Elias parked his Jeep a quarter-mile out. The mill squatted against the starless sky like a sleeping beast. His gear was simple: a Faraday cage backpack, a Geiger counter modified to read "EVP flux" instead of radiation, and a lead-lined notebook.

She fell. The Mark on the pillar blazed so bright it turned her blood to steam.

The first sign was the silence. No crickets. No wind. He stepped through a broken loading bay door, and the air changed. It tasted like ozone and rusted pennies.

He was no longer in the mill. He was in the same spot, but the looms were whole, roaring, and filled with women in soot-stained dresses. It was 1912. A young woman with his own sharp cheekbones glanced up from her work. Her eyes widened. She saw him.

His EVP meter began to tick. Slow. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat.