It was a dream Olivia had been having, in one form or another, for years. She was so familiar with the rooms, their colours and layout, the types of furniture and where they were placed. She could have drawn it in her sleep…

She always started off walking down a long hallway, painted in a shade approaching avocado green but not quite making it there, stuck somewhere between mint and chartreuse. She ran a hand along the wall. It was freezing cold. She shivered and continued to walk.

At the far end of the hallway, a set of double doors stood open. The cool green walls gave way to the rich velvet of fine drapery in crimson cast. She could hear music playing; it seemed to come out from between the drapes. As she approached, the lights above her head began to flicker, randomly at first and then with the kind of pulsing regularity that screamed out with intelligent intent at its source.

Still, bravely undeterred, she continued to walk.

The curtains were within her grasp. Pushing her way through, she paused only once in the strobe-lit hallway, the music filling the space around her, before shoving the panels aside and entering the room. A white and black zig-zag floor and red curtains all the way around, it reminded her of a school yard joke—"What's white and black and red all over?"—but she didn't laugh.

She expected to see the man but, instead, in the middle of the room stood a woman; young-looking, with tears in her eyes. She wore a black dress that hung heavy on her petite frame; her hair was styled and curled around her face, beautifully even, but she seemed so sad. Olivia reached for her, hoping to help, but as the woman opened her mouth to speak, no words came out; her lips, forming a perfect, ruby-red 'O', let forth the most bone-chillingly fierce shrieks Olivia had ever heard.

Frightened, Olivia tried to turn and run. But her feet remained rooted to the floor…

"Agent Farnsworth, have you ever gone fly fishing?"

Dr. Walter Bishop lumbered from the bunsen burner to the table, carrying a beaker of coffee in his gloved hands. He poured it into a mug with the periodic table of elements printed on it, grasped it with both hands, and took a gulp.

Astrid Farnsworth, knowing full well what she had just cleaned out of those beakers that morning, grimaced as she watched him drink. "Walter, I bought you a coffee maker, remember?"

He gaped at her for a moment before speaking. "Well…yes, yes, but there's something about the process that unsettles me. This—" he motioned to his mug with a smile, "This is a thing of perfection."

Astrid shrugged and continued to fiddle with the laptop computer in front of her. "Well, to answer your question: no. I have never gone fly fishing."

"It is exhilarating," Walter continued. "You must try it."

Astrid smiled. "One day, Walter," she told him. With a final click, she sat up and cracked her fingers. "But until then, I suggest you get familiar with your email inbox."

Walter screwed up his face. "I don't know why I need an email account."

"You've had one for as long as you've been working here."

He shot her a puzzled look. "I have?"

She nodded. "Yes. And it's full. And people are sending you information requests and having their messages bounced back to them undeliverable because it's full, and Agent Broyles is getting an earful about it. So, he asked me to help you learn." She smiled at him, sympathy on her face. " Really, it's not such a bad thing to be connected. Or to at least check in once in a while."

Walter's face softened and he took another big gulp from his coffee mug before trudging over to the computer and peering into the screen. "What do I do?"

Astrid smile. "Well, I've already deleted all the old emails. But you should learn how to check and read and reply to them so that, from now on, you'll have a means of communication that fits better with the twenty-first century."

Walter scowled at Astrid's sly dig, but he sat down beside her, coffee mug in hand, awaiting his tutorial.

"Now, when you get an email—" Astrid began, cut off as the screen refreshed and a new email popped up in the inbox. "Hey, whaddya know?"

"Who is it from?" Walter asked.

Astrid glanced at the 'From' line. "Doctor Lawrence Jacoby."

"Ah!" Walter beamed, pulling on the laptop screen so it faced him. "He's an old friend of mine! How does he know my email address?"

Astrid laughed and showed Walter how to click on the link that opened the text of the email, then set about tidying up while Walter read the correspondence. "Don't touch anything," she instructed. "I'll show you how to reply when you're finished. You know how to type, don't you?" The question seemed simple, but Astrid was unsettled. "Oh dear…I don't know if I can teach you to type…"

But Walter was silent. His eyes misted with concern and as he peered through his glasses at the screen, he inched forward in his seat.

"Walter?" Astrid asked. "Is everything okay?"

Walter nodded but couldn't tear his eyes from the message. "Agent Farnsworth, be a dear and get Peter on the phone…"

FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham walked a few steps behind Peter Bishop as they entered the Harvard lab where Peter's father had set up shop.

"What's cooking?" Peter asked.

