Lost Lake

8

Lost Lake

Suley, Georgia

Present day

Eby didn’t show up for lunch. The guests ate without her, assuming she was just too busy with her inventory. Lisette set out browned chicken, warm butternut squash salad, blue potatoes, and blackberry bread with a crust of sugar that looked like ice crystals.

When the phone in the foyer rang, everyone’s forks froze halfway to their mouths. They sat motionless, startled, not only because this was the first time the phone had rung since they all had arrived at Lost Lake, but also because Eby wasn’t there to answer it. When it rang again, they looked at each other curiously, like jungle natives marveling at technology. Even Lisette walked out of the kitchen and stood there as if wondering what to do.

“I’ll get it,” Kate said, taking her napkin out of her lap. She got up and walked to the foyer. She reached over the desk and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello?” A female voice said. “Is this Lost Lake?”

“Yes.”

“But this isn’t Eby.”

“No, I’m Kate. Eby’s niece.”

“Oh, good! You might be able to help me. I’m Lara Larkworthy from the Ladies League. We heard about Eby’s farewell party and we wanted to know what we could bring. I know Grady is bringing chicken wings. And I heard Mavis Baker is bringing her famous chowchow.”

Kate hesitated. “All I know is that Lisette is making a cake.”

“So you don’t need dessert. Good. I’ll tell the ladies. One more thing. My husband wants to know if his bluegrass band can play at the party. When they were boys, Eby used to hire them to play for her guests on the weekends. He wanted to play one last time for her.”

“Sure,” Kate said, though she wasn’t really sure at all. “I guess that will be okay.”

“He’ll be so happy! Thank you for your time. I hope to meet you on Saturday!”

Lara Larkworthy of the Ladies League hung up.

Kate put the receiver back in the cradle, then walked back to the dining room.

“I think we have a problem,” she said.

“Who was that?” Bulahdeen asked.

“Someone from town. She asked what her ladies group could bring to the party. She also asked if her husband’s band could play. I think this party is going to be a lot bigger than we thought.”

Lisette immediately wrote something on her notepad and showed it to Jack.

“Lisette says she’ll need someone to go to the grocery store for her again,” Jack said. “And she’ll need someone to help her make a bigger cake.”

“I’ll go to the store for you,” Kate said.

“And I’ll help with the cake,” Jack offered. He even stood up, as if volunteering for military duty.

“I knew it!” Bulahdeen said with a cackle. She slapped the table’s surface with the palm of her hand, making the silverware jump. “Just when you think you know the ending, it changes.”

Selma patted her mouth with her napkin, leaving a smear of lipstick. “No, really, you should look into getting that medication.”

Bulahdeen ignored her. “I taught literature for nearly forty years. The books I read when I was twenty completely changed when I read them when I was sixty. You know why? Because the endings changed. After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end. That’s what’s happening here.”

No one responded. She looked frustrated that they didn’t understand.

“Kate,” Bulahdeen said, “Eby’s not really doing inventory, is she?”

Kate reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. “Not really. No.”

“Eby doesn’t want to leave. We all know that.”

“I don’t think it’s within our power to stop her,” Jack said. “Is it?”

“Of course it is!” Bulahdeen said. “We’ve been coming back year after year, but have we ever truly let Eby know how much this place means to us? Does she really know how much we appreciate her? What have we been doing? We’ve just been hanging around, like we were waiting for this to happen, for Eby to finally give up. No more! I bet the whole town is coming here to tell her how much they love her. This isn’t a farewell party anymore. This is a make-Eby-stay party!”

Selma stood. “You can put a tuxedo on a goat, but it’s still a goat.”

“No, it’s not,” Bulahdeen said. “It’s a completely different goat when you put a tuxedo on it.”

“You’re feeling your oats today,” Selma said as she walked out.

“You bet I am. This is going to be great. There’s a lot more to do. I need to make another list.” Bulahdeen dove into her purse and began to rummage around in it, murmuring things to herself.

Confused, Devin turned to Kate and whispered, “Is there going to be a goat at this party?”

Eby spent time in cabin number 2 today, the cabin she always reserved for young mothers who wanted to get away from a screaming baby for a while. She’d fallen asleep on the fainting couch in the living room, and when she awoke, the sky was so low and dark that she thought for a moment she’d slept the day away. She lifted her wrist and looked at her watch. It was an hour past noon. She’d missed lunch, and her stomach began to growl.

She slowly sat up. Her knees popped, and she rubbed them before standing and going to the window. The picnic-table umbrellas were swaying in the wind, and leaves were rushing across the lawn, following one another frantically, as if they knew of a safe place to go. The sky was the color of old pewter. A flash of lightning illuminated the tree line at the far end of the lake. These flash storms happened a lot around the lake. They never actually produced rain, just a lot of drama. It took years to realize that. George and Eby used to scurry around and secure things and bring in tablecloths and food when the sky grew dark and the wind picked up, until they finally understood that nothing ever happened. Rain, when it came to Lost Lake, was like an old woman watering her garden. It always gave plenty of warning. It was always steady. And it never made a lot of noise. George used to laugh and say that when one of these flash storms in the distance finally produced rain at Lost Lake, it was time to worry.

Eby left the cabin and went straight to the lawn, feeling the wind blow wildly through her hair and the electricity in the air bounce around her. She stretched her arms out and lifted her face to the sky. She closed her eyes and waited. Her heart was beating quickly, alive. Her hands tingled with energy, as if forming something solid she could ball up and throw.

She waited. And waited.

Minutes later, she felt the wind die down, then she felt the light on her face. The storm had passed without a drop of rain.

She opened her eyes and dropped her arms.

Okay.

So it wasn’t time to worry yet.

Eby walked to the main house. The dining room had been cleared from lunch, so she went to the kitchen. Lisette was bringing out a variety of cake pans and intricate-looking pastry tools. Her father might have been a famous chef, but everything Lisette knew about pastries was self-taught, and she was exceedingly proud of that.

“I fell asleep doing inventory and missed lunch,” Eby said, going to the refrigerator and grabbing a handful of grapes. “Where is everyone?”

Lisette wrote, Jack will join me soon. He will help me with this cake.

“Jack? Here in your kitchen?” That made Eby’s brows rise. “What does Luc think of this?” Eby gestured to the empty chair in the corner.

As always, Lisette became uncomfortable when Eby spoke of Luc.

