Prologue

Tuesday, March 28

Sheriff Truman rubbed his eyes and stared past the blurred shapes and lines in his field of vision to focus on the paper in front of him.

In his years as sheriff, he'd filled out dozens of incident reports—burglaries, vehicle accidents, minor criminal activity of the sort that usually peppered small town American life. He was no stranger to this part of the job.

But in the last month alone he'd filled out reports for drug smuggling, arson, cross-border infractions, abductions, assaults, and murders. And now he was staring down his pen at the handful of lines on the report sheet that were supposed to be enough to contain everything that had happened since he and Cooper had raced to the Roadhouse the night before to stop Windom Earle from carrying out his planned attack at the pageant.

Coffee wasn't going to cut it today. With a sigh, he pushed the paper away and rubbed his eyes again before reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk for the bottle of whiskey he kept there for moments like this. He uncapped the bottle and poured two fingers worth in the bottom of his coffee mug just as the intercom on his desk buzzed.

"Sheriff Truman?" Lucy's voice crackled over the connection. "I had Benjamin Horne on the phone just now. He didn't think it was necessary to disturb you, but he wanted me to tell you that he is really hoping the District Attorney's office won't be pursuing charges against Doc Hayward. He says it's more important to move on from…things like this…and I told him that it's not really our decision to make, but he said he was going to speak to someone in the DA's office, since Doctor Hayward turned himself in, after all, and it's his first offence and—in Mr. Horne's words—he kind of asked for it. He called it ex-ten-u-a-ting circumstances." Lucy sounded exasperated, as if the simple act of remembering all of that had taxed her to her breaking point. Truman had heard of baby brain before; the thought of that affecting Lucy's already scattered intellect was almost too much to consider. He made a mental note to contact the staffing agency in Spokane about finding a maternity leave replacement—the sooner, the better.

"And we did release him on bail, after all, mostly because you needed him to check on Agent Cooper, but I didn't tell Mr. Horne that, even though he'd probably agree it was the right thing to do. He's sure acting differently these days, isn't he Sheriff Truman? Maybe it's all this drama, or maybe he's just happy about the Ghostwood development progress but—"

Truman cleared his throat. "Yeah, Lucy, thanks."

"Okay," she said. "Also, Agent Rosenfield is on the other line."

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Oh for the love of—" he caught himself before pressing the intercom button. "Patch him through."

"Yes Sheriff Truman."

"Lucy," he returned, a little more softly. "Next time, put the call through first, okay?"

She echoed herself. "Yes, Sheriff Truman."

Moments later, the line crackled but Truman, barely able to squeak out a hello, was interrupted by the impatient rattle of the FBI agent's stream of thought, already in mid-sentence.

"—Say it was good to talk to you, but given the circumstances…"

"I, for one, couldn't be happier," Truman replied. "This one's a real head-scratcher. I could use your help if that's what you're calling about."

"Say the word and I'm there."

"I'll book you a room at the Great Northern."

"Tell me about Cooper? How's he doing?"

Truman took a deep breath that was supposed to be steadying but instead set his nerves on edge. He exhaled. "Albert, I'll be straight with you: it's the absolute damnedest thing and I don't even know where to start."

"How about the beginning?"

Truman swallowed another deep breath around a swig of whiskey, letting the stinging warmth course down his throat before replying. "I'm working on the final report now, but you must have read the preliminary report. I had Lucy send it over to Gordon on Sunday night."

"Yes, I read it," Albert said, and Truman could hear him thumbing through pages on the other end. "Mysterious trees and an oil spill and red curtains materializing out of thin air…all sounds a little bizarre, to tell you the truth."

"Well, it's about par for the course the way things've been going here."

"But the report ends after Cooper was retrieved from this Glastonbury Grove."

"Yeah," Truman sighed. "He was delirious, we thought from hunger but we have no idea what kind of place this was that he went to. He was gone for hours—nearly a full day, as a matter of fact—but he swears it was minutes, maybe a half hour at the most. Doc Hayward treated him for dehydration, back at his hotel. We thought he'd be fine. He slipped and fell in the bathroom, cracked his head on the mirror. He needed a few stitches, which Will was able to fix up right there, but then…things got strange."

"Strange how?"

"Well, they were little things," the sheriff leaned back in his chair and sighed, drawing circles in the air in front of him with an empty hand. "Personality changes. One minute he'd be himself and the next he'd be…too informal, and then too severe, and then laughing—crazed laughter. From one moment to the very next. It was—" Truman chuckled mirthlessly. "Cooper's always been an…odd guy, but…I mean, ordering a pot of coffee and drinking it straight from the carafe? And then calling down to the kitchen to complain that he'd burned his tongue? That's just not him."

