“Let’s just say everyone in town can take a bath every hour of every day and there will still be more than enough water. Heck, people could go through the car wash every time they drive through town, and you’d never run dry.” He adds, “While we’re out here, I’m gonna put in the pump and connect it to the old pipe so people can start using it.”

Lincoln attaches the rest of the metal casing and pours bentonite powder around the well to keep groundwater from leaching in. Then he caps the new well and connects it to the old pipes. Finally, he turns off the drill, lowers it to where I can reach it, and waves for me to come over.

I bend down next to the drill bit and feel for the stone the curator gave me. I remember where it attached to the bit, but all I feel now is the smoothness of the metal. I lie on my back under the drill and check all the surfaces. Nothing. The little stone is gone.

I check again and again. The stone Miles Morgan brought all the way across the ocean to New York City is gone. The pain comes in the left side of my chest again, and it’s sharp, like a nail poking into me.

I shake my head at Lincoln.

“Not there?” he asks.

“Nope.”

“It could’ve gotten broken up on the way down. But your idea surely worked.”

“Yes, the water came.”

Lincoln doesn’t know what Dr. Morgan said about the hardness of the water rock. If a diamond can’t scratch it, I don’t think there’s anything underground that could break up the stone. But somehow the stone found the water, or the water found the stone.

I push my fist into my chest, but it doesn’t make the pain go away. The little stone that fell in Nottingham was the best gift I ever got. I liked how heavy it felt in my hand. I liked watching it fly to the meteorite. Now the stone is way down in the underground aquifer, with no way for me to ever get it back.

I rub my palms where I held the stick.

I did it, I thought, when I was ten.

I’m a dowser. And I gave back the water.

And then I think, Was it me who found the water or was it the stone? Was having it in my pocket what helped me dowse? Now that the stone is gone, if I try dowsing again, will the stick still point down to the water?

Chapter 21

A North American family of four uses about 400 gallons of water in a single day. That’s enough to fill 10 bathtubs!

—Antonia Banyard and Paula Ayer, Water Wow!