Eby knew all too well that there was a fine line when it came to grief. If you ignore it, it goes away, but then it always comes back when you least expect it. If you let it stay, if you make a place for it in your life, it gets too comfortable and it never leaves. It was best to treat grief like a guest. You acknowledge it, you cater to it, then you send it on its way.

Lisette had let Luc stay for far too long.

I am not speaking to Luc.

“He agrees with me, doesn’t he? About you and Jack.”

You and Luc are both trying to make me happy without you. How does that work, exactly? How can I be happy without you?

Eby read that and shook her head. “There aren’t a finite number of things that can make you happy. There’s more than just me and Luc. I’d wager Luc would agree with me.”

Lisette rolled her eyes and wrote, Why should I listen to either of you? Luc is a child, and you are an old woman.

That made Eby laugh. “I’m old? You’re no spring chicken, missy.”

Lisette threw her hands in the air, a very European expression of exasperation, something she hadn’t lost in fifty years spent in the American South. No matter how hard she tried, and she did try, Lisette would always look not-from-here. You didn’t need to hear a voice or an accent to figure that out.

“Where is everyone else?” Eby said, taking a slice of blackberry bread from the tray before Lisette put it away.

Lisette sighed and wrote, Planning your party.

Eby turned before Lisette could see her reach up and touch her chest, touch that fluttering under her skin. The guests were throwing her a farewell party. Jack had come for Lisette. Wes was selling his property. She had put all of this in motion. She knew it was for the best. She couldn’t save this place.

She walked to the front desk and sat down, leaning back to check once more for rain, but finding only sunshine. The lake was telling her not to worry, that everything was going to be all right, but she still had an uneasy feeling.

Why else would she still be looking for signs that she should stay?

When they reached downtown Suley, Kate left Lisette’s grocery list with the young woman at the business counter at the Fresh Mart again. She said it might take about thirty minutes, so Kate and Devin strolled down the sidewalk around the circle, looking in windows of antique marts, galleries, tea shops, and bookstores. The last few buildings were townie businesses—a law office, a print shop, a real estate office with a dance studio upstairs—and Kate almost turned to go back. But Devin wanted to walk all the way around.

That’s when they saw Handyman Pizza, the last building on the far side of the circle.

Kate stopped on the sidewalk in front of the window. Just like on Wes’s van, HANDYMAN PIZZA was stenciled on the glass, along with the caricature of a smiling burly man in a tool belt. At this angle, the sun was shining against their backs, turning the glass into a mirror.

“It smells really good in there,” Devin said. She leaned forward and cupped one hand on the glass, trying to look inside.

“We just had lunch.”

“I hate to tell you this, Mom, but I don’t like butternut squash. I mean, I’m eight years old,” she said, in the same tone she would have used if someone had asked her to drive a car.

Kate laughed and opened the door.

They entered, and whatever Kate had expected, it wasn’t this. The floor was black and white tiles, but the rest of the place was an explosion of neon colors. The walls were plastered with movie posters and record album covers from the 1980s. On the far back wall was a bank of old-school video games. PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong, Frogger.

She and Devin took a seat at the counter. It was a busy place, obviously a local hangout. When a waitress in blue jeans and a Handyman Pizza T-shirt approached them, Kate quickly scanned the chalkboard wall with the menu written on it. She ordered a slice of cheese pizza for Devin and two iced teas.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” the waitress said as she poured the iced tea into two plastic cups. “Are you visiting the water park?”

“No, Lost Lake.”

The waitress’s eyes widened. “You’re Eby Pim’s niece! I heard you were out there for a visit.”

Kate was surprised. “You did?”

The waitress laughed. “Small town. I’m coming to the party. Be right back with your slice.”

In minutes, Devin’s pizza was in front of her, and she dug in.

Kate sipped her tea, aware that people were watching them curiously. There was some commotion in the kitchen, and suddenly the door swung open and Wes stood there, his eyes finding them immediately.

“I told you she was out there,” a male voice from inside the kitchen said.

“Hi, Wes!” Devin said, strings of cheese stretching between her mouth and the pizza slice.

“Nice place you have here,” Kate said. He was dressed in soft, worn jeans and a long-sleeved T. His hair was a lighter red than it had been, wet with sweat the day before yesterday. It made him seem more real, here in a place that wasn’t the lake. It was the first time she’d ever seen him outside that context, and it was strange to realize that her fond feelings for him were the same here as they were there. It wasn’t just situational. It was him.

He walked over to them, looking a little embarrassed by his entrance. “Thanks.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He leaned against the counter. “Sure.”

“Why do you call it Handyman Pizza when it’s totally eighties in here?”

He smiled. She could see the boy inside best when he did that, guard down. “That confuses a lot of people the first time they come in here. When this building went on the market, I wanted it because it has a large alley garage entrance downstairs, which was perfect for me because I’d finally saved enough to make my handyman business a brick-and-mortar company instead of one I ran out of my foster mother’s house. There are three stories. The third floor is my apartment.” He pointed his thumb at the ceiling. “The man who owned the place before me ran this restaurant here on the street entrance. He called it Flashback Pizza. I didn’t have any interest in running a restaurant, so I thought I would lease the space out. But the restaurant was popular with the locals, and they campaigned to keep it open. The previous owner had died suddenly, and people kept putting his vintage green high-top sneakers on the steps outside my apartment at night. Sometimes I’d find them in the garage downstairs. A couple of times they were even in here in the restaurant when I came down from my apartment in the mornings, on the floor at that table”—he indicated a neon orange table in the corner—“like he’d just been sitting there, then got up and left.”

A man whose whole face seemed to be made of whiskers appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “I keep telling you, we didn’t do it,” he said. “It was his ghost. He wanted the place to stay open. He was buried in those shoes! Hi there, Kate, I’m Grady. Tell Eby I’m bringing chicken wings to her party, okay?”

Kate smiled and nodded, but Wes ignored him. “Thus Handyman Pizza was formed. Two businesses in one. I have an employee and a dispatcher for my handyman business downstairs. And I kept the employees of the restaurant here, which Grady oversees.” He nodded to where the cook had disappeared back into the kitchen. “But there are weird crossovers, like when people call for a handyman and ask that a pizza be delivered, too. Or when customers in the restaurant bring in broken lamps, and eat here while the lamps are rewired downstairs.”

“That’s very clever,” Kate said.

“I just fell into it,” Wes said.

“You always were pretty easygoing.”

Wes snorted. “Meaning I let you boss me around.”

