Page 92 of Pocket Wife

A second click answers.

Celia steps close enough that the blue threads brush her skirt. “Third for the dead who dug the well.”

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then water moves beneath the stone.

Not rushing. Not breaking. Turning.

The carved three-dot mark lights with a low blue glow, the same color as the threads tied around the rail. Lines appear along the cistern cover, so fine they had been invisible beneath moss and age. They do not open. They form a circle around the handwheel, then extend outward in three paths: one toward the clinic road, one toward the eastern fields, one toward the burial rise.

The field bows under the sight of it.

I forget to breathe for one measured second.

Then the scanner chimes.

Torren checks the reading. “There’s a chamber, but it’s not under the water column. It’s offset. Northeast side, below the old overflow channel.”

My mind works fast. “Designed that way to protect the reserve.”

Lucy releases a breath. “Can we access it?”

Torren checks the map. “There’s a maintenance stone half-buried near the overflow. Maybe.”

“Do not touch it,” I say at once.

Torren lifts both hands. “Still planning.”

I move to the overflow stones and kneel without placing weight on them. Moss has hidden most of the inscription, but not all. I clear loose soil with the edge of my sleeve, careful not to scrape the surface.

Letters emerge.

Not Standard Authority script.

Settler hand.

If water is challenged, count the hands that refused sale.

Lucy crouches beside me. “What does that mean?”

My eyes hold on the words.

I know exactly what it means.

“The consent registry,” I say. “The attached registry was not only a list of who approved the covenant. It may include refusals of future sale.”

Salo’s voice becomes sharper. “A permanent anti-transfer register?”

“Yes. If valid, it would make Helix’s mineral review claim nearly impossible to sustain. Not merely lack of consent. Recorded refusal.”

Lucy looks up at the sky where Helix has gone. “That is what they found.”

“No,” I say. “That is what they were looking for.”

The overflow stone gives another click.

Everyone steps back except Lucy and me.