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Back Timberdark Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Praise for Wranglestone
  5. Epigraph
  6. Map
  7. Part I
  8. Prologue
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. Part II
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. Part III
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 5 Years Later
  43. Acknowledgements
  44. About the Author

His dad brought a big sigh up into his chest like he wasn’t too sure he liked this plan much. But there was more than tiredness inside him. There was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before; or something was gone from them, Peter wasn’t too sure which. But they carried a sudden dullness that could no longer be hidden.

Peter brought his dad in for a hug, telling him to go back to the tree house to stay warm beside the fire until someone came back for him. And he desperately hoped that would be enough. He hoped, as he set off back inside the snow on horseback with those mountains watching over him, that the lake would be enough for all of them.

Part III

27

Sunlight was only beginning to break across town when Peter found Cooper back at the supermarket. The sun hung low over the parking lot, splintering into shafts down the length of the aisles, painting strands of Cooper’s hair golden. A woman shouted across the lot, warning Peter not to go in. That he could get hurt. But he ignored her and instead paid attention to the hurt he’d caused by leaving Cooper alone in there, and quietly made his way in.

The supermarket was empty. Only the abandoned shopping baskets lay strewn across the floor, marking the spot where shoppers had been only moments before. But they were alone now. Peter removed the wet-floor sign at the foot of Cooper’s aisle, collapsing the two panels to lean it against the shelves, and stepped in. And in his trance-like state, Cooper was almost perfect, standing there in all his untouchable beauty with his soul half in this world and half in another. There was the boy who could pop tin cans off a post simply by smiling at them. There was the boy with the horse and two back pockets worn down by the ride. There was the boy he loved from afar without any of the pain that came with actually loving someone. And it crossed Peter’s mind that if all he ever wanted to do was look at Cooper and see him exactly as he used to be from across the other side of the lake before he went on to ruin everything by actually loving him, then he should’ve left him exactly where he was and never once set foot off the island. But watching someone like a photograph so they never get to change or change you, wasn’t love. And wishing things could go back to how they used to be without doing his best to make things right again wasn’t love either.