The reservoir dropped forty feet that summer, and the old town of Hesper rose up out of the water at last. My crew got hired to map and catalogue the place before the floods came back in fall. On my first dive, my lamp swept across a kitchen. There it was: a table still set for four, the plates rinsed perfectly clean by the lake.

I waved my partner Reyes over to film the table. As his camera light hit it, I saw the chairs were pushed in neat, but one fork was wet-shiny, like someone had just used it. I told myself the lake plays tricks. Then I noticed a fifth plate, smaller, set on the floor by the wall.

I knelt by the small plate on the floor. Scratched into the dried silt beside it was one word: STAY. My air gauge clicked in my ear. When I looked up, every chair at the table had been pulled out, facing me, though neither of us had touched them.

Instead of running, I wrote back. With my own glove I dragged a word in the silt: WHO? The dried mud rippled and rearranged itself, letter by letter, into an answer: WE WERE FOUR. NOW WE ARE MORE. Then my lamp showed me the family standing in the doorway, smiling, counting us.

I read their message twice, then I ran out of air. As my vision narrowed, the family helped me up gently and walked me to the table. They pulled out the empty chair. I sat. The plate in front of me was clean and waiting, and I understood I would be setting it for the next crew, one summer from now.