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Pickerelweed gives way to ferns and low moss. The tea-colored water thins into a narrow clear band running east, pale sand visible beneath it.

“That’s the influence of the spring,” she says. “Cold groundwater. Different mineral load.”

Ezra looks down at his hands. Color has warmed through his knuckles. “I feel it.”

Pepper squeezes his fingers. “More solid?”

“More everything.”

She beams at him before looking back at me. “The map is right so far.”

A wake moves through the clear water ahead of us. I stop the paddle. The Deacon rises beside the far bank, half hidden beneath a tangle of cypress roots. He doesn’t look toward the canoe. His scarred head remains turned toward the channel ahead.

“He followed us,” Ezra says.

“Or he was already here,” I answer.

Pepper watches him until he sinks beneath the water. “He wasn’t hunting.”

“How can you tell?” Ezra asks.

“He never looked at us.”

She retrieves her notebook and writes down something.

I paddle us into the east-running channel. The water turns glass-clear over white sand. Cypress branches arch overhead, draped in moss that moves like pale curtains. Tiny fish scatter beneath the canoe.

Pepper trails one fingertip through the water. “Temperature check.”

Ezra dips his hand too. “Cold.”

Pepper points at him. “You make an excellent field assistant.”

His whole face lights. “Why, thank you.”

We reach the old landing before noon, following the East Route marked by the J. Vines board we found on the first trip.

Only three timbers remain above water. A low stone shelf cuts into the bank beneath tangled fern roots. I secure the canoe while Ezra steps onto the shelf. Pepper follows with my hand at her waist.

She finds the first marker under the lip of the stone. “Here.”

The cloth beneath the shelf is gray with age and loose enough to move in the breeze. Chalk traces an open curve toward the channel. A narrow line of ash darkens the sand below it, feathered downstream.

Pepper photographs everything before touching anything.

“No sweet smell,” she says.

Ezra points toward dried petals caught in a crack. “Swamp lily.”

Pepper smiles at him. “You picked that up fast.” She kisses his cheek. “Good beta.”

His face goes soft and stunned.

I look away before the tenderness wrecks me.

Pepper studies the layout. “The cloth is loose. The chalk opens toward water. The ash was placed where it could disperse.”

“Nothing is tied to hold,” Ezra says.