Something skidded across the ice from the other end of the ravine to where Peter had entered and landed at the Restless One’s feet. An animal carcass. One side of the deer’s leg, the one with the fur still attached to it, was dull in the darkness. The other side glistened. The thing lumbered forward and its vast mass, as big as a grizzly, distinguished itself from the surrounding darkness. Peter held his breath. The wet glint of the Restless One’s eyes were sharp like starlight against the shadow of its face. And keen. They darted to the ice, fixating on the meat, but the thing stopped short of stooping down to retrieve it.

“S’all right,” came a voice in the darkness. “Ain’t nobody down here but us. And I won’t hurt ya.”

The thing hesitated.

“S’all right,” came the voice again to encourage it. “You can eat it. I reckon that deer is tenderer than a sow’s teat when it’s suckling twenty piglets.”

Peter’s heart pounded at hearing that voice again. That voice as warm as sunlight on driftwood. The only voice in the world that could transform his stupid name so magically so that all he ever heard was love. But his heart also began to beat in other ways he didn’t recognize. There was the familiar thrill of his own body recognising its proximity to Cooper’s. But for the very first time, there was something else knotted up inside that. Danger.

Peter had heard Rider talking with the Restless Ones the night they met out by the falls. Years of loneliness and isolation from other people lost deep inside the woods had driven him to make friends with the Dead and led him to believe they were making friends back with him. But this was different. There was a madness in Rider, while Cooper sounded completely calm.

“Reckon you musta lost your herd or somethin’,” Cooper went on. “But it’s OK. Why don’t ya eat? Then we’ll see if we can find ’em.”

The thing got down on to its haunches, hunched over the meat. There came a terrible crunch and the deer disappeared inside it. Blood, black in the night, seeped across the ice and something else rolled out towards the Restless One. A ball.

“Wait,” came Cooper’s voice.

“What are we waiting for?” came another.

“Ssh.”

“Don’t shush me. I was quite happy at home until you pulled me down here.”

Cooper tutted. “Well, quit bein’ impatient, then.”

“Such a brute. No wonder Pete’s so besotted.”

“Is he?”

“Oh, please. He fucking loves you. I mean, thank God we don’t have shops any more or else that tree house would be covered in cushions and mugs with your face plastered all over them.”

“Tell me that wasn’t a thing.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Jesus.”