Albert hmmm'd over the phone. "No, it's not."

"And some of the things he'd said," Truman continued. "He wasn't really sure Annie Blackburne was really Annie. Kept muttering things about a Red Room, some kind of ring. I wasn't sure what any of it meant. I still don't." The sheriff shook his head. "He just didn't seem to be himself."

A moment passed before Truman sighed. "Doc Hayward recommended that he be admitted as a precaution. Calhoun Memorial just isn't equipped for the kinds of tests he'd need for a positive diagnosis, but based on his symptoms, they figure he's got some swelling on his brain, maybe from hitting his head, maybe from something that happened to him wherever he went that night. I don't know," he admitted. "He's been in a medically induced coma for about 36 hours now to try and alleviate that."

Albert was silent for a while. "How's the pageant girl?"

"Catatonic," Truman said. "I don't know what's going to happen to her. I can't even figure out what's already happened. It's more than a mystery. It's a damn mess."

"Harry, it's gonna be all right. Gordon and I are flying in from Philadelphia as soon as we can. You'll be the first call I make when we land."

"Sure do appreciate it, Albert."

"In the meantime, I'm guessing from the sound of your voice that you've been subsisting on a diet of stale donuts, and what's Lucy making for you—triple brews? Topped off with a little top shelf scotch?"

Truman looked in his glass. Man, those J. Edgars are good! he thought. "It's whiskey, actually," he grinned. "But what do you recommend instead?"

"Liver and onions, usually," Albert dead-panned. "But I hear there's a gal named Norma, makes the best pies in the state."

Truman grinned. "You heard correct."

"Then I suggest you put down the hair of the dog and get yourself some breakfast at the Double R, stat," Albert ordered. "I'll call you when I know more."

"You got it," Truman nodded. They said their goodbyes, and the sheriff stood up behind his desk. The paperwork could wait.

For the first time since Cooper went under, he felt something akin to hope. He could only wish that the feeling would last…

His plan had failed. He'd seen the face in the mirror—the one that was clearly not his own—and seized an opportunity to destroy it. Even if it had meant killing himself, he reasoned, he had to try. He had to stop the evil entity from doing what he knew it would do: use his body the same way as it had used Leland's…

But it was no use, and the moment of strength and possession was gone. He could sense the change—his corporeal self damaged, bleeding, and finally readmitted to the hospital—and felt nothing of the previous will that had allowed him to control himself, however briefly, in the outside world. Because it was the outside world. Or was it? It was a different world than the one he was in, the one with the endlessly looping hallways, the strange music, the now-familiar cast of characters: the Shadow Selves, the doppelgängers—Leland and Laura, the Giant and the Little Man, Caroline, Annie…

No, he knew this was a different world, separate from Twin Peaks, from the mountains and the Douglas firs. He knew he wasn't dead. The rules didn't apply to him like they did to the others; his words, when he chanced to speak them, came out fluidly. But his Shadow Self, with the glassy eyes and the crazed laugh who had beaten him to the exit, who had taken Annie from him, who existed now in his skin outside the red room—remained rooted to him.

Somehow.

Because there were moments when a lightness came over him; like looking through a porthole after a terrible storm, he could feel cool air on his skin and his heart opened up. When the veil between the worlds lifted, he knew he was seeing the things the "other him" was seeing. A hospital room; a view outside window; a cracked mirror. His hazy memories—growing more and more distant—coalesced until he thought he understood what had happened. Until he figured out that he was the way BOB had reentered the real world.

The thought terrified him enough as it was—an out of control madman in the body of a respected law enforcement agent. He had no way of stopping the carnage—not since that first, isolated moment in the hotel bathroom—if BOB decided to wreak it. He knew he would have to sit there and watch. It was enough to make him lose faith, almost entirely, in his ability to right this terrible wrong.

Almost. But not quite.

The first time he heard Audrey's voice filtering through the gauzy world in which he was trapped, he was filled with hope. He could hear her; could she hear him? He was—he knew—a strong sender. Was it possible…?

He wouldn't let it go without giving it the old college try. So he began narrating to her, the same way he'd narrated to Diane, speaking to the red curtains that leapt endlessly into the sky above his head.

He prayed for the messages to reach her…

Wednesday March 29

Audrey Horne swung her legs over the edge of the hospital bed and winced as she pointed her toes downward in an attempt to find the floor. She felt like she'd been ridden hard and put away wet; everything hurt. Muscles she didn't know she had ached and cried out for relief, and all the Percocet in the world didn't seem to help ease the constant, dull throb she felt everywhere from the soles of her feet to the ends of her hair.

