I returned to the racks in the library, searching through the canisters until I found the reel labeled WILD HEART(S). I wound it onto the 35mm projector, inserting the end into a slot and carefully winding the center of the reels like a cassette. The celluloid, silky between hard bites of clear plastic tape, loaded easily, and the image appeared, out of focus, on the wall. I followed the reel from splice to splice, stopping with every mark. Carey as Stevie, Little Carey, over and over. Miss America, Little Carey, Carey, Carey, Carey.

And then I found it. A single set of frames, only six, no—seven. I cranked the reel by hand, and as I adjusted the lens, I knew—I knew what I would see.

They were murky stills of a woman in a plain white dress, standing at the bottom of a lake, head tilted in a way that suggested she was unconscious. Her arms waved in motion with the current. Her rubber boots were perfectly still. And she was Carey Logan.

*  *  *

I ripped through Jes’s library, opening canister after canister, holding them up to the light at every splice, but it was no use. I couldn’t find another frame anywhere, not after twenty-five canisters. As I sat on the ground, winding up the reels and replacing them on the shelves, I realized that the film could be hidden anywhere; it could be taped behind a rafter in any of the buildings, it could be set beneath floorboards, it could be buried in the ground. It would be impossible to find the rest of the film without knowing its location.

I cut the seven frames from Wild Heart(s), folded a piece of scrap paper, taped them inside, and slipped them in my back pocket. I returned to Marlin’s studio and looked again at her anatomical prints, this time holding the frames to my eye, and what I saw was that the arms were Carey’s arms; the legs were Carey’s legs. In Jack’s studio I saw that his net, woven in mostly white silk, had a yellow beam down the center that mimicked the light streaming through the water above Carey’s head.

And in Tyler’s studio lay Carey’s heart, waiting to be bronzed.

Pine City were all making work about her death. They could not help themselves. And yet they refused to give up the film—a refusal that could result, in a few short days, in a search of the studio where my paintings lay.