Devin finished her pizza slice and said, “Hey, Wes, look what the alligator gave me.” She lifted the knobby piece of wood she’d set on the counter earlier. She carried it around with her like a flashlight everywhere she went. “I think it’s a clue.”

Wes took the piece of wood and gave it due consideration. “A clue to what?”

Devin shrugged. “Something the alligator wants me to find.”

“It looks like part of a cypress knee,” he said, handing it back to her.

“You know … it does,” Kate agreed.

Devin looked excited. “What’s a cypress knee?”

“It’s the part of a cypress tree root that sticks out above the ground or water. Your mom and I used to go diving around the cypress knees at the far end of the lake, looking for treasure.”

“Not that you can do that,” Kate added quickly. “It’s too dangerous. My mother would have had a fit if she’d known what I was doing. I remember how tangled those roots were underwater. It’s amazing we didn’t get trapped.”

“But we grew gills, remember?” Wes said.

Kate actually reached up and touched a place behind her ear. “I remember.”

She also remembered the story she’d made up about the three girls who went swimming in the cypress knees and got trapped, about how they had stayed there forever and grown up underwater, their hair floating like seaweed as they watched their parents look for them every day. And how, when they were grown, they figured out how to harness the fog and appear above the water. Ursula, Magdalene, and Betty. The ghost ladies.

Devin hopped off her stool. “Let’s go back to the lake. I want to check out these knees!”

“Are you coming to Eby’s party?” Kate asked as she stood. She called for Devin to wait by the door.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

“So will most of the town, apparently. It’s snowballed into something bigger than Bulahdeen expected.”

“I can come out later today, if you’d like. I can help get the place ready.”

“I think everyone would be grateful for that,” Kate said.

“Mom, come on!”

Kate smiled as she walked away. “I’ll see you then.”

“Does she know you’re a part of this development deal, the one that’s going to take Eby’s property?” Grady asked, his timing perfect as he poked his head out of the kitchen the moment Kate and Devin left.

Wes shrugged. “Unless Eby has told her, no.”

Grady hooted. “You’re going to be in hot water when she finds out.”

“Why?”

“Has it really been that long?” Grady shook his head. “I keep telling you, you need to date more, son.”

“I date enough.”

“Going bowling with me doesn’t constitute dating. You never even buy me dinner.”

Wes grabbed a wipe from under the counter. He paused, then asked, “What makes you think I’m even interested in Kate?”

“That right there, what just happened, is called attraction. A-trak-shee-un. Look it up in the dictionary.”

Wes smiled and turned to buss the counter. Grady knew that Wes had had girlfriends in the past. Not that they’d ever lasted very long. Everyone his age always seemed to be in such a hurry to leave. His longest relationship had lasted two years. He and Anika had fallen in love their senior year in high school. But not long after graduation, Anika had started making plans for them to leave. They had jobs that could travel, she’d said. He could fix anything, and she could waitress anywhere. His foster mother Daphne had encouraged him to do whatever his heart told him to. The problem with that was that his heart didn’t belong to Anika. Not all of it, anyway. A big part, sure. He did love her. But he also loved Daphne and Eby and the town. And Billy.

It really all came down to Billy.

If he left this place, he would have to leave his brother. And he couldn’t do that. He and Billy had been inseparable. Wes had never minded changing his diapers or teaching him to swim or walking through the woods with him to the lake every morning. Everything Wes did, Billy did. Everything Wes liked, Billy liked. Wes had almost died trying to find him in that burning house. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t find him. Maybe he was still looking for him. Maybe he always would be.

There had never been a single force, a single person, who could compete with that memory, with that place in his heart. Except Kate. She’d made him want to leave all those years ago. Even then, he’d been planning to take Billy with him. But even she couldn’t make him leave now. Not that that would ever happen. No matter what Grady said, what he and Kate had now was just a memory of something good.

It, and she, would be gone before he knew it.

9

The groceries were ready when Kate and Devin walked back to the Fresh Mart, and Kate tipped the bag boy who helped load Lisette’s boxes into the Subaru. Devin had already buckled herself in, and Kate was about to get behind the wheel when she heard voices coming from inside the store. A window cleaner on a ladder was squeegeeing the glass above the door, leaving the doors open.

“Why do you keep coming in here? He’s married.” Kate recognized that voice. It was the young woman with the ponytail at the business counter—Brittany.

“I don’t see your father complaining,” Selma said as she walked out. She didn’t see Kate standing there. Her skirt swished with agitation, and her heels clicked so hard on the sidewalk that they sparked and made black burn marks on the concrete. The air around her was charged with a bright red electricity that every woman recognized. So did every man, but for entirely different reasons.

“What’s the matter with Selma?” Devin asked.

“Nothing,” Kate said, climbing into the car. “She’s just in a bad mood.”

“The alligator likes her.”

“Does he?” Kate asked absently as she started the car.

“He likes everyone. I think he’s upset that he might not see them again. He doesn’t want them to leave.”

“Even Selma?”

“He thinks she’s pretty.”

Kate turned to back out of the space. “Well, that means he’s definitely a he.”

They were a few minutes ahead of Selma in arriving back at Lost Lake. When Selma arrived, she got out of her red sedan and walked to her cabin without a word.

Kate and Devin had just started unloading the groceries when Kate heard Selma call, “Kate! Oh, Ka-ate!”

With a box full of vegetables in her hands, Kate turned to see Selma now standing on the front stoop of her cabin. “Yes?”

“I want to take a long bath and I don’t have any clean towels.”

Kate nodded to the main house. “I’m sure Eby has some in the laundry room.”

“I’ll wait here,” Selma said. “You said you were helping Eby, right? Eby usually does this.”

Kate and Devin took the first load of groceries inside. “I’ll be right back with the rest,” Kate said to Lisette. “I have to run some towels over to Selma first. What is it with women like that?”

Lisette shook her head slowly and wrote something on her notepad. She is lonely.

“She doesn’t act lonely.”

Lisette smiled and wrote, None of us do. Not even you.

Minutes later, Kate knocked on Selma’s door. Selma called for her to come in. When Kate entered, she saw that Selma had already changed into a Chinese dressing gown and was lying on the couch, reading a magazine. The cabin seemed hazy but not by smoke. The haze had a scent, like a perfume.

Scarves were draped over lampshades. High-heeled shoes lined the hearth of the fireplace. There were open hat boxes strewn around, but they didn’t contain hats. One contained candy; another, hundreds of tiny makeup samples; another, inexplicably, bottle caps. Kate stood at the door and held out the towels.

