The conductor folded the scrap along its old crease, but the latch lifted again before he could put it away. My double stopped rubbing his palm and held it beneath the lamp; the blue line had deepened, and a second ran across it, making the shape of a small door. “He knew the way back,” the conductor said, looking toward the stable. “I was the one who shut it.” Minnie set the supper plate on the floor for the horse and drew her children away from its feet, while the boy in the coat took the bell from beside the child in the mitten. He offered it to the conductor, who shook his head and reached instead for the lamp.

We found the little door standing open a finger’s width, though no water showed beneath it now. The conductor knelt in the damp straw and eased it wider, and the smell that came through was not of the river but of cold leather and extinguished lamps. On the other side stood the cart, upright on a floor of pale silt, with its shafts pointing into darkness; across the seat lay a coat folded neatly beneath a cap. My double crouched beside him and put his marked hand through the opening, drawing it back with a narrow strip of paper caught between his fingers. It had been pinned inside the coat, and when the newcomer brought the lamp close we saw my name on it, followed by the address we had found on the list. Beneath that, in a different hand, were the words: *If he comes twice, send one home.*

The boy in the coat looked from me to my double, then lowered the bell until its clapper touched the straw. “Which one?” he asked. Neither of us answered, and the conductor reached through the door for the coat, his sleeve brushing the latch as he pulled it free. A hand came out with it, pale and closed around the cuff, and the conductor caught it before it could slip back; the door swung against his wrist, and water began to pour over the sill. My double seized his shoulder, but it was the boy who rang the bell, once and hard, while I pulled at the coat with both hands. The hand opened, leaving a brass ticket punch in the conductor’s palm, and the water withdrew so quickly that the straw rose around our knees.

Back by the fire, the conductor set the punch on the table beside the scrap, and a drop of river water fell from its hinge onto my name. The ink spread, then separated into two names, identical except for the blue circle beside the second. My double laid his marked palm over that one, not to hide it this time, but to keep the paper from curling in the heat. “He sent me,” he said, and his voice was so like mine that Minnie’s younger child looked up from the horse. Before I could ask him from where, the punch closed by itself, cutting a clean hole through both names and into the wood beneath. From the stable came the sound of wheels turning, though the horse stood beside us, and under the table a thin line of light appeared through the hole.

My double kept his hand on the scrap until the conductor asked him to move it. “I have seen it before,” he said, and the newcomer, standing behind him, caught the edge of the table as though the floor had shifted. My double lifted his hand then, and I saw my own name written beneath the brothers’, the last letter trailing into the seam where the scrap had been torn. There was no line through it, only a small circle beside it, drawn in the same faint ink. I looked at my double, but he was watching the child in the mitten, who had taken the bell from the table and was holding it against his chest. “Was I in the cart?” I asked, and the conductor said, “You came in it, but you were not on the list I carried.”

The newcomer turned the scrap over, exposing a row of stitches and a stain the shape of a palm. He laid his marked wrist against the stain, and the circle beside my name filled slowly with blue, as the window in Minnie’s house had filled with light. From the stable came a scrape of hooves, followed by the rattle of a latch, and my double went out before the horse could break loose. Through the open door I saw him take the bridle, but the horse was not pulling away; it stood with its nose against the wall, breathing into a narrow crack between the boards. When he put his ear there, something knocked from the other side, three measured taps that brought the boy in the coat to his feet. “That was how we knew he was still there,” the boy said, drawing his brother closer to the fire.

The conductor took a lamp, and I followed him into the stable while the others watched from the doorway. Behind the horse, a little door had appeared in the wall, no higher than the animal’s knee, with a brass latch crusted white from the river. The conductor crouched to lift it, but the wood bowed outward under his hand and water began to seep between the boards. I caught the bridle as the horse reared, and my double put his shoulder against the door, calling for the bell. The child in the mitten came forward with it, though the conductor reached to stop him, and held it where my double could touch the rim. At the first note the pressure eased; at the second, the latch dropped into place, and the water sank back through the cracks, leaving the straw dark and flat.

