Scene 1: The Long Copy
It took two days, a dozen pencils, half a bottle of Lila Rae’s fancy ink, and every bit of patience the swamp had to offer.
Josie sat hunched over the folding table inside the clubhouse, the one they’d cleared of snack wrappers and bug jars to make room for Lester’s truth. Her left hand held pages flat while her right worked like a wind-up machine—copyin’ every letter, every signature, every footnote with the same care a preacher gives his Sunday sermon.
Lila Rae sat beside her, sleeves rolled to the elbows, lips pursed in that look she got when the world was fallin’ into place. She handled the tapes, listenin’ to each one in pieces on Kenji’s portable recorder, scribblin’ down what she heard in perfect loops of cursive, neat as fence posts on a well-tended farm.
“Meeting—August 4th, 1968,” she murmured. “Keller says... quote... ‘We’ll bury this if we have to.’ End quote. That one goes in bold.”
Josie nodded, eyes burnin’ from too many hours of readin’ old typeface and fine print. “Put a star next to it. Maybe three.”
The clubhouse buzzed with the slow rhythm of purpose. No rushin’, no chatter. Just pencils scratchin’, tape wheels spinnin’, and the wind outside blowin’ through like it knew it had to hush now—truth was bein’ born.
Kenji sat off to the side, fixin’ up the final copy of the map, tracings overlain with red ink showin’ where the shimmer had pulsed strongest. Bo napped in the hammock (sorta), one eye open in case someone said his name or blamed him for anything. Cricket paced outside, checkin’ the path to the bayou every few minutes like she expected Keller himself to crawl outta the mud.
Tadpole carved a new symbol into the inside wall beam—Lester’s spiral, etched in clean and deep. Underneath it, just two letters: LD.
Josie didn’t ask what it meant.
She knew.
Lila Rae flipped to the final letter in the box. “You think we should include this one?” she asked. “It’s... personal.”
Josie leaned over and read the first line. It was addressed to Lester’s sister, someone named Myrna in New Orleans. The words were soft. Regretful. Honest.
“Include it,” Josie said after a moment. “People should know he wasn’t just a name on a permit. He cared. That’s why he fought.”
They worked until the sun dropped behind the swamp and the fireflies returned, blinkin’ like little sentries outside the window.
When they were done, the letters were copied twice, the tapes transcribed, and the case packed up in a plain cardboard box, wrapped tight in twine and sealed with tape so old it probably came from Lester’s own stash.
On the side, they wrote a name.
Not their own.
But one the world had forgotten.
- Duval
To: Baywater Times
Attn: Investigative Desk
Tadpole lit the lantern with one flick of his match, the glow rising like a promise.
And the clubhouse, for a moment, felt like a courtroom, a church, and a revolution all rolled into one.
Scene 2: The Risk of Truth
The next morning broke humid and slow, like the world had slept in. Mist curled off the bayou in lazy ribbons, and the clubhouse roof creaked as the heat rolled in, heavy with the smell of cypress sap and wet rope.
Inside, the mood wasn’t near as peaceful.
“You ever think maybe we shouldn’t?” Bo said, arms crossed, eyes hard as creekstone.
Cricket looked up from where she was folding the last set of notes. “Shouldn’t what?”
“Send it.” He motioned to the box—sealed, labeled, sittin’ quiet in the corner like a bomb wrapped in brown paper. “What if this just makes trouble? For us. For our folks. For... people who didn’t do nothin’ wrong?”
Cricket sat up straighter, her back stiff. “Trouble’s already been made, Bo. Just ‘cause it ain’t knockin’ on our door don’t mean it ain’t knockin’ somewhere.”
He shifted on his feet. “We’re kids. Not lawyers. Not reporters. We don’t know what happens when this kind of stuff hits the news.”
Josie watched from the porch, sayin’ nothing yet, arms folded and one eyebrow raised like she was waitin’ to see which way the wind was blowin’.
Cricket stood, slow. Not angry. Just sure.
“You’re scared,” she said.
Bo snorted. “Aren’t you?”
“Course I am. But I’m more scared of lettin’ people like Keller get away with it again. This ain’t just swamp secrets anymore. It’s truth. And truth’s like a hornet nest—ain’t no good lettin’ it sit quiet. Gotta poke it so folks know it’s there.”
Bo didn’t answer right off. He just looked out the window toward the water. “My uncle works at the courthouse,” he mumbled. “If this story blows up... it could land on him. Might cost him.”
Cricket stepped closer, her voice softening. “And what’d it cost Lester?”
The silence that followed hung thick and honest.
Kenji broke it, speakin’ from where he’d been pretendin’ not to listen. “My folks always say the truth’s a funny thing. Scares people more than lies do.”
Bo rubbed the back of his neck. “I just... don’t wanna be the reason someone gets hurt.”
Cricket nodded. “Me neither. That’s why we gotta send it.”
