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“One hundred percent,” I say.

Ezra lifts one hand. “Can the field reopen after food and a nap?”

Theo gives him a look.

Ezra drops the hand. “Fine. But I need to look at what we found and try to make sense of it.”

“Food and dry clothes first.”

We clean up slowly. Theo brings towels warmed in the dryer, which almost makes me cry. Ezra changes into dry clothes in the downstairs bathroom because no one wants him on the stairs yet. I trade muddy overalls for soft shorts and one of Theo’s shirts, which smells like him enough to quiet the thin tremor in my hands.

By the time we reach the kitchen, Theo has tea steeping, grilled cheese on the stove, and the camera sitting in the center of the table on a folded towel like an artifact that might bite.

No one touches it at first.

We eat because Theo does not negotiate with shock on an empty stomach. He feeds us crisp bread, melted cheese, sliced apples, and tea sweet enough to make my mother proud. Ezra eats half a sandwich before color returns to his mouth. I drink two mugs before my fingers finally stop shaking.

Theo doesn’t sit until we both finish. Then he takes the chair beside me, close enough for his knee to touch mine. Ezra sits on my other side, his shoulder pressed to my arm. I reach for the camera.

Theo covers my hand with his. “You don’t have to do this now.”

“I do.” My voice stays quiet. “If I wait too long, it’s gonna get bigger in my head.”

Ezra nods. “The pictures are already scary enough.” He gives me a faint smile and lifts his chin toward the camera, gesturing for me to do it.

I turn on the camera. The first photos are ordinary. Drowned footbridge. Scraped marker. Pale grit caught in damaged grooves. The severed rope hanging from the post. Theo’s boot at the edge of one frame, planted as though he planned to argue with the entire swamp. Then the spring appears.

My skin tightens.

In one photo, there is only clear water, cypress roots, and a curve of white sand. In the next, pale posts stand where nothing stood when we were there. They’re faint, but they cast shadows across the water.

“Those are structural,” Ezra says, voice low. “Not glare.”

I zoom in. “The posts line up with the old gazebo orientation from your photo.”

“Or with whatever stood there before the gazebo,” he says.

Theo’s hand closes around his mug. “That place isn’t on any current cemetery property or water map.”

“No,” I say as I look at the spring on the screen. “Ezra’s old photo shows water there, and we followed a current back to the same location today. The route didn’t disappear. It’s the channel that shifted. The water remembered what the maps forgot.”

The idea haunts me, leaving my insides cold.

I move to the next photo. My own image startles me. There I am, standing at the open edge of the spring, one hand lifted. My actual body had been beside Theo. I remember the pressure of his hand at my waist and the mud sucking at my boots.

The photographed version of me looks calm. That expression bothers me the most.

Ezra leans closer. “Your hand is angled toward me.”

“Toward where you were pulled,” Theo says. His voice goes rough on the last word.

I set my hand over Theo’s forearm. “He came back.”

His eyes remain on the screen. “It felt like letting him go.”

Ezra’s hand slides across the table and covers Theo’s. “I felt you. Even when you didn’t touch me.”

Theo’s throat works.