We brought the horse inside until the conductor could mend the wall, and Minnie’s younger child fed it crusts from the supper plate. My double washed his hands at the basin, rubbing at a blue line that had appeared across his palm, while the newcomer studied the scrap beside the fire. The circle by my name had emptied again, but a second name was showing through from the other side, letter by letter, beneath the stain of the hand. The conductor turned the paper toward the light and went very still. “That is the name of the man who drove the cart before me,” he said. The child set down the bell, and from the stable the little latch lifted once, softly, against the wood.

The horse cried again, and my double went to the door with the pole in his hand. Beyond him the cart stood at the edge of the lamplight, its shafts dipping toward the river, though the horse had planted all four feet on the stones. Another bell rang from the darkness, close enough now that we could hear water dripping between its strokes. The child in the mitten put down the bell from the table and pressed himself against the conductor’s leg. On the list, the buttonhole had lengthened until it was the size of the one in the conductor’s coat, and a pale thread showed through the paper at its center. The conductor worked his button loose, leaving the wet thread hanging, and laid it over the mark; the sound outside stopped at once, but the horse began to back toward the door.

Minnie took the younger brother onto her lap while the boy in the coat stood beside them, holding the towel shut at the child’s throat. “That isn’t the cart I brought,” she said, looking past my double to the shafts, where river weed hung in long black strands. The newcomer went out with him, and together they caught the horse by its bridle and turned its head toward the stable wall. As the cart swung around, its wheels left no tracks on the wet stones, and we saw that the seat was occupied by a figure in a dark coat. Its hands rested on the reins, but when the horse moved, the reins passed through them and fell slack. The conductor came to the threshold, keeping one hand on the child’s shoulder, and the figure lifted its head beneath a cap soaked flat with water.

The boy in the coat called out before anyone could stop him. At his voice the figure raised one hand, and the brass button on the list grew hot enough to scorch the paper around it. “You went back,” the boy said to the conductor, who did not answer until the younger brother had slipped from Minnie’s lap and come to stand beside him. “I found the cart,” he said, “and I followed it because I thought you were both aboard.” The figure held its hand out farther, its fingers opening and closing with the small, patient motion we had seen in the drawer. The conductor took the button from the paper despite the heat and went down the step, but the child caught his coat and went with him, his mitten tucked into the torn buttonhole.

They reached the cart together, and the conductor placed the button in the figure’s palm. For an instant the hand closed around his, and water ran from its cuff over both their wrists; then the figure settled back, leaving the button on the empty seat. The horse stood quiet while my double unfastened the shafts, and the newcomer led it into the stable, its hooves sounding solidly on the stones. When we lifted the button again, a length of thread came with it, drawn from a seam in the cart seat, and the conductor followed it with his fingers until he found a folded scrap sewn beneath the leather. He brought it inside and laid it beside the list, where the firelight showed a line of names in the same faint hand. The two brothers found theirs near the bottom, crossed through together; below them was one more name, and my double put his hand over it before I could read.

Before I could ask, the boat struck the step, and the conductor came down into the water to steady it. He lifted Minnie’s younger child ashore, then reached for the boy in the coat, who drew his sleeves over his hands and turned away. “Who did you leave in the drawer?” I said. The conductor kept his hand extended until the small child on the step took it, fitting his mittened fingers around two of his. Behind them, Minnie’s elder boy appeared in the doorway, and she gathered both her children against her while the river ran from their clothes onto the stones. The conductor looked at the boy in the coat and said, “His brother.” The boy shook his head, not in denial, but as if the answer had come too late.

