Peter gently pushed the door aside, praying that two shocked faces would bolt from their rocking chairs in anger at his sudden intrusion. But no one came. Beneath the window, steam curled from a tin cup to mist the glass. The fire crackled. Peter glanced down, picking a small wooden ball on a stick up off the floor. He shook it and it rattled. Another door led off to the bedroom. A crib made out of an old wooden fruit punnet was suspended by a rope from the beams so it could swing. The crib was perfectly still. Empty, perhaps. Peter thought to make his way through to the bedroom just to be sure, but the silence surrounding the crib was heavy and unnatural. His eyes scanned the base of the crib for the tiniest signs of movement. A jolt. A wriggle. Anything. But it didn’t come. Perhaps it was just empty. But he’d grown to recognize the moments darkness hid inside a place or object. He’d felt it when he stared at the crate in the boathouse the night he found the Bearskin’s pelt, and he could feel it now.

He stepped backwards towards the front door, setting the rattle down across the sill. Cooper had taught him many things over the last month, but always knowing your exit route was paramount. He turned away to leave, but the silence emanating from the crib crawled out of the bedroom and sat heavy across his shoulders. The cabin was lifeless. But the crib wasn’t empty. He was sure of it now. Peter braced both hands across the doorframe. He should go back. He should go in and make sure the swaddling was drawn over the little one’s face so their eyes weren’t left staring up at the spot above the crib where their parents’ faces once smiled. But he couldn’t.

Peter staggered outside, pulling the door to, and the dreadful grumble and spew of the geysers drowned out the silence festering inside.

Something popped. Peter grabbed his waist, feeling for the gun Cooper insisted he kept there. A welt of bulbous mud splattered over the bridge and he loosened his grip. It was just a geyser.