Bo looked at her, and something in his shoulders shifted—less stone, more sand. Not full agreement. But understandin’.
He walked to the box and tapped the lid.
“Just... make sure it lands in the right hands.”
Josie finally spoke from the porch, voice calm as still water.
“It will.”
Scene 3: The Quiet Ones Speak
The clubhouse settled into hush again after Bo and Cricket's words had drifted off like heatwaves. The box still sat center stage—ordinary, except for the weight of what was inside it. The truth. Maybe too much of it.
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No one moved for a minute.
Then Tadpole stood up.
Now, Tadpole didn’t stand to talk unless there wasn’t no other way around it. He was the kind of boy who let the world speak first and only chimed in if the silence got too loud. But this time, the silence didn’t scare him.
It called him.
He stepped out from his usual spot by the wall, where he whittled his thoughts down to splinters, and looked at each one of ‘em in turn.
Josie. Cricket. Bo. Lila Rae. Kenji.
And then he said—clear as any preacher, though soft as marsh wind:
“My daddy taught me that silence can be a kindness. But sometimes, it’s a weapon.”
Everyone turned toward him.
He walked slow across the clubhouse floor, not dramatic-like, just deliberate, the way a person walks when the truth is comin’ out their bones.
“I ain’t said much through this whole thing. Not ‘cause I didn’t care. ‘Cause I do. ‘Cause I needed to listen.” He tapped his chest. “And I heard every lie in this swamp hummin’ low under the water.”
Josie stood still, eyes steady. Cricket didn’t breathe. Bo looked down at his shoes.
“When folks bury the truth,” Tadpole went on, “it don’t rot. It don’t go away. It waits. And sooner or later, it bubbles back up—muddy, maybe, but still true.”
He glanced toward the sealed box.
“We didn’t go diggin’ just for fun. We found what we found ‘cause we were meant to. And now we know.”
Lila Rae whispered, “And now we gotta choose.”
Tadpole nodded. “Exactly.”
He looked at Bo. “You’re right. This’ll hurt people. Might even make some folks angry.”
Then he looked at Cricket. “But you’re right, too. Truth ain’t a gentle thing. It don’t ask permission.”
He turned to Josie last.
“I don’t talk much. But I won’t be quiet about this.”
And he sat down again, just like that.
The room didn’t explode with applause. No one hooted or hollered.
They just felt it—that rare, deep kind of speakin’ that don’t need echoin’.
Josie walked over and placed her hand on the box.
“Then let’s make sure it speaks louder than all of us.”
Scene 4: Signed, Lester Duval
The next morning, the air was thick with the smell of post-storm humidity, even though no rain had fallen. The swamp was still, holdin’ its breath again like it knew something important was about to pass through it.
Josie pedaled her brother’s old bike along the gravel shoulder just outside of town, the cardboard box strapped down behind her with twine and a bungee cord. Cricket rode beside her, silent except for the squeak of her handlebars. They didn’t take the main road. That was too risky. They took the back trail behind Miss Della’s shed, then cut across the weedy field behind the library.
Bo had wanted to come, but Josie said no.
“You already argued the loudest,” she told him. “Let someone else carry it quiet.”
They rolled up behind the Baywater post office around 8:05, early enough to beat the old-timers with their coffee and their gossip, but late enough for the sleepy clerk to be at the counter.
Inside, the air-conditioning hit them like a wall of cold water. The post office smelled like rubber bands and boredom.
“Morning,” the clerk muttered from behind a tower of manila envelopes.
Josie stepped forward, box in hand. She’d re-taped it that morning with care, then written the return address in thick block letters:
- Duval
23 Cypress Lane
Baywater, LA
The address didn’t exist. Hadn’t for forty years. Not since Lester’s shack fell off the records like it was never there to begin with.
“I’d like to mail this, priority,” she said, voice steady.
The clerk looked up. Didn’t blink at the name. Just nodded.
“Where’s it headed?”
Josie handed over the address.
Baywater Times
Attn: Investigative Desk
230 Main Street
Baywater, LA
Just a block away from where they stood.
Cricket slid two crumpled bills across the counter. “This cover it?”
The clerk smoothed them out, gave a slow nod. “Sure does.”
He slapped a bright red URGENT sticker on the top, then leaned over and tossed the box into the outgoing bin behind the counter like it was any other package.
But it wasn’t.
Josie stared after it for a second longer than she meant to.
Then she turned and walked out without sayin’ another word.
Back outside, the sun had crept a little higher. Cicadas started buzzin’ in the trees behind the courthouse.
“Think they’ll read it?” Cricket asked as they climbed back onto their bikes.
Josie looked out across the rooftops of Baywater, toward the water tower and the tree line beyond it.
“They have to.”
And with that, they pedaled away—two girls on rusted bikes, racin’ through summer air thick with secrets, carryin’ nothin’ but hope and a head start.
