Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of a serialized novel we will publish over the next four months, with new chapters posted on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The Artifact

The road to Hickory Knob State Park twisted through longleaf pines and pockets of sunlight that flickered like static through the canopy. Rebecca guided her gun-metal blue Jeep Cherokee along the curves with one hand on the wheel, the other fidgeting with a pendant Geoffrey gave her two Christmas mornings before.

With the windows rolled down, the warm breeze spilled through the cab like something alive. She’d always liked the way the forest smells out here. Pine needles. Lake water. Damp history.

The Cherokee crunched into a gravel overflow lot at the lodge just past noon. Rebecca parked next to a familiar red-and-white University of Georgia field research van, its side doors open and a folding table set up beside it. Papers and waterproof field notebooks were pinned down under rocks, their edges flapping lazily in the breeze.

A young woman in a ponytail and sun-bleached Bulldogs ballcap glanced up and offered a brief, curious nod as Rebecca walked toward the lodge entrance.

“He’s waiting for you inside,” the ponytailed woman called out. “He hasn’t stopped grinning since he called you.”

Rebecca fought the urge to roll her eyes and marched to the door. Inside, the restaurant was all varnished pine and big windows, the kind of state-park-dining-room aesthetic that hadn’t changed since the late 1980s. It smelled faintly of fried catfish, floor wax, and weak coffee.

She spotted Geoffrey before he noticed her. Hunched over his leather-bound field journal at a table near the window, his hair was unkempt, his sleeves rolled up, his reading glasses sliding down his nose. If she didn’t know better, she’d almost call it charming. Almost.

He looked up and stood as she approached. “Rebecca.”

She nodded. “Cutting it close on summoning me, aren’t you?”

“I like to keep things spontaneous.”

“I like to keep things scheduled,” she said, taking the seat across from him. “Let’s meet in the middle and call this barely forgivable.”

Geoffrey closed his field journal and placed it on the chair beside him. He offered her the crooked smile that still could disarm her, if she allowed it. Now it just made her wary.

The waitress brought two sweet iced teas without prompting. Geoffrey glanced toward the kitchen. “I ordered the catfish. Hope that’s all right.”

“Fine. Just show me the thing.”

Gregory shook his head. “Let’s have lunch first, and then I’ll take you to the lab.”

As if on cue, their food arrived, and Rebecca picked at the hush puppies while keeping one eye on Geoffrey as he dug right in.

“Somebody’s hungry,” she said. “Why bring me into this now? You’ve been dodging me for weeks.”

“I wanted to be sure it was real.”

“What exactly is it?”

He looked around the restaurant and then met her eyes. His voice was barely above a whisper.

“You’ll see.”

She arched a brow. “Geoffrey. You’ve gone dark for nearly a month. You don’t get to slide back in unchallenged just because you found something shiny.”

He didn’t argue. That was something she both respected and hated about him.

“It’s not exactly shiny,” he said, popping a whole hush puppy into his mouth. “Rebecca, I really need your voice in this – your reach, your network of local historical sources, your investigative instincts. But mostly, I need you on this because I trust you.”

The texture of Geoffrey’s voice, the dramatic pause before he spoke. It was all very curated. Something inside her clicked into sharper focus.

He hadn’t asked how she’d been, hadn’t ventured an embrace. Hadn’t offered more than a lopsided grin and a cryptic comment about “needing her voice.” The lunch invitation had been an afterthought, convenient timing. It wasn’t a reunion. It was a booking.

A mouthpiece. An almost-local with a few local connections among the area’s amateur historians. That’s what he saw in her. Not a partner. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

Their romance, as passionate as it had been in the beginning, now felt like a prelude, something theatrical and fleeting that had served some larger goal. Geoffrey clearly had an agenda. Maybe he always did. He had wanted to pull her back into his orbit not because he missed her but because he needed her help with the locals.

Or was Rebecca misinterpreting his intentions? Maybe teasing her with this mysterious new artifact was Geoffrey’s idea of foreplay, his way of trying to inject new energy into whatever they had shared and seemingly lost. Dammit, she was curious.

Rebecca tried to assess how Geoffrey was watching her. Was it affection or calculation? Was he measuring her response, waiting for her to bite? Or was he moving in the only way he could back toward her, through his work and her curiosity for it?

“Okay, I’ll help you,” she said. “But if I do this, I do it on my terms – and if it smells like a story, I’m telling it exactly like I want to, with no interference from you or anyone at UGA. You don’t control the narrative. Understood?”

If Geoffrey was surprised, he didn’t show it. Just gave a small, patient nod and returned to his catfish like a man who’d already won the round.

“Fair enough,” he said.

She straightened, folded her napkin slowly, and met his eyes again.

