Two bottles clinked together and Peter drew back further against the ravine wall. Cooper was with Becky. Peter hadn’t been to see her once since that night on the lake. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her after what she’d done to Rider. But hearing her voice now, he realized how much he missed her.

Becky kept chatting away to Cooper. They’d never hung out together before. Not once. In a way, it was one of the things Peter liked most about their friendship. Having her all to himself. Cooper had always been popular. Always. Even when he was young, offering to canoe people home in the middle of the night when they’d had too much whisky to know a paddle from a floorboard. They’d always invite him up for a nightcap and a cup of hot cocoa. But not Peter. The lake pretty much left him alone. All of them except Becky, that was. Until now. Apparently, she had Cooper instead, and a friendship where one had never existed before.

A fist, the size of a paddle, emerged bloodied from the Restless One’s hunkered form and nudged the ball back in the direction it had come from.

“See?” said Cooper. “When they don’t got regular people in their way, they act different.”

“Amazing.”

Peter smiled to himself. He missed hearing Becky’s eyes roll.

“It is,” said Cooper. “They’re part of us. We can do whatever we want with ’em. Just think what that means. Just think what that could mean for us.”

Peter drew further back into the ravine and the word Us hung inside the darkness of the night.

“He hasn’t even spoken to me since that night,” said Becky after a while.

“Who, Pete?”

“Yeah.”

“Give him time.”

“I’m not sure time will do anything other than make us grow further apart.”

“Then let him come to you. You only know you got a horse’s true trust when you let ’em come to you.”

“But has he said anything to you?” Becky asked after a while.

“He don’t say much.”

“But—”

“He don’t say much, Becky. And I’m here, ain’t I?”

Cooper called the Restless One away. “Come on, big fella. Let’s get you back in the woods before somebody finds ya.”

The thing rose like a bear, with the folds of its weight unravelling, back up to its full height and slowly made its way towards the other end. Relieved, Peter released his grip on the staff and peered around the corner.