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A traveling field recordist and her cousin drift into a desert town where the canal hums names and swallows voices. With a retired radio man’s help and a stubborn pitch pipe, they face the Empty Choir beneath an old hydro plant—and Mara must sing the note she buried years ago.
Mara eased the van into the gravel lot behind the diner and killed the engine. Heat rose in waves from the asphalt, a wavering veil between them and the neat line of cottonwoods beyond the canal. The town sign said SAN REMEDIO in hand-painted letters. Under it, somebody had wired a cow skull and a Christmas light halo that flickered even in daylight.
Jonah kicked the door open and stretched. He wore a shirt speckled with oil and a grin that never learned to sit still. 'If this place does fry bread, I might marry it,' he said, peering at the diner window. Inside, a waitress with a ponytail was topping off coffees. A radio hissed in the heat, trying for music and finding only static.
Mara slid her parabolic dish from behind the seat and cradled it like a mirror. Dust had scuffed the clear plastic. She brushed it with her sleeve. Her recorder blinked a patient red.
They crossed the lot. Dust smelled like sunburnt sage. Closer to the canal, Mara felt a prickle at the base of her neck. Not wind. Not heat. A thin vibration, the kind that made screws in a dashboard creep loose over miles.
Inside, the diner air was cold and smelled of lemon cleaner, coffee and a faint sweetness like fried dough. A boy in a baseball cap tucked napkins into dispensers. A sheriff's deputy nursed a milkshake and read a paper. The radio on the shelf sputtered, then gave up on the song entirely.
'You folks passing through?' the waitress asked, pencil over pad.
'We chase sounds,' Jonah said. 'She does. I just carry things and get in trouble.'
Mara found her smile. 'Field recordings. Old bells, weird wind, trains that only run on Tuesdays.' She felt a little foolish until the waitress nodded like that was a thing people did.
'Weird wind we got,' she said. 'Comes off the ditch at night, makes dogs hide. My abuela says you don't answer if the ditch calls your name. She'd swat me if I even looked at it.'
At the corner booth, the deputy spoke without looking up. 'A boy disappeared two weeks ago. Mateo Rivas. Folks say the ditch took him. Folks say too many things.' He folded the paper so neatly it creaked. 'Finish your pie before you start any of that talk.'
Mara heard the hum again, now that she was listening. It threaded the chatter and the kitchen clatter, low as a heartbeat. The coffee cups sang in it when the waitress set them down. Jonah caught her gaze, raised an eyebrow. She nodded.
After lunch they walked along the canal. Cottonwoods leaned over the slow green water. Dragonflies stitched light across it. The hum lived down along the stones, inside the culverts, where tar-dark shadows pooled. A metal water tower rose across the road, pale and dented, a ladder up one side like a metal scar.