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 surfaced early to tell our boss, Dunmore, about the table. He stood on the cracked lakebed staring at the water, not at me. "The Hesper records list nobody by that house," he said. "Town flooded in '61. No bodies were ever recovered." He wouldn't meet my eyes. "Get the crew out before dark."