“Then go find Tokala,” said his dad. “He’s pitched a yellow tent next to a fishing hole round the back of the Whistles.”

Peter took his wolfskin down off the hook. “I don’t want to leave the lake.”

“I know, Pete. But you’re acting like it’s your decision. You have other people to think about now. Other considerations. Without Henry, we don’t even have a doctor here any more. And what about medicines? Have you even thought about how you expect to replace dwindling supplies without Returnees to make trade with?”

“Then, tell me what to do.”

His dad offered a weary smile. “No. If you and Cooper have taken the decision to lead, then lead. But I think you be should clear in your own mind that you’re not putting everyone at risk just for Cooper’s sake. You also need to speak to Becky. You can’t ignore her forever.”

“Can’t I?”

“Pete, she risked her life crossing the ice to help me. She hasn’t forgiven herself for what she did to Rider and she won’t be able to either. You’ll have to do it for her. If you can find her, that is. The last I heard, she was sitting on the waiting bench beneath the falls. But no one’s seen her since.”

Peter took his staff from behind the door and struck the floorboards with force, once, just to be sure of it. “And what about you, Dad? What do you want?”

“You know I’ll be wherever you need me to be.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.”

“Would you be happy in a town?”

“I’ll be happy just as long as I’m close to you and Cooper.”

“But—”

“I love you. That’s all that matters.”

Peter stood at the door and his dad resumed his work. There was something he wasn’t saying. But whatever it was it hovered just out of reach of the conversation, so Peter let him be and quietly made his way down on to the frozen lake.

The Whistles were made up of two steep forested islands, separated by a tight ravine where the rock had split in two. In the summer months, fisherfolk took smaller canoes down there in search of a day’s catch. The black waters bristled with scores of breeding trout. But winter was another matter entirely. In the dark months, it became the place of lost voices. Once, a deer hoping to make the leap from one island to the next had misjudged the distance and failed to make it. The speed of its fall into the converging walls was so great that when Bud went down there to put the poor beast out of its misery, he found the animal stuck halfway down, back snapped in two. Head over hind.