Inside, the cabinet stood open a little way, and the list had slipped from its top to the floor. The newcomer bent to retrieve it, but the boy caught his marked wrist and held it still. “He’s there now,” he said, listening to the faint knocks beneath the table. The conductor knelt beside the drawer, though he did not touch it, and told us that when the water first rose he had put the younger brother inside to keep him dry. “I went for the boat,” he said, “and when I came back I could only find the house.” The boy in the coat had come looking after him, and the newcomer had found that boy waiting behind the submerged door. The conductor rested his forehead against the cabinet, while the child in the mitten stood close enough for the brass button to brush his sleeve.

My double set the bell on the table and pulled the drawer open. Wet ash lay across its bottom, with a small shoe in the middle, the laces tied neatly together; as we watched, the ash stirred and a second shoe emerged beside the first. Minnie’s elder boy took up the bell and put it into the conductor’s hand, but he could make no sound with it, however hard he shook it. Then the child reached for it, and the conductor surrendered it at once, keeping his other hand beneath the child’s elbow as he leaned over the drawer. The bell rang, and a thin stream of water spilled over the front, carrying the shoes onto the floor. A boy followed them, slipping out on his knees, and the boy in the coat dropped beside him and pulled him close before anyone else could move.

The conductor fetched a towel from the settle, and this time the elder brother let him wrap it around them both. My double gathered up the shoes, while Minnie’s children made room by the fire, their shadows shifting over the damp wall. The newcomer picked up the list and found Minnie’s name fading from it, leaving the address clear again; beneath the address, however, a fresh mark had begun to form. He showed it to me without speaking, and I saw that it was not a name but the outline of a buttonhole, darkening at its edges. The conductor saw it too and put his hand to his coat, where the brass button still hung by its wet thread. Outside, the horse gave a short, uneasy cry, and from the river came the sound of a bell answering the one on our table.

My double caught the drawer with the pole before it could pass beneath the boat, and I reached down to turn its open side toward the light. A hand lay inside, knocking against the bottom with two curled fingers; when I lifted the drawer, the hand withdrew into the sleeve of a coat packed tightly around it. The newcomer leaned over me and held the silent bell above the opening, and the fingers came out again, searching along the brass rim. “It’s the driver,” he said, though the hand was too small for a man’s. At the window Minnie struck the glass with her palm, then pointed to the water below her. My double pushed us alongside the house, where a door stood open under the surface, its latch stirring gently in the current.

I took the cloth from my pocket and tied one end around the drawer handle, keeping the other about my wrist before lowering it into the doorway. The hand caught at the threshold, and for a moment the drawer hung there with water pouring over its lip; then someone inside took hold of it, and the cloth went slack. Minnie disappeared from the window and returned with the drawer against her hip, her younger boy clinging to her neck. She opened the window as far as the water would allow and passed the child out to my double, who settled him between his knees beneath the shelter of his coat. Minnie followed, but kept one arm through the opening, feeling for the drawer as it drifted into the room. “Leave it,” I said, and she shook her head, looking toward the hand that had begun to knock again.

The newcomer set the bell on the sill and reached past her, plunging his marked wrist into the dark water. He drew out a boy in a conductor’s coat, the brass buttons hanging from it like coins, and laid him across the gunwale while Minnie held the boat steady. The boy was breathing, though each breath came with a little rattle, and his wet hair had been combed flat across his forehead. “He was behind the door when we came,” Minnie said, pulling the coat close around him. The newcomer touched the mark on his wrist to the boy’s cheek, and the boy opened his eyes and looked first at the bell, then at the house behind us. “You were meant to wait,” he whispered, and the newcomer answered, “I know,” without taking his hand away.

We made room for Minnie and the boy, and my double pushed off while I gathered the trailing cloth from the water. The bell gave one clear note when Minnie’s younger child touched it, and the blue light in the window went out. Ahead of us the Ferry appeared, its doorway bright and the conductor standing on the step with the child beside him, both watching our approach. The boy in the coat struggled upright at the sight of them, scattering water from his sleeves, and the conductor raised a hand as though to hail him. Then the boy caught my arm and pulled me close enough to hear him over the current. “Ask him,” he said, “who he left in the drawer.”