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.

Instead of filming, I followed the kitchen out into a hallway. My lamp found a staircase going up, the steps strangely free of mud. Most of Hesper was buried in silt, but not this house. Something kept it clean. I started up the stairs to find out what.