Scene 5: Thank You Kindly
The headline hit Baywater like a summer thunderclap:
TRUTH IN THE TREES: MISSING SCIENTIST’S EVIDENCE RESURFACES
Land Deals, Silenced Warnings, and a Mystery That Never Left the Swamp
It ran on the front page of the Baywater Times the very next Thursday, just below the fold and just above a photo of Lester Duval—cropped from the dredge crew picture they’d found in the tin box. He looked tired, squintin’ into the sun, the corners of his mouth turned down like he already knew he wouldn’t be believed.
But now? Now he had a voice again.
The article told it all—neatly, cleanly, and with just enough fire to make folks sit forward with their coffee. The hush money. The canceled permits. The mayor’s name. The letters. The tapes. Even a small paragraph about “a group of concerned young citizens” who, the paper said, “uncovered the missing puzzle pieces and delivered them without ceremony.”
Didn’t name names.
But folks in Baywater ain’t dumb.
That afternoon, Josie and Tadpole wandered into Reggie’s Bait & Tackle, tryin’ real hard to look like they weren’t tryin’ to look like anything at all. The bell above the door gave its usual sad jingle, and the air inside smelled like minnows, pine tar, and ancient coffee.
Reggie didn’t look up right away. Just stood behind the counter cleanin’ a reel, wiry hands movin’ slow and sure.
Josie cleared her throat. “Hey, Reggie.”
He set the reel down, looked up through foggy glasses, and blinked like he hadn’t quite put it together.
Then he smiled.
Not big. Not loud.
Just real.
“Well,” he said, voice like gravel warmed by the sun. “Would you look at that.”
Tadpole gave a little nod, but Josie just stood still, her fingers twitchin’ at her sides.
Reggie stepped out from behind the counter and reached into his apron pocket. From it, he pulled a small brown paper sack. Folded tight.
“Some folks come in here for worms,” he said. “Others come for truth.”
He handed the bag to Josie without explainin’.
Inside was a set of old cassette tapes. Labeled. Preserved.
Backups.
“I held onto a few things,” he said. “Just in case. But now? I reckon they’re safer with you.”
Josie’s voice caught in her throat. “Why didn’t you—?”
“Time wasn’t right,” Reggie said. “Sometimes the world don’t listen to old men. Sometimes it needs kids who ain’t afraid of gettin’ dirty.”
He turned back to the counter, picked up his reel, and gave the line a slow crank.
“One more thing,” he added, almost like it was an afterthought. “That Lester... he’d be proud.”
Josie smiled, tight but true.
Then she turned and walked out, Tadpole at her side, the bag clutched close like it held something sacred.
Outside, the sky was starting to change. Summer still hung heavy, but the light was different somehow—clearer, like the air had been scrubbed clean.
The truth was out.
And the swamp was listenin’.
Scene 6: Where the Wind Sings
They went back one last time.
Not because they expected more clues or glimmers or chases through the trees—but because the end of a story deserves a proper goodbye. And Lester’s story? Well, it had always belonged to the swamp. All they’d done was lift it out of the mud and let the light shine on it awhile.
The shimmer was gone.
They knew it the moment they stepped into the grove where it used to dance. The air was still, too still. No warping light. No strange bends or soundless hush. Just ordinary leaves rustlin’, water lappin’, and sunlight spillin’ golden through the canopy.
And yet…
Josie stood at the center, just where Bo had walked into the shimmer weeks before. She closed her eyes, let the wind brush past her ears, soft as a lullaby.
There.
A hum.
Faint. Not like before. Not strange. Not shiverin’.
Just present.
Real as the earth.
“I think it’s done what it needed to do,” she said, opening her eyes.
Cricket leaned against a tree, arms crossed. “Like it was waitin’ for somebody to listen.”
“Or remember,” Tadpole added, tracing his fingers over the spiral carved into the bark. Lester’s mark. Still there.
Kenji crouched by the roots, pokin’ gently at the soil where the shimmer had once flickered. “It’s just air now. No pulse, no distortion. Whatever field Lester created... it’s faded.”
Bo sat nearby on a fallen log, tossin’ a pebble into the water. “So that’s it, then? We solved it. Story over?”
Lila Rae smiled and tucked her notebook away. “No. Not over. Just... passed on.”
They lingered a little longer, not sayin’ much, listenin’ to the wind hum low through the reeds and the trees and their memory.
Josie pulled something from her pocket—a strip of red cloth from the map, faded and frayed.
She tied it around a branch, just beneath Lester’s carving.
“Let folks wonder,” she said. “Let ‘em ask why it’s there.”
Tadpole stepped back, nodded.
They didn’t hike out fast. They took their time. They let the wind walk with ‘em. Let the dragonflies escort them down the narrow trail. Let the water carry whispers behind them like it was tuckin’ the tale into the roots for safekeepin’.
And as they reached the clearing, with the clubhouse just comin’ into view, Josie turned one last time.
No shimmer.
Just a breeze through the grass.
And in it—soft and sure—was the hum of a summer that would never truly end.