"I made coffee…" Walter offered, helpfully.

Peter sighed. "I meant it figuratively but…okay, I guess I deserved that."

"Walter," Olivia tried, "Astrid said you needed us here?"

"Oh!" Walter said. "Yes. I received an email today—"

"An email?" Peter glanced at Astrid. "You finally taught him how to use his email?"

Astrid smiled. "I'm not just a pretty face, Peter."

"Clearly," he jabbed his thumb in her direction and winked at Olivia. "You guys should put her on the hunt for Bigfoot."

Olivia grinned, but her mind was distracted by whatever it was that Walter initially needed them for. "Walter?"

"Yes. Right. The email was from an old friend, Doctor Lawrence Jacoby. We went to school together—he studied neuroscience, and I studied biochemistry, but we were in the same fraternity and—" he shook his head, cutting himself off before anyone else did. "He has a psychiatric practice in Washington State. He emailed me today because there has been an…" he trailed off, flicking his fingers with excitement as he searched for the words or the phrase to use to explain himself. "Well," he finally spoke, "There's been a rather unusual death."

"Why would he contact you?" Peter asked. "Or do small town psychiatrists always take it upon themselves to investigate suspicious deaths?"

"He knows I'm involved with the FBI, for starters."

"But deaths, no matter how suspicious, don't usually fall under the purview of the FBI," Peter countered.

"Yes, yes, I know," Walter's huffed. "But it's the nature of the death that interests me."

Olivia narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

Walter's eyes gleamed. "The girl was, by all accounts, frightened to death."

"Frightened," Peter restated. "To death."

"Precisely," Walter said. "By someone, or something, three days ago in a supermarket in this town. And," he added, "It's not the first time this has happened. Twenty years ago, the very same thing…"

Peter stood up from his perch on the edge of the lab bench. "I still don't see the relevance—"

"Peter," Walter's voice was serrated. "Listen to me. The body weighed eighty pounds after her death. From over one-thirty to eighty." He took a deep breath, trying to force himself to calm down. "It's as if half of her disappeared the moment she died."

Olivia glanced at Peter and then back at Walter. "You say this happened before?"

"Yes," Walter said, excited. "And the FBI was involved at that time. There should be records."

Olivia was already halfway out the door. "I'll talk to Broyles."

Special Agent Philip Broyles steepled his fingers and eyed Olivia curiously. "And you think this is something worthy of our time? Considering everything else we have on our plate?"

"I know it's a stretch, sir, but yes I feel there's a connection."

He looked down at his desk. "I'm surprised you have this information so quickly. We were only just notified an hour ago."

Olivia shifted from one foot to the other. "The fact that you were notified should say something, shouldn't it?"

Broyles seemed unconvinced. "How did you hear about it?"

"Walter is friends with a psychiatrist out there, and this doctor contacted him this afternoon."

Broyles nodded. "Well this psychiatrist's information is impeccable. He should be working for us."

Olivia managed a half-grin. "Can I have it, sir?"

"Why do you want it so bad?"

Olivia wavered. She considered telling him about the dreams, about the way they'd started when she was a first-year recruit at the Academy, about how she felt whenever she woke up following her visions, like there was something she had been tasked to do. Instead, she swallowed the words away.

"I know this case. When the rest of my cohort were studying serial killers like Bundy and Dahmer and Manson, I pored over every resource I could get my hands on trying to understand this very case. Missing FBI agents, murdered prom queens—it was like a soap opera. And the hints of the occult, references to spirits and portals…the city has its own mythology, rooted in the stories of the Native Americans and the very land itself…"

When it didn't appear that Broyles was particularly moved, Olivia tried a different tack.

"What if there was more to it than simply murder? What if there was a…supernatural element to it? This place could be related to the Pattern we've been seeing."

"You believe that?"

Olivia stabbed a finger at the file on Broyles' desk. "How do you explain the weight loss? The cause of death? Extreme fright?" She stood up again. "Does that sound like a normal case to you?"

Broyles looked down at the page.

"There was another woman. Twenty years ago," Olivia said. "Same thing."

Broyles leaned back in his chair. "I can give you a week. Nine days, tops. But if anything bigger comes up, I'm pulling you back. No questions."

Olivia nodded, hiding her joy. "Agreed. Thank you sir."

"Be careful," he said as she left his office. "I hear you're likely to drown from all the rain up there this time of year."

Olivia grinned and pressed her phone to her ear. Peter picked up after the first ring.

"What's the deal?"

"Pack your bags," she said. "We're heading to Twin Peaks."