Selma tossed the magazine aside in a truly impressive show of ennui. “Just put them in the bathroom. And take the old towels with you.”

Kate went to the bathroom, set the new towels on the sink, and came back out with the used towels, which were covered in makeup. She walked to the front door, about to leave, but then stopped and turned. “I saw you at the Fresh Mart today. You were having an argument with the girl there.”

Selma sighed. “She doesn’t like me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I flirt with her father. The man who owns the store. He’s married. It’s what I do. All my husbands were married when I met them.” She rubbed her bare ring finger distractedly. “But she doesn’t have anything to worry about. If I’d wanted him, I’d have used my last charm to get him by now.”

Kate opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally she had to ask, “All of your husbands were married?”

“Strange, isn’t it? But those are the rules,” Selma said.

“You have rules?”

“I didn’t make them. They’ve been there since time immemorial.”

“So why didn’t you stay married to any of them? You obviously went to a lot of trouble to get them.”

Selma frowned, then stood. “It’s never what I think it’s going to be.” She gestured to seven picture frames on the mantle, some large, some small, each photo of a smiling man. The youngest was an old photo of a man in his twenties, the oldest was a recent photo of an elderly man. “Those are my husbands,” Selma said. “I keep them around to remind me what not to look for the next time.”

Kate watched Selma walk over to the mantle. She picked up a small jewelry box. It was chestnut in color with tiny flecks of ivory inlay on top. On its own, it was completely innocuous, and Kate would have thought nothing of it. But the way Selma picked it up and cradled it made it alive somehow. Kate stared, fascinated. She could feel its pull.

“Do you know what this is?”

“No,” Kate said, shifting her weight and swallowing.

“The secret to my success,” Selma said, holding out the box and opening it slowly in front of Kate.

Kate leaned forward and looked inside. She frowned when she saw that it was empty, save for a small heart charm sitting on the black velvet lining. “What is it?”

“Ha!” Selma said, snapping the box shut, making Kate jump back quickly. “I knew it. Only women like me know what it’s for.”

“What do you mean?” Kate felt a little light-headed, like she’d stood up too quickly.

“It’s a charm. My last one. I’m saving it to use on my last husband. He will be old and rich, the last one I will ever need.”

Kate wondered if Selma clung to this idea of charms the same way Kate had clung to Cricket, because when you run out of rope, you grab the first thing within reach. When Selma divorced one husband, maybe the charms comforted her with the fact that she wouldn’t have to be alone for long, that another one would come along soon.

After standing there awkwardly for a moment, holding the dirty towels and watching Selma smile and stroke the box like a cat, Kate turned and left the cabin. Once outside, she stopped on the stoop. She took a deep breath of lake air and felt her head clear. She looked back at the door she’d closed behind her and wondered if understanding Selma was really possible.

Maybe she really was magic.

Selma put the box back on the mantle. She didn’t understand why she acted this way. She couldn’t seem to help herself. And she had been this way for so long that she didn’t think she could be any other way. Not that she wanted to. Her mother had hated it, had hated what Selma had become, but Selma didn’t care. She wasn’t her mother. That was all that mattered.

Selma tried not to think of her mother, but when she did, she felt pity. She was a fading photo from the past—thin, transparent, disappearing from the window at the kitchen sink, where she would always stand and wait for her husband to come home to her.

She didn’t like to think of her father either, but when she did she felt anger, sometimes longing. But he too was a whispery figure of her past, consisting mainly of the scent of newspaper ink.

The only thing from her childhood she really liked to think of, what she remembered in striking detail, was the endless string of women with which her father had cheated on her mother. She remembered the hems of their dresses, the curl of their hair, the color of their eyeshadow, the marks their jewelry left on their skin. When she was very young, she’d had no idea who they were, these strange women who would show up at their front door, looking for Selma’s father. Selma’s mother would slam the door in their faces, but Selma would sneak out and follow them down the sidewalk, entranced by these painted creatures and the music created by their bracelets. They’d always had bracelets.

When Selma was older but still too young to stay at home alone, her father would take her to bars on nights her mother drugged herself into a stupor with sleeping pills. Hidden in a corner, drinking Virgin Marys, Selma would watch her father interact with these women. It hadn’t been her father who had called the shots, though. These women had all the power. How charmed they’d been. How potent to the people around them.

Ruby, a beautiful woman with dyed black hair and the largest bosom Selma had ever seen, had been the woman who had finally made Selma’s father leave her mother. The others, Selma realized now, had just been playing with him, batting him around like a cat with a stunned mouse. They hadn’t wanted to marry him, because if they had, he would have left long before then. Selma had been thirteen when this happened, and she had loved going to visit her father and Ruby’s apartment in downtown Jackson. Selma had been on the cusp of womanhood, and Ruby had been all that Selma had wanted to be. Ruby, in her better moods, would show Selma how to apply makeup, making her lips so pink she looked like she’d just taken a bite of a cupcake. It had felt that way, too, sticky and thick. It had been during one of these makeup sessions that Selma had asked Ruby about her bracelet.

Ruby had stepped back and held up her hand, making the four heart charms jingle. “Women like me have exactly eight times in our lives to get the man we want. This is how we keep track.” She’d rattled the bracelet again. “I had eight charms. I have four left.”

“What happens to the charms?”

“They disappear the moment we decide on the man we want, the moment we know. The first few men are usually out of spite. We use them to steal the men of women we don’t like. The last four are usually for money. The very last one is the last chance to get exactly what we want. Is it money? Is it revenge? Is it love? Is it a family? It’s the most important charm.”

Selma had listened with rapt attention. “Do you have to use them all?”

Ruby had laughed, a sharp sound like a barking seal. “Darling, why would you waste them?”

Selma had tried desperately to process it all. She’d wanted to know everything but was afraid it was too much, that she didn’t have what it took to understand. Boys had just started to intrigue her, and she had trouble thinking beyond finding one to hold hands with. That was all. Just one. That had been all she’d wanted. “If you fall in love, can you just keep using the charms on the same man?”

“Of course not,” Ruby had said, and her condescending tone had wounded Selma. “Who could love one man that long?”

“So you’re not going to stay with my dad?” Selma had asked.

“No. Be still,” Ruby had said, putting a row of false lashes on Selma’s eye. “Your mother and I used to go to the same school, a long time ago. She used to make fun of me, she and her friends. She used to think she was so much better than me. Now look at her. Her life is pitiful, and I can have any married man I want. I guess I showed her, didn’t I?”

