Later that evening...

Cooper rubbed his tired eyes as he pored over another weighty tome about symbols and the dark arts. The refreshment he felt earlier after awakening from his midday slumber was entirely negated by what had followed. Between Sheriff Truman, Andy, and himself, they had in Cooper's estimation read every page in every book in Cooper's possession, plus those of the entirety of the Twin Peaks Public Library's collection of books about the occult, twice by this point. And yet they felt no closer to figuring out the petroglyph than they were when they started.

The answer was there, locked inside the image, whatever it was. They just had to find a way to get it out...

Andy was standing in front of the chalkboard, taking small sips from a cup of coffee he poured far too long ago for it to be even lukewarm now. From the corner of the room the soft sound of a harpsichord emanated from a small radio; it had been playing when he arrived two hours earlier and had continued to play, unabated, the entire time. Cooper focused on the red light of the stereo.

"Andy?" he asked. "What is that?"

Andy turned and looked at Cooper, then followed his eye line to the stereo. "It's a CD player, Agent Cooper."

"No, I mean what's playing on it."

Andy tuned his ear to the song. After a moment's hesitation, he nodded. "François Couperin's Les Barricades Mystérieuses," he replied adding: "It's French."

Cooper could have figured that out from the difficulty Andy had had pronouncing the composer's name and the title of the famous baroque piece. But he knew the piece; he'd heard it before.

"I don't know what it means," Andy continued. "I keep trying to remember to ask my neighbour, Madame Fleury—she's the high school French teacher—I want to ask her to translate it, but I always forget to."

Cooper nodded. "The mysterious barricades," he said, looking down at the book in his hand and then back up to the petroglyph with a barely concealed, disbelieving snort as he pushed the book away from him with an uncharacteristically downbeat sigh. "Quite appropriate, given the mysterious quest we're on now."

"Except maybe our mystery needs more harpsichord," Andy observed as the song ended and the CD player hummed into silence on the shelf.

Cooper had to smile at that. "Andy, you never cease to amaze me."

Behind them Major Briggs let out a shivering sigh from his seat on the bench. He'd reappeared in the woods that afternoon, asking Hawk about castles and queens. Cooper had only just arrived from the hotel when Hawk had brought him in; hours later, they were no closer to figuring out his rambling gibberish than they were to the petroglyph.

"Any luck?" Truman asked.

Cooper shook his head. "Harry, I'm reading the same words over and over again and I can't make heads or tails of it."

Ancient astrological signs, Cooper thought absently as he turned back to the pages, searching for a way to make sense of the strange drawing. His eyes landed on the symbol for Jupiter, one he'd recognized it from the drawing and kept coming back to again and again in his research. What does Jupiter have to do with any of this? he wondered as he drew his finger along underneath the words on the page, telling about Jupiter's detrimental status in the Virgo constellation. One of those is the symbol for Jupiter. What's the other? he asked himself as he stared back and forth from the book to the page to match it up.

It clicked as soon as he turned the page. There, staring out at him, was the symbol for Saturn. Why hadn't I seen this before?

"By heavens!" Cooper exclaimed as he jumped from his seat, grabbing the attention of Sheriff Truman and Andy, back at the board. Cooper raced around the table, book in hand. "Andy, take a look at this: what you mistook for the 4H club—the '4' and the 'H'?—are actually astrological symbols."

"You mean like planets?" Andy asked.

"Why yes, Andy," Cooper's voice was coated in encouragement. "They stand for Jupiter and Saturn." He turned to the board again. "Some of the others represent planets as well, but this particular part of the puzzle pertains to a precise planetary position: Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction."

Truman stood up from the table. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, historically Harry, when Jupiter and Saturn are conjunct there are enormous shifts in power and fortune, Jupiter being expansive in its influence, Saturn contractive. Conjunction suggests a state of…intensification, concentration." He turned back to the board. "What this indicates to me is the potential for explosive change, good and bad."

"So when's the next conjunction?" Truman asked.

Cooper hurried back to his book. "Well, now let's see…according to the Ephemeris…" He ran his hand up and down page after page, deciphering the star charts as best he could as he went. "The next conjunction is due January to June."

He looked Truman straight in the eye. "My god, Harry. The door to the lodge. That's when it's open. That's what the puzzle is telling us. It's telling us when it's going to be open."

Behind him, Major Briggs coughed. "Protect the queen!" he rasped.

Cooper barrelled on. "If it's telling us when, it must also tell us where."

"Fear...and love...open...the doors!" Major Briggs continued to yell.

Both Truman and Cooper turned to face the major. "What's he saying?" Cooper asked.

Truman knit his eyebrows together. "He said fear and love open the doors."

Cooper felt as though he'd been hit by lightning. "Two doors. Two lodges. Fear opens one—the black. Love, the other."

"What's that mean?" Truman asked.

Cooper gave a shrug. "I don't know exactly. It just came to me."

"How does the queen…?" Major Briggs continued.

Cooper snapped his fingers. "Of course. The queen."

"Of Romania?" Truman asked.

"No, the chess game's final piece," Cooper said, focusing less on his frustration than on the circuitous path the master plan seemed to be taking. "Harry, follow my logic: if Windom Earle takes the Queen—"

Truman objected. "The game's not over till he takes the King."

"It depends," Cooper said. "Maybe he takes her to the doorway when it opens."

Andy called Cooper from the blackboard, but steamrolled by his train of thought, Cooper continued down the path.

"The queen...the queen...the crown, the queen. Harry, the queen—"

"Agent Cooper?"

"Andy, please!" Cooper could barely contain his annoyance until it hit him, with such force it nearly knocked him over: "Harry: Miss Twin Peaks."

Realization dawned on Harry as the words sank in. "Holy smokes, that's it!"

With barely another word, the men left the room, with Andy in hot pursuit until he knocked over the bonsai tree. Harry raced over and scooped up what was left of the gift from Josie. Cooper watched from the doorway as Andy hung back, sheepish.

"Coop," Harry said. "This plant's been bugged…"

Disbelieving, Cooper bent over to examine what Harry had found planted at the base of the bonsai. Fear clouded his heart. "This bonsai isn't from Josie, Harry. This bonsai's from Windom Earle."

Harry seemed to deflate at his side; Cooper had to admit he knew the feeling all too well.

"He's way ahead of us," Cooper continued. "And we've been working for him from the beginning. What time does that contest start?"

"Any minute."

"Let's go."

Cooper's mind raced. He had forgotten entirely about the pageant, about his promise to Audrey and to Annie to be there. And now there was a very real possibility that danger was lurking in their midst and he wasn't there to prevent it from happening.

As he watched Harry fumble with the keys to the truck, Cooper grabbed his own from his pocket and hurricaned out the front door, leaving the sheriff and his deputies standing behind in his furious wake.

No one was going to get him there faster than he could.