“I’m really not hungry. I had a big breakfast,” Rebecca said, lying. “And I do have an afternoon appointment in Abbeville. Can we just cut to the part where you show me the thing?”

Geoffrey grabbed another hush puppy and then his field journal and stood. He fished for his wallet and tossed a $50 bill on the table. “Sure. Let’s head over to the lab.”

The state park waitress smiled warmly at Geoffrey and seemed to glare at Rebecca as they walked toward the door. He pushed open the door and held it as Rebecca stepped into the afternoon sun.

Inside the makeshift lab, set up in one of Hickory Knob’s lakeside meeting rooms, Geoffrey guided her to a table with a Rubbermaid tub in the center. Rebecca watched as he slowly peeled back a layer of cloth covering the tub, as if removing the shroud from an ancient treasure discovered in some sacred tomb.

In the tub, just barely submerged in water, was a metal slab – perhaps bronze, rough around the edges and thick with age. It was just slightly longer than a legal pad, with visible corrosion along two sides. In the center of the slab, in an area that obviously had been cleaned, Rebecca saw something that made her lean forward.

Symbols. Not letters exactly, but deliberate carvings in looping, angular patterns. Not merely decorative but obviously purposeful.

“What language is that?” she asked.

Geoffrey shook his head. “We don’t know yet. It could be a cipher or a symbolic code. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen, so I sent some photos over to another trusted friend, a cryptography expert at Emory.”

She kept her eyes on the slab. “Where’d you find it?”

“Just off the northwest grid, close to where we think the barracks foundation used to be. It was buried under nearly two feet of sediment. The scanner didn’t even pick it up on the first pass.”

She squinted. “You think it’s from the Revolutionary period?”

“I think it’s been down there a long time,” Geoffrey said, covering the tray again with the shroud. “We’re just beginning the conservation process. That could take some weeks yet.”

Rebecca resisted the urge to peel back the cloth and take another look. “Any idea what that thing is? Part of some weapon or some fixture on the fort?”

Geoffrey hesitated. “If this slab is what I think it could be – a land record, a deed, maybe even encrypted ownership – then it’s not just a military artifact. It could suggest a buried legal claim.”

“Legal claim? A land record, engraved on metal?” Rebecca suddenly wanted a microphone in her hand.

Geoffrey turned and starting walking through the lab as if delivering a lecture to a classroom full of archeaology students. “The process is called epigraphy – engraving inscriptions on durable objects such as stone or metal.”

Rebecca nodded, moved closer to Geoffrey. “Like hieroglyphics? Or one of my Daddy’s favorite myths – the Ten Commandments?”

“Well, yes and no,” Geoffrey said, settling behind a small desk tucked in one corner of the lab. “The Ten Commandments – so they’re a myth now, huh?”

“Don’t get me started,” Rebecca chuckled, somewhat disarmed, as she planted herself in a folding chair across from him. “I’m a preacher’s daughter, but I do have a brain.”

“That you do.” Geoffrey grabbed a stack of photographs and handed them to Rebecca. “Most examples of epigraphy archeaologists have studied date back to ancient Greek or Hebrew cultures, but very few are etched in metal. Mostly bronze, and bronze doesn’t exactly preserve a lot of details over time like we see in this piece.”

Rebecca didn’t look up as she studied the photographs of the slab. “The details are pretty clear. So is thing isn’t bronze?”

“That’s still up in the air, We’re just getting started, Rebecca,” Geoffrey said. “That’s why I haven’t called. I’ve been pretty wrapped up in this.”

“Clearly,” Rebecca said as she slid the stack of photographs onto the desk and stood. “And understandably so. I appreciate you bringing me into the loop now. I’d love to chat more, but I really do need to get to Abbeville.”

Whatever Geoffrey had pulled her into, after seeing that thing, Rebecca wasn’t doing it for him anymore. She was doing it for herself. For the story. For the mystery. And maybe, just maybe, for the satisfaction of exposing something more than whatever was still buried beneath the lake.

Or was she?

“You’re welcome.” Geoffrey’s tone of voice suddenly turned two shades brighter. “By the way, what are you doing this weekend? I’m taking the whole team down to Edgefield for a few beers and those famous burgers at the pool room Friday night.”

Outside the lakeside meeting-room-slash-laboratory, just down the hill, the lake shimmered, serene on the surface. Rebecca had spent enough years as a journalist, digging beneath calm exteriors, to know the real stories were always buried deeper.

This one was just beginning to stir. Once again, Geoffrey was drawing her toward deep, possible dark, waters.

Rebecca half smiled, half grimaced. “Sounds like fun, and I appreciate the invitation. But I’ve already made plans with Marge.”

“I understand. Have fun,” Geoffrey said, reaching out for a handshake. “I promise I’ll keep you posted on the artifact.”

Next up: Echoes Below