin’ that could be trusted at any rate. Mutterin’s. Hate talk. The ramblings of a people already consumed by death.”

“But what did the Returnees mean? At the town hall, Cooper said that leaves turn wonderful colours just before they die because they’re celebrating the life they’ve lived, not death. But he wasn’t so sure about us. He wasn’t so sure about what we’d have to look back on. Why did he say that? Why did he say those things?”

The sheriff held Peter’s gaze. But he was interested in only one thing. “Where is it?”

“Answer me,” said Peter.

“Tell me where the dossier is, and I’ll help you.”

“And where’s Teddy?” Peter looked past the sheriff to the front of the cabin now. “Teddy!”

The front room glimmered dully in the half-light of the fire, making snow at the window burn red like embers. The only sound came from the crackling kindling. In the past that sound had been the song of home in winter and meant nothing but comfort. But it seemed eerie now, giving weight to the silence that existed outside it. And it suddenly occurred to Peter that he hadn’t heard Teddy’s movements in the kitchen since the sheriff’s return.

“Teddy!” he called. Then once more, but barely above a dying whisper, “Teddy.”

“It’s no use. He won’t hear you.”

The cabin walls swam with firelight and silences. “Why won’t he?”