I was waiting for Bella to produce some digging implement when she scooped up a handful of mud from the stream at the base of the ridge and let it slither into the jar. For a moment I thought the illusion of a voice was repeating its syllables inside the jar, and then Roy screwed the lid on. As Bella rinsed her hand in the spring I said “Don’t you use a spade?”

“That way brings me closer.”

I had to look elsewhere as she shook her hand dry in a shaft of light, because it looked as though the outlines of her fingers were shattering like crystal. She retrieved the jar from Roy, who was cradling it as though he’d been entrusted with a sacred relic, and dropped it in her bag. “We’ve finished,” she said. “I’ve got him.”

Her turn of phrase made me anxious to learn “What do you think you’re actually doing?”

“What you see, Patrick.”

“You didn’t mind when your aunt did it,” Roy said. “You wanted to get them all after she died. I remember you asking your parents.”

I found I didn’t want to continue the discussion while we were in the woods. It was hard to separate their voices from the unrelenting repetitions of the water, the syllables that threatened to grow clearer still. I was turning towards the road when Bella said “Best let me again, Patrick.”