(no subject)

[tibetanmethod]

Heidi is working the night shift tonight, as she has been for the last several weeks. Norma Jennings is in Brazil, and that means that Shelly -- Norma's second in command at the Double R Diner -- needs to be around during the day.

She looks up as the bell on the door jingles; Cooper is holding it open for Moiraine. He gestures to a booth on the lefthand side, and they take a seat.

When Heidi makes her way over, Cooper and Moiraine find out that today is a special on cherry pie, since cherries are in season. Also, there is peanut butter.

Cooper leans forward and says to Moiraine, very confidentially, "I recommend the cherry."

Comments

[blue_ajah]

"So it might seem."

She is still turned at an angle where she can watch him, and the intensity of her regard is almost disconcerting.

"But these dead, as you have said, live again-- and evidently interact with the world around them, rather than being distorted reflections of that which once was."

A pause.

"Am I correct?"

Each word is carefully precise.

[tibetanmethod]

Cooper hesitates.

"In general." He eases the car off the paved road. "Not -- specifically. I haven't seen Josie since the day Harry pulled us into the grove. I wouldn't have known Leland was back if I hadn't seen him through his living room window while I was taking a walk. And Leo -- " Cooper shakes his head slightly. "They're interacting with the world, but they're not members of the community. Not like they were."

[blue_ajah]

"I like this not at all, Dale."

The Aes Sedai's tone is neutrally calm.

"What effect would you say that it is having on Harry, if any?"

[tibetanmethod]

"He's spending as much time with her as he can."

FBI voice.

"He's happy."

[blue_ajah]

"I see."

A pause.

"Is this something he would have tried deliberately to do? Something he could have learned through studying that which is to be found in the Bookhouse?"

[tibetanmethod]

Cooper shakes his head. "No." Definite. "I don't think -- "

(Tibetan mumbo-jumbo)

" -- he would have tried. And the Bookhouse doesn't have the resources. Not like that."

[blue_ajah]

She gives him an odd look at the mention of the resources to be found there, but does not pursue it.

"If he would not have tried, then, perhaps."

[tibetanmethod]

He's leaning a little over the steering wheel, peering into the darkness. "Perhaps what?"

[blue_ajah]

An oddly strained pause, and then she says simply,

"Perhaps he may not be the cause of these events."

[tibetanmethod]

Another pause.



Mildly: "I very much doubt that he is."

[blue_ajah]

She inclines her head slightly.

"Do you have some idea as to what may be, then?"

Her tone is perfectly calm, nearly academic in terms of interest.

[tibetanmethod]

"No."

Simply.

It's why they're having this conversation to begin with.

"I don't."

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine nods, once.

"Then, if you would have me do so, I shall look into it as best I can, Dale."

It is possible that she would do so without his agreement, but perhaps that may not be necessary.

[tibetanmethod]

He's nodding. "Yes. Please." A flash of a smile, not bright, not for long. "I'm ill-equipped to investigate this kind of thing."

[blue_ajah]

"It is not the sort of thing that one would expect to have a need to know, I should think," she murmurs, and reaches out to touch his arm in a gesture of comfort, if briefly.

"I shall do what I may."

[tibetanmethod]

Coop, Morpheus told me once that the danger to Twin Peaks -- to our way of life -- came from decisions the people here would make. I've always thought the spirits in these woods protected Twin Peaks in some way. If people from outside -- drug dealers and pimps -- get Ghostwood free and clear --

Outsiders.

"Thank you," Cooper says, quietly, and wonders just how bad it's going to be when he tells Harry that he's gone over Harry's head, in the service of what's really Harry's town, because of Harry's dead girlfriend.

Who isn't dead.

Who shot Cooper and left him for dead.

Cooper's pretty sure that Harry can't afford to have him leave town, what with Sheriff Cable and the boys from Deer Meadow gunning for him and his. Pretty sure isn't good enough.

He's having to drive slowly down the dirt road, where weeds grow in between the two grooves made by wheels. Cooper reaches down and rolls down the window, and breathes in, deeply. "Smell that," he says, soft. "You don't get trees quite like these anywhere else."

[blue_ajah]

He has said something of the sort to her before, and a faint smile touches her lips, there and gone in an instant.

"It is a truly distinctive scent," she agrees quietly.

[tibetanmethod]

A figure steps into the road.

Cooper puts on the brakes.



It's the Log Lady, up where the road widens, leading to a clearing with a small cabin.

A silhouette is visible through a window. Curtains flutter briefly. The person inside isn't visible.

The Log Lady stands there, looking at them.

"Moiraine," Cooper says, and he doesn't raise his voice, "do you know what's wrong with this picture?"

[blue_ajah]

"We have met before, as it happens," she murmurs, looking through the windshield at the woman in the road.

"Although then she favored the companionship of a piece of wood, as I recall."

[tibetanmethod]

"The Log Lady," Cooper says, as the woman in question turns and marches up the road, "is without her log. That's a riddle."

The car begins to move slowly.

"Is she still the Log Lady if she doesn't have it? Or is she someone else?"

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine slants a sideways glance at him.

"Does she not have a name, as well?"

It is almost a rhetorical question. Almost.

[tibetanmethod]

"Margaret Lanterman, of the Colville Lantermans. She married into them. She and her husband met in Pullman, at Washington State University. They were both studying forestry."

Cooper puts the car in park and turns off the engine. The Log Lady has gone into the house.

The door is open, and light spills out onto the porch.

"If her husband has a name, I've never heard it. Or read it."

[blue_ajah]

"I do not believe that I have met her husband," she says. "Unless he was one of those at the hotel, that day."

Introductions had been rather lacking at the time, for a variety of reasons.

[tibetanmethod]

"He died the day after they got married."

Distant.

"In a fire, in the woods. He met the devil. Fire is the devil hiding like a coward in the smoke. That's what she said."

[blue_ajah]

There is a moment's silence before she observes,

"I have heard others speak in less clear descriptive terms, for good reason."