Selma had felt a shudder go through her. Ruby had felt almost dangerous at that moment. Selma had always hated the powerlessness of her mother. And she’d hated how her father always seemed to get his way with no consequences. Ruby was better, stronger, than them all. Ruby would always win. “I want to be just like you,” Selma had whispered, her voice trembling. Even if she hadn’t really understood, even though it had confused her, she’d known.

Ruby had lifted Selma’s chin with her fingers, her face just inches from Selma’s. “Just by saying that, darling, you already are.” She blew into Selma face, her breath warm. Something came over Selma. She was different now. She could feel it. “Eight charms. That’s all you get. It seems like a lot a first, but you’ll soon see you’ll have to pace yourself. You’re going to be the envy of all women. Any married man who feels a sliver of attraction to you can be yours. You’re going to lead a charmed life.”

Ruby had left four months later. Two weeks after that, Selma had received a package in the mail from her—a bracelet with eight charms.

Selma’s father went back to her mother. She made his life miserable. He continued to cheat. But they realized they were stuck with each other. Selma might as well have become invisible, so focused were they on their hatred for each other.

When Selma turned eighteen, she’d used her first charm to marry an army sergeant who had married a classmate of Selma’s the year before. They were home on leave, and Selma had hated this girl, how she gloated that she was free of this place, how she said that all the other girls were rotting here while she saw the world. Selma had shown her. And that first time she’d watched a charm disappear, knowing she was going to get exactly what she’d wanted, had been wondrous.

At first Selma had been giddy with her power and had married foolishly, just as Ruby had said. Her third husband was stolen from a cocktail waitress who had spilled a drink on her. The later ones had been for more practical reasons.

But with all that Ruby had told her, there had been two things Ruby had failed to share. The first was that the effect of the charms was fleeting. She could get any married man who was attracted to her to leave his wife and marry her, but she couldn’t make him stay. Five years was the upper limit, though there was a rumor among their kind that one of them had managed seventeen years on a single charm. Information was hard to come by. While they instinctively knew one another when they crossed paths, women like her didn’t share their secrets easily.

Selma went to the window in her cabin and watched Kate walk away. Kate threw a look back over her shoulder. Selma knew that look very well. Hundreds of women had given her that look over the years. She wasn’t immune to it.

That was the second thing Ruby had failed to tell her. That those looks would always hurt.

And that, by choosing to be the woman she was, she would never again have female friends.

10

“Lisette and I brought in the rest of the groceries. Can I go down to the lake?” Devin asked her mother, running up the path toward Kate as soon as she came out of Selma’s cabin. That heavy, beautiful-lady scent hung in the air around her. Selma’s cabin was surrounded by it, like a force field. Devin imagined that if she threw rocks at it, they would just ricochet off.

“No,” Kate said, shifting the towels in her arms. “Stick with me for a little while. I don’t think Eby has done any laundry lately. It might be backing up.”

From behind them on the path, someone said, “I’ll watch over her.”

It was Bulahdeen. Devin liked her. She wasn’t much taller than Devin, so Devin had a weird impression of her being a very old little girl. She was wearing dark sunglasses that took up half of her sweet, wrinkled face.

“Please, please, please?” Devin said, jumping up and down.

Kate smiled. “Okay. You two keep an eye on each other. Thanks, Bulahdeen.”

Kate walked into the main house, and Devin turned to Bulahdeen. She held up the root the alligator had given her and said, “To the cypress knees!”

“You want to see the cypress knees? Okay, this way,” Bulahdeen said, directing her to a trail that led around the lake, so close that the water nearly reached the bank in places. Cypress trees leaned over it, draping moss to the water like a curtain.

Devin walked backward in front of Bulahdeen as Bulahdeen peppered her with questions about her school and her family, which Devin didn’t want to talk about, because that was her old life and things were different since leaving Atlanta. Her life had changed so much, had been in a constant state of flux for almost a year. It was like spinning around in circles with your eyes closed. Once you stop, the world still feels like it is going too fast. Then, after a while, you realize nothing is spinning anymore—that everything is perfectly still.

That’s what Lost Lake felt like.

Bulahdeen stopped a lot during the walk—to toss branches out of the pathway or to show Devin a mushroom or a nest. Everything that shone attracted her attention like a magpie. It seemed to take forever to get even halfway around the lake. Devin became anxious to get to the cypress knees, so she ran ahead of Bulahdeen. Bulahdeen called her back in a tone that brooked no defiance. Devin slowed down and matched her pace to Bulahdeen’s, learning it, making sure she remembered it.

Finally, Bulahdeen said, “There they are! The only place on the lake where you can see them.”

Devin looked out over the water. They didn’t look like knees. They didn’t even look like roots. They looked like the ancient spires of Gothic buildings sticking out of the top of the water, like there was a church under the lake and she and Bulahdeen could only see the top of it. They were clustered in a section close to the bank, no more than a foot or so out of the water. She got as close to the edge as possible and looked down. The water moved slightly, and she thought for a moment that she saw a flash of something electric blue at the bottom. But, then again, the water was so murky that it was hard to tell just where the bottom was. She didn’t see any evidence that the alligator had been here, or that whatever it was he might want her to find was hidden anywhere. She even put her hand over her good eye and looked around.

She thought it would be more obvious than this.

Her shoulders dropped. She was tired. Fatigue suddenly settled over her like someone encasing her in glass.

The alligator had kept her up most of the night, tossing things up against her window. Tic tic tic. It had driven her crazy. She’d finally turned on her light and gone to the window. When she’d opened it, the humid nighttime had air rushed at her, as thick as soup. The light from the window had spread a fan of light on the ground below, and there he’d been. When he’d seen her, he’d opened his mouth and turned his head, giving her a sideways glance that was almost mischievous.

“Don’t you sleep?” She’d asked him.

He’d made a hissing sound and flung his head around again.

“I can’t come out. I promised my mom.”

He’d walked a few steps away. His strange, scaly feet with toes that ended in long claws had scratched against the dirt.

“I don’t know what you’re so upset about. You’re the one who won’t tell me where the box is. If it’s such a big deal, tell me.”

He’d walked out of the light, frustrated with her.

Devin had closed the window and crawled back into bed. But the moment she’d turned out the light, the tic tic tic had started again. She’d put her pillow over her head, but he hadn’t let up until the lime-colored sunlight broke through the trees, and that’s when Devin had finally dozed off.

“What are you thinking about, baby?” Bulahdeen said from behind her.

