Page 5
"Stephanie Ward." Nora looked up and almost smiled, which from her was practically a standing ovation. "I heard you were coming back."
"News travels fast."
"It's Hollow Oak. News travels before it happens." Nora set down her pen and pulled a folder from the drawer beside her. "I pulled the survey records you requested. Everything from the eastern ridge going back sixty years, plus the geological readings from the last ward recalibration."
Steph took the folder and flipped it open, scanning the first few pages. Topographical maps, energy density charts, soil composition analyses. Thorough, meticulous, and exactly what she needed. "This is perfect, Nora. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Emmett's office flagged your dig perimeter for review. Standard procedure, nothing personal, but they want you to check in with the liaison before you break ground."
"Who's the liaison?"
"Emmett assigned Tom Brewster. He's been handling documentation for council-adjacent projects since last fall."
Steph raised an eyebrow. "Tom Brewster. The photographer?"
"And journalist, and now apparently the council's unofficial record-keeper for sensitive sites. He's thorough, I'll give him that. A little chatty, but thorough." Nora slid a second folder across the desk. "His office is in the back of the Gazette building. He's expecting you this morning."
"Anything else I should know before I head out there?"
Nora paused, and the pause itself was telling. She removed her glasses and cleaned them on her sleeve, which Steph had learned years ago was Nora's version of choosing her words carefully. "The eastern ridge has been quiet for a long time, Stephanie. Decades. Whatever's buried out there, someone went to considerable effort to make sure it stayed buried."
"That's what makes it interesting."
"That's what makes it dangerous." Nora put her glasses back on. "Be careful. And log everything with my office. I want copies of every field report."
"You'll have them."
The walk to the Gazette building took five minutes, past the Griddle & Grind where Steph could already see Twyla moving behind the counter, her wheat-colored hair catching the light as she laughed at something a customer said. Steph kept her head down and walked faster. She loved Twyla, genuinely, but she was not ready for that level of interrogation before her first day of fieldwork.
Tom Brewster's office was exactly what she'd expected from a man who documented everything: organized chaos. Papers pinned to every surface, photographs tacked in overlapping layers across a corkboard that spanned an entire wall, and a desk buried under notebooks, camera equipment, and at least three empty coffee mugs.
Tom himself was a wiry man in his forties with kind eyes behind thick-framed glasses and ink smudges on both hands. He stood when she walked in and extended one of those ink-stained hands with genuine warmth.
"Stephanie. Good to finally meet you in person. I've read all your published surveys on the Hollow Oak sites. Brilliant work."
"Thank you, Tom." She shook his hand and took the chair he offered. "Nora said you're my point of contact for the dig."
"That's right. Emmett wants documentation at every phase. Photos, field notes, energy readings. Anything you uncover that might have historical or magical significance gets flagged to the council before it goes public." He sat back down and shuffled through a pile until he found the right form. "Standard confidentiality agreement. Nothing you haven't signed before."
Steph read it anyway, line by line, because she always did. Tom watched her without impatience, which she appreciated. Most people fidgeted when she insisted on reading the fine print.
"Looks good." She signed and slid it back. "I want to be clear about boundaries. This is a preliminary survey. Solo excavation, minimal disturbance. I'm not here to blow the site open. I'm here to listen to it."
"Listen to it?"
"The magic out there is old, Tom. Older than the town's recorded founding, if my preliminary readings are accurate. That kind of layered energy doesn't respond well to aggressive excavation. You have to let it show you what it wants to show you."
Tom studied her with the look of a man who'd spent years documenting things he didn't fully understand. "Emmett said you have a sensitivity. To old magic."
"I can feel it, yeah. I always have. It's not a gift, exactly, more like a frequency I happen to pick up. The ground out by that ridge is practically humming. Whatever's down there, it was buried with intention."
"Any idea what it is?"
"Not yet. That’s why I’m here.”
He smiled at that, genuine and a little nervous. "Well, you've got full access within the permitted perimeter. I'll come out once a week for documentation unless you need me sooner. And if anything feels off, anything at all, you call Emmett's office directly. Not me, not Nora. Emmett."
"Understood."