What happened to me?

She pushed herself up off the bed and teetered there unsteadily for a moment until she regained her balance. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she walked towards the bathroom beside the bed, and thought twice about flipping on the bright fluorescent lights overhead once she felt the searing jab of her headache squatting on her optic nerve. Her vision blurred and she closed her eyes until the moment passed.

When she opened them, she was staring at herself in the mirror above the sink. It was her face—battered and bruised but hers, and for some reason that fact was incredibly, powerfully soothing; as if she was expecting to see someone else leering back at her from the other side of the mirror. She had a black eye smudged across the skin underneath her right eye. Her lower lip was split and swollen, but healing. A rough hatch of cuts on her cheekbone reminded her of childhood skinned knees. She wondered if it would scar.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She lifted a hand and touched the cuts, the bruises. She pressed the bags under her eyes and ran a finger over her eyelashes, sticking together from tears and old mascara. She wanted to wash her face, but the thought of rubbing a coarse hospital face cloth over the road burn on her cheek left her weak in the knees. She braced herself against the counter for a moment before turning and walking from the room and out into the main hallway of the ward.

She knew he'd been admitted not long ago; that much she'd overheard from nurses and doctors outside in the hallway. But she didn't need to be told how to find him. Her feet walked her there, seemingly of their own accord. And when she arrived, after trodding the hospital corridors undetected by the Calhoun Memorial night nursing staff, she stood in his doorway for a long time before crossing the threshold and into the dim, moonlit room.

Under the thin sheet, he looked so small. He had bandages wrapped around his head; a needle in his hand glimmered in a shaft of moonlight, the tubing snaking its way over the railing and up to the IV pole next to him. Audrey shivered and walked over to his bedside, her eyes never leaving his face. She stood, swaying next to him, for a long moment before lowering herself into the chair she found there and reaching for his hand.

She counted his fingers—1, 2, 3, 4, 5... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5—and threaded hers in between, revelling in the warmth of his skin.

"I don't remember what happened. I was at the bank. I had them call the sheriff's department for you. Did they reach you? There was an explosion. But then I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere really scary. But I wasn't really there. It was more like I was watching it on TV or something." Audrey swallowed, her tongue thick and dry. "I saw you there. Could you see me?"

She sniffled and kissed his knuckle.

"I don't know what's going on. I need you now. I need you to wake up and I need you to be here. I need you to help me figure this one out."

But it was to no avail. She never really expected it to work; this wasn't a soap opera. Instead she clutched at his hand and kissed it as she cried.

Sudden flashbacks of her deepest nightmares returned, and she wept, openly, against Cooper's limp hand. The red drapes, the black and white floor, garbled messages filtering in from overhead and underground and everywhere in between, a mess of half-remembered shapes and colours and sounds.

But Cooper was there, and so was Annie, and other people she knew or thought she knew, people she thought she'd never see again—that one-armed shoe salesman, an owl who looked an awful lot like Josie Packard, Maddy Ferguson, Leland and Laura Palmer. They didn't see her—she seemed to think the white eyes had something to do with that—or if they did see her they didn't care that she was there. They laughed and cried; sometimes they bled, from wounds Audrey could never make out, wounds that would disappear and reappear from one minute to the next but which always soaked them in blood as red red red as those drapes.

The little man in the suit and the man with the jeans on—the one from the posters and the guy they all thought had killed Laura and Maddy—were there too. They vamped and danced in the corners, never making eye contact with her. But she knew they knew she was there.

She trembled at the remembrance.

The real world intruded on her thoughts; beeping machines and the slow drip of an IV replaced the voices, and the sterile white and avocado green of the hospital walls surrounded her instead of hot reds and blinding lights. She was still holding Cooper's hand.

She pressed her lips to the back of his hand, again, rubbing her cheek against his skin. "I don't know how to make sense of this. Any of this. I need you now. Okay? I need you to come back. Please?" she begged. "Please, Dale, you have to come back…"

Her presence in his room had finally been noticed, and her frantic cries towards Agent Cooper reverberated down the bare hallways even as the nurses who dragged her away sedated her. She was back in her room within minutes, fetally-curled under a thin blanket, aching and sad but right back in the dream world she never wanted to see again. She ran, down miles of red-draped corridors, into rooms with chairs and statues and singing and laughing, voices that seemed strangled and garbled, as if spun through a cotton candy machine, spun into wisps and fluff of virtually no substance, spun into the kind of stuff that disappears as soon as you look at it.

Through it all, though, she heard his voice. Calling her name, over and over again.

Audrey…can you hear me, Audrey? Help me…please help me, Audrey…