“No one believes me about the alligator,” Devin said, turning away from the lake. “And Mom even saw him on the road coming here! I’m not making him up. Do you believe me?”

Bulahdeen smiled. “Sure I do. One person alone can’t do it. I’ve learned that. But two people? That’s a done deal. If two people believe in the same thing, it’s automatically real.”

That made Devin feel better. “He wants me to know things, then he won’t tell me. It’s frustrating.”

“He’s an alligator. And they’re single-minded, those alligators. They don’t focus on much except what’s right in front of them.”

“You’re right,” Devin said. “He needs my help.”

“Where to?” Bulahdeen clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “Anything else you want to see?”

“No. We better get back. I think I heard Wes’s van. He said he was coming by to help get things ready for Eby’s party.”

“Now that’s good news! Hot diggity. Let’s go talk to him.”

Bulahdeen scooted off at a fast clip, her arms pumping at her sides like she was power walking.

Devin hesitated, looking out over the cypress knees once more, before running to catch up with Bulahdeen.

She needed to find this box quickly. She had the strangest feeling that they were running out of time.

As soon as Wes arrived, Bulahdeen charged at him from the trail beside the lake and asked if he would set up the dance floor. Of course he agreed.

He remembered every summer weekend George would bring out the large squares and set them on the lawn and snap them together like a large puzzle. Wes had even helped him a few times. There had been live music on the weekends, and in the evenings Wes and Billy would linger in the woods to listen. Eby would put colorful Chinese lanterns in the trees and launch tiny boats with candles out into the lake. Those nights, more than most, they hadn’t wanted to go home. They’d just wanted to listen to the music and watch the people dance as lights twinkled, and imagine that this really was their home.

With Jack’s assistance, Wes brought out the floor squares from Eby’s storage room, and together they spent the better part of the afternoon putting them together. The damp had gotten to them, warping them in some places.

Wes caught sight of Kate a few times. She was wearing the same shorts and bright green tank top from when he’d seen her earlier at the restaurant, but now sweat was making the ends of her hair turn up in curls. She was obviously helping with housekeeping that day, taking towels and sheets back and forth to the cabins. He’d been so busy watching her that he’d once hammered his thumb with his mallet. Jack had given him an understanding look. Some women just make you forget yourself.

When they were done, Kate walked to the lawn to inspect their handiwork. She put her hands on her hips and nodded. “Very nice,” she said, which made Wes feel ridiculously proud of himself. Seriously, it was pitiful.

“We were going to put the canopy up but noticed that moths had gotten to it,” Wes said, gesturing to the folded canopy on the ground.

“I can mend it tonight,” Kate said. “Would you have time to come back tomorrow to help put it up?”

“Sure,” he said, and the thought of plans with her made tomorrow seem so far away. It had felt that way fifteen years ago too, when he couldn’t wait to see her in the mornings. He hadn’t been able to sleep, knowing that in just hours they could start their day over again. Past and present. The lines were getting muddy. “I’ll repair these grills tomorrow, too, and maybe sand some places on the picnic tables and benches so people won’t get splinters.”

Kate smiled at him, her eyes on his face, going to the scar above his eyebrow where his father had once hit him and Wes had fallen against the woodstove. When they were kids, he’d told Kate he’d gotten the scar rescuing a heron caught in some moss.

Evening began to fall, and Eby came out with hot dogs and hamburgers to grill. When she saw the dance floor, she shook her head. “I can’t believe Bulahdeen talked you into doing that.”

“It was my pleasure,” Wes said, realizing he hadn’t actually left the dance floor yet, like he was somehow holding court over it. “I loved watching the guests dance when I was a kid. Maybe I’ll dance on it myself this time. I always wanted to.”

“I like to dance,” Devin said. She’d been sitting with Bulahdeen all afternoon, knocking the cypress knee she held against the table absently as she stared at the water. She was restless, the way Kate used to get restless when it rained, like something was holding her back.

Wes held out his hand to her. “Then join me.”

Devin ran onto the dance floor, and they did some robot-style moves that made Kate laugh.

Selma was sitting at one of the picnic tables, watching them with detachment. “My second husband was a dance instructor. Did I ever tell you that?” she said to no one. She suddenly stood and took Jack by the hand. “Dance with me.”

“I don’t know how to dance, Selma,” Jack said, panicking.

“And they do?” she asked, gesturing to Wes and Devin.

“Hey,” Wes said, in mock offense.

Selma dragged Jack onto the floor and began to execute some complicated move that involved Jack putting his leg between hers and spinning her around.

Jack promptly fell and twisted his ankle.

Selma just stood there and looked at him, then she sighed at the injustice of it all and went to sit back down while everyone gathered around Jack.

“I’ll get some ice,” Eby said, rushing to the house. She returned with not only ice but Lisette. Lisette didn’t have on shoes, and her toenails were painted a surprising color of orange. Her dark dress was buttoned wrong, as if she’d hastily dressed, and through the missed buttonholes, some bright yellow lingerie could be seen. Her hair was pushed back with a headband, wet in some places, like she’d just washed her face. Everyone suddenly stood still. It was as if she was a wild animal who had lost her way and they didn’t want to startle her. Lisette never came out to the lawn at night.

They had gotten Jack’s shoe off by this time. Lisette took the ice pack from Eby and set it on Jack’s foot. She looked up at him worriedly, darting her head back frequently to look at the grills where the hot dogs and burgers were now sizzling.

“It’s okay,” Jack said. “It’s not broken. You go inside. I’ll be fine.”

Lisette looked relieved. She hurried back into the house as if the smoke from the grill were chasing her, as if she might just get sick from it.

The group helped Jack to his cabin, and they ended up having dinner in there with him. Even Selma joined them. She never exactly apologized, but she had gotten up and refilled Jack’s drink once, which everyone figured was as good as it got with Selma and contrition.

Later, color high from laughter, they all said good night to each other, and Wes helped Eby and Kate take the dishes and trash back to the main house. Eby went upstairs, and Kate and Wes walked back outside. The umbrella lights were now off, and Devin was trying to catch fireflies in the dark.

They stood side by side and watched her. Wes could feel Kate’s arm graze his. When he was twelve, this was what he had lived for, a brief touch from her—their legs as they sat on the dock, their hands as they both reached for something at the same time. He’d known she hadn’t felt the same way, not until that very last moment, just before she left. It had been floating around the lake for years now, that longing they’d left behind. But it too had grown. There was a different tenor to it now, something grittier, more lusty and heavy. He couldn’t deny that he had stared at her legs as she’d walked around today, studying the way they moved. She was small breasted, and after careful consideration, he was fairly certain that she didn’t wear a bra. He wondered what it would feel like to kiss her, what she tasted like with Bulahdeen’s wine on her lips. Things would never be as simple as they had been. And yet … here they were, barely touching, and he found himself thinking that he would be perfectly happy to stay here all night like this, with just the feel of her arm against his.

