Victoria scowls at Peter. She has an impressive scowl. On the opposite side of the table, Peter looks as if he wants to hop out of the window and run into the desert, and I don’t blame him. I suddenly feel as protective as I did when I defended Claire from the dogs, except there’s no trash can lid to fling at Victoria. “Leave him alone.”

Victoria crosses her arms. “He said it’s happened before. What happened? The Missing Man leaving? The void encroaching?”

I don’t expect Peter to answer, but he does. “Both.”

“What did you do to stop it?”

“Nothing. Couldn’t.”

I feel cold and suddenly want to change the topic. The look in Peter’s eyes...he looks as if he’s seen too much, knows too much, as if the weight of his memories has aged him. But Victoria doesn’t care or doesn’t see. She taps her foot, overtly impatient. “What happened? Spill, Finder.”

He shrugs. “It destroyed the town.”

“Not comforting,” Victoria says. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Hope. Just hope.” There’s a deadness to his voice. Without thinking about it, I cross to him and put my arms around him. I feel the tension in his muscles, as if his limbs were ropes of rock. I step away, and he tries to smile at me—I see him try and think it is the sweetest smile I have ever seen. For an instant, it feels as if he and I are the only ones in the room.

Sean appears in the doorway. “Lunch is served!” He carries bowl after mismatched bowl into the dining room: rice mixed with a variety of spices, a soup that I can’t recognize, a meatloaf served with thick toast. It all smells amazing. We all sit down. I spread a napkin on my lap. It’s white with daisies on it. The edges have burn marks on it, but otherwise it’s fine.

We eat in silence.

Victoria puts down her spoon and opens her mouth to speak.

“Eat, drink, be merry.” Peter starts to sing what sounds like a drinking song at the top of his lungs. He leaps to his feet and holds out his hand toward Claire. She leaps up, too, and the two of them cavort around the table. Claire’s laughing. Peter’s smiling, albeit stiffly. If it were just us, I would have danced, too. Instead, I watch them, while my brain helpfully supplies the rest of the saying: For tomorrow we die.

“You hate the Missing Man because this happened before,” I say suddenly. I’m sure of it as soon as the words are out of my mouth. I know that he and the Missing Man have a history. And the look in his eyes when he talked about it... This was what caused the antagonism between them.

Peter spins Claire in a circle. “Lost needs both its Finder and its Missing Man. Without the Missing Man sending people home, hope dies, despair wins, and the void grows...‘With silver bells and cockleshells / And pretty maids all in a row.’”

I stare at him for a moment. Hope dies, despair wins. “If we clap, then Tinker Bell lives?”

“Exactly. More or less.” He grins at me, just at me, and I grin back, even though we’re talking about the destruction of this town. I revel in the way he smiles so directly at me, as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist and I’m the only one he sees. The sadness has receded from his eyes like the ocean tide.

Victoria snorts. “That’s ridiculous. It can’t be that...childish.”

“Can. Is.” He spins Claire again. She giggles. “‘Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul,’ that can save us.”

“Fine. So we all need to think happy thoughts and click our heels three times and whatever bullshit.” Victoria taps the table with her fork. She looks as if she’s thinking not-so-happy thoughts. “Is there something else we can hope for, since Lauren scared away everyone’s hope?”

Peter halts Claire midspin. Both he and Claire glare at Victoria. I’m grateful for that solidarity. At least they don’t blame me. I feel a surge of fondness for both of them and want to throw my arms around them.

Sean covers Victoria’s hand with his. “Or we all thought she did,” he amends.

I smile brightly at Victoria and Sean. “Good thing we’re friends now and don’t think that anymore.”

Victoria smiles back, just as falsely, and then switches her attention immediately back to Peter. “Is there another way to send people on?”

My smile dies. She’s asked it, the question that I’ve danced around for weeks, the one I’m afraid to ask directly for fear there is no answer, the question that matters most. Peter plops down in his chair and scoops another spoonful of soup into his mouth. As we stare at him, waiting, he continues to eat. He blots his mouth with the napkin.

I think of my mother, waiting for me, waiting for this answer.

Victoria glares. “Answer me, Finder.”

Peter stands up in a swirl of coat, shadowed and forbidding. All trace of the man who’d danced with a little girl is gone. I think he’s going to shout. Or leave. Or flip the table. He doesn’t. He sits down again and takes another bite of meatloaf.

Softly, Sean says, “You don’t want to answer because you don’t want us to stop hoping. If we give up hope, we’re dead, right? And the void wins.”

Peter taps his nose. “Bingo.”

“But not answering is an answer!” Victoria leaps to her feet and slams down her spoon. “It’s ‘no.’ It’s hopeless. If we can’t leave without the Missing Man, people will give up, the void will come, and everything will be destroyed.”

Standing, Sean clasps her hands to his chest. “It won’t. It can’t. Not now. Because I’m not giving you up.” His voice throbs with sincerity, and Victoria returns his intensity with her own melting regard. My eyes slide to Peter, but he isn’t looking at me.

“Aww.” Peter props his chin on his hands and flutters his eyelashes. “Young love. Or middle-aged love. So Hallmark-card sweet.”

Victoria pivots and opens her mouth as if to yell at Peter.

I step in front of him. “Enough.”

Victoria switches her anger to me, but Sean stops her with a touch. “Do you have an idea?” he asks me.

Taking a deep breath, I say, “Yes. Lie to them—the townspeople, I mean. Tell them it’s all okay. Tell them he’s coming back. Claim that you know why he left and it’s not a big deal and it will just take time and people need to be patient.”

Claire points at me. “See. You’re clever.” She smiles proprietarily at Peter, as if she discovered me, which in a way she did.

Victoria frowns. “I can’t lie about something that important.”

“Even to save lives?” I ask. “Even to save him?” I point at Sean.

Victoria opens her mouth and shuts it.

I lean forward eagerly, enamored with my shiny new idea. “They’ll listen to you! To both of you! We need a lie. A plausible lie.”

Sean is nodding. He’s with me, I can tell.

“Tell them the Missing Man had to...I don’t know...”

“Visit someone,” Peter volunteers. “Someone he suddenly remembered, thanks to Little Red here. He’s helping that person and it’s delayed his return. But he has every intention of coming back when he’s done.”

“Yes!” I pound the table. “He’s taking some personal time. How often does he have a vacation? He’s using the vacation time that he’s accumulated over...”

“Centuries,” Peter puts in.

I pause and look at Peter. “How old are you?” It’s not a question I’ve ever asked him before. Some moments he seems eternally young, as if he’s tapped directly into an innocence more childlike than even Claire, and other times he seems as timeless as an ancient wizard, or a shaman who has seen things beyond this world.

“Never ask a gentleman his age.”

Not for the first time, I wonder what he is, where he came from, what his story is. But I can’t ask in front of them, and I know he won’t answer. All these weeks together, and he’s told me so little about himself. It should bother me more than it does. But he’s here with me now, supporting my plan, and that matters more. “Lie to people. Tell them...tell them I reminded him of the daughter that he abandoned, and he went to make sure she’s okay. But she isn’t okay, and now he’s helping her.” I like that lie. It would have been nice if it had happened to me. “I bet they’ll even want to believe it.” I was very good at lying to myself. I bet the townspeople would be good at it, too, especially if Victoria and Sean were to give them the appropriate nudge.