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.

Reyes tapped my shoulder and pointed. Through the kitchen doorway, deeper in the house, a light was moving. Not lamp-light, softer and yellow, like a candle. Underwater. We both froze. Then the light went still, as if it had noticed us watching it.

We backed out the way we came. But the kitchen had changed. The table was gone, and in its place stood the family of four, perfectly still, facing the wall. As our lights touched them, all four heads turned to us at once. None of them had faces, just smooth, blank skin where the eyes should be.

I shoved Reyes ahead of me and we tore through the front door into open water. We surfaced, hauled onto the boat, gasping, alive. But that night, looking in the cabin mirror, I watched my own face go smooth: my eyes, my mouth sinking away under blank, clean skin, while something old and patient settled in behind it to wear me home.