“Well, good night, Wes,” Kate finally said, her voice slightly breathy. “See you tomorrow.”

He nodded.

Kate called to Devin. “The alligator says good night, too, Wes!” Devin said as they walked away.

When Wes got into his van, he sat there for a moment.

This had been the best summer night he’d had in a long time, and it left him afraid that it was happening all over again, that he was going to fall in love and wish for a life he couldn’t make happen, because that life could only ever exist here for a single moment, with Kate.

Maybe it was for the best that Eby was selling, that he was getting rid of his own land. You can’t spend your whole life unhappy, just waiting for a moment of something perfect. Wes had already made his life into something good.

This was just a place.

And Kate was just a girl he’d once known.

He needed to let them both go.

Lisette loved the flavors of old, simple recipes, ones made so often that their edges were worn down and they tasted soft and sure of themselves. They made her think of her grand-mère, who had lost her husband and two of her sons in the war. She had cried every day for a year, walking the same stretch of road from her home to the train station, waiting for them to come back. Her tears fell as black stones to the ground, and to this day those stones lodged themselves in car tires and let all the air out slowly in a wail. People called it Sorrow Road. Lisette had very few memories of her grand-mère and her house in the country. She remembered the bread she had baked there in a sooty black stove. And she remembered her grand-mère once holding out her spotted, papery fingers and telling Lisette that old hands made the best food. “Old hands can hold memories of good things,” she had said.

That made Lisette look at her hands as she stood there at Jack’s door that next morning, holding a tray of food.

She had old hands now. Sometimes it came as such a surprise. Interacting with Luc could make her believe she was so much younger sometimes.

Jack opened the door. He was wearing khaki pants and a pink polo shirt with the name of a symphony on it. On anyone else, it would have looked prissy or pretentious. On Jack it just seemed sincere. She had not seen him jog around the lawn that morning, so she had decided to bring him breakfast. “Lisette? Is this for me? Come in.”

She walked in. She had been in this cabin many times, just never when Jack had been occupying it. Sometimes, when he left for the season, she would help Eby clean the cabin, and she would always look for things he left behind. But he was so meticulous that he never forgot anything. There were signs of his life that drew her eye now, making her curious. There was a photo of him and his three brothers on the kitchen counter, next to several bottles of vitamins. An iPhone was on the coffee table, with a ladies handkerchief next to it.

“That’s Selma’s,” Jack said, when he noticed Lisette looking at it. “Everyone ate in my cabin last night.”

Lisette nodded as she set the tray down on the table. Jack walked over to her, limping slightly. “Thank you for this, but it wasn’t necessary. I could have walked to the main house. I decided to forgo my morning jog, though.”

Lisette’s eyes went to his wrapped ankle.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Just a mild sprain. Trust me. I spend a great deal of time with feet.”

She felt uncomfortable, like she had just revealed more about her feelings than she had wanted to, like last night, when she had run back into the house. She had gone back to her room and then realized her bra could be seen through her buttonholes. She had touched those buttonholes worriedly, wondering if anyone had seen.

“Will you sit with me?” Jack asked, pulling out a chair for her.

She nodded and sat, though she did not know why. She had not intended to stay.

Jack sat beside her and poured coffee. He did not feel the need to fill her silence with talk. She had always liked that about him. Her silence made most people nervous, but it seemed to comfort him. Perhaps that was why she liked him so much. She had never been a comfort to anyone but Eby. And that had been a long time ago.

The first time she had set eyes on Jack, he had been in his late twenties and he had been sitting in the dining room with an older couple. The camp had been full in the summers back then, and she and Eby had had to replenish the breakfast buffet several times every morning. At one point, they had even had to hire a waitress to help. Lisette remembered that morning in vivid detail. Her hair had still been long, and it had been braided. Her dress had been yellow. She had been carrying a plate of chive biscuits. She had entered the dining room and had been walking to the buffet table when she had seen him. Startled, she had stopped. For one fleeting moment, she had thought it was Luc. He had the same hair, the same nose. Only he’d been dressed in different clothing. It had made her smile, thinking Luc had moved out of the kitchen, that he had changed clothes and had decided to join the living. But then Jack had looked up at her, and she had seen the differences. He was not Luc. For some reason, the realization had been devastating. It had been at a time in her life when she had begun to feel like she had wanted to move forward. She had not missed breaking hearts, but she had missed feeling loved by a man, the weight of his body, the smell of his skin. And every time she had seen children at the camp, she had felt her heart squeeze a little, telling her it was still there, that it was possible to love again.

But it was not to be. She had walked back into the kitchen and had seen Luc there in his chair, looking at her with such sympathy. He was not going to move on until she let go of him, of her guilt. And that was one thing she could not do. If she lost that, she would lose the thread that had sewn her new life together. She would become that careless, cruel person she had been before.

The feeling of wanting to move on had not lasted long anyway. She had still been young. The older she got, the less she wanted it.

Still, she looked forward to seeing Jack every summer. She liked seeing him grow older. She kept waiting for him to bring a wife. For there to be children. Grandchildren. But he remained single, and she grew close to him. She had not wanted to, but it had happened anyway. Had she been kinder to Luc, he would have grown into a Jack. He would have been quiet and kind and successful.

“What will you do when Eby sells?” Jack suddenly asked, as if he had been carrying on a conversation with her in his head and he was now letting her in on it. “Where will you go?”

Lisette lifted the notebook from around her neck and wrote, Nowhere. I will stay here.

He read that and nodded, as if it was the answer he had been expecting. He sat back and looked into his coffee, as if there were secrets there. More silence.

Lisette pointed to the eggs on the plate and mouthed the word Eat.

“Oh, right. Of course.” He set his cup aside so quickly that the coffee sloshed over the rim onto the table.

With a smile, she handed him his fork, then picked up his napkin and cleaned up the coffee while he ate.

He kept sneaking glances at her. Finally, his eyes on his plate, he asked so sincerely that it felt like a lullaby, “Will you have dinner with me one night? Maybe after the party? I know you have a lot of work to do.”

He had his fork suspended in midair, waiting for her reply. She paused, then wrote something on her pad. She reached over and showed it to him. I will break your heart.

He put down his fork and made a face. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Never dinner.” He turned to her and said, “How about lunch?”

There was a sense of tightness in the room now, filling the space. Attraction was like that. It filled. It poured into you like batter into a pan, sticking to the sides. Lisette stood abruptly.

“Lisette?” Jack called as she ran out, knowing he could not chase her. She tripped and fell on her hands just as she reached the end of the path.

She got up quickly and went to the kitchen through the back of the house so no one would see the great spectacle she was making of herself, running away from the sweetest man on the planet because she thought her presence might poison him somehow, like it had done with Luc. Luc was leaning back in the chair when she entered. He watched with great interest as she angrily scrubbed her hands at the sink. He was smiling at her, as if he knew what had just happened. Smiling as if it made him happy.

She had said no, of course. Jack was embarrassed. Not that he’d asked her out, but that he’d asked her to dinner first. He knew her better than that. He knocked himself lightly on the head with his hand. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She never ate dinner. In all the years he’d been coming to Lost Lake, Lisette had never come out to the lawn at night for barbecue and cocktails. When the sun set, she was always in her room, the single light from her window like a wink. Most of the summer faithfuls knew how Eby had saved Lisette, how she’d been sixteen and about to commit suicide because, over dinner, she’d broken the heart of a boy who had loved her. There was part of Jack, a part tucked back behind everything he treated so logically, that understood why the boy had taken his own life, because he understood how powerful an attraction to her could be. She was enchanting. He loved the notes she wrote in her pretty handwriting, the way she smelled, like oranges and dough, the savage blackness of her hair.

It suddenly occurred to him.

Was that what he was supposed to tell her? Was that what Eby meant?

It seemed so simple. He thought she knew.

But what if she didn’t? What if she didn’t know he loved her?

He frowned at another possibility. He felt fear heat his ears, the same fear he felt when he had to go to a place he’d never been to before or speak in front of people. It made him want to run, to avoid the embarrassment altogether.

What if she did know, and it didn’t matter?

What if she didn’t love him back?

“Wes!” Devin said, and Kate watched her run up to him.

The sun was setting behind the trees, streaking over the water. The heat had gone from boiling to a soft, wet simmer. Devin had been sitting on a picnic table since Wes had arrived, elbows on her knees, chin resting on her hands, waiting, waiting, waiting for him to finally stop working. She watched as he first put up the canopy Kate had mended last night, then fixed the barbecue grills. Kate was sure that he could feel her daughter’s impatience as surely as if she’d thrown it and hit him with it.

“I want to ask you something,” Devin said, almost sliding to a stop. “Did you and your brother live someplace close by?”

“Yes, we did,” Wes said. “About a half mile from here. Through the woods.” Wes pointed to the east side of the lake. “But the house is gone now. It burned down.”

Devin turned and squinted in that direction. She put her hand to her good eye and covered it, something she often did when she was looking for something. She’d been doing it most all her life. She saw that Kate was watching, and lowered her hand. “Is there, like, a trail or something?”

“There used to be. My brother and I walked it here every day.”

“Will you take me there?” Devin asked, turning back to him.

That caught him off guard. “Take you there?”

“Yes. Can we go on a hike through the woods?”

“Devin, you can’t ask him to do that,” Kate said, walking over to them. Her hands were stained green and brown from pulling up weeds in Eby’s neglected planters in front of the main house.

“But I’m not asking,” Devin said. “The alligator wants him to.”

“That sounds ominous,” Wes said, taking off his tool belt.

Devin looked over her shoulder at Kate. “What does that mean?”

“It means it sounds like the alligator wants to eat him,” Kate clarified for her.

“No!” Devin said immediately. “It’s not like that. He’s friendly. And he really, really likes you, Wes. Out of everyone here, he talks about you the most.”

Kate’s brows dropped in confusion. “He talks about Wes?”

“All the time.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” Wes said.

“Really?” Devin said.

“Never argue with an alligator,” Wes said.

Devin nodded at him seriously. “Exactly.”

So the three of them headed off to the lake. “We’ll be back before dark,” Wes called to the others. “I’m going to show them the path to the cabin.”

“Be careful,” Eby said. She’d been waiting for Wes to finish with the grills before she started dinner for the guests. She was now lighting charcoal in one. “Do you have your phones with you?”

“Mine, um, accidentally fell into the lake,” Kate said.

Wes took his out of his pocket and held it up. “I have mine.”

Once they reached the path around the lake, Wes ducked into the woods and soon found the trail. After a few minutes of walking, Kate began to notice some markers on the trees. “What are all these plastic tags?” she asked Wes, reaching out to touch one of the small bright ties that were deliberately attached to some low-hanging limbs.

“They look like survey markers,” he said. “Did Eby have her land surveyed recently?”

“Not that I know of.”

The trees began to thin the farther they walked, becoming more uniform, more evenly spaced, as if they’d been deliberately planted years ago. Kate realized that they were all pine trees, and all of them had identical scars on them, reaching high into their trunks. The bark of the trees seemed to peel away in a V shape, like a curtain parting, and inside were even, whispery lines that looked like they were made by ax cuts. There was something magical about this place, about the uniformity of the trees, like they were dancers in costumes, frozen the moment before their first step.

“What are these marks on all these trees?” Kate asked.

“They’re called catfaces,” Wes said, walking at a brisk pace, like he was passing through the bad side of town. “That’s how I always knew we’d crossed from Eby’s property onto ours.”

“I don’t remember us ever exploring this part of the woods,” Kate said. “I think I would have remembered this.”

“I kept us on Eby’s property to avoid my dad. I think I knew her land better than my own.”

“Why are they called catfaces?” Devin asked.

Wes talked while he walked, so Kate and Devin couldn’t linger. Instead, they walked while looking up, periodically tripping over branches and roots. “Because those scars where the bark is peeled away look like cat whiskers. Generations of my family were turpentiners. They tapped these trees for resin. The catfaces are the hacks they made to get to the veins of the trees. Turpentining used to be a huge industry in this area. When the industry dried up, there wasn’t much to do with this land.”

A short time later, they broke through some brush and suddenly found themselves in the curve of an old dirt road. Kate was out of breath.

“The road leads to the highway, that way,” Wes said, pointing left, not stopping. “This way leads to what remains of the old cabin.”

They walked a short distance up the road to where there was a grassy bare spot containing an old stone chimney, looking as if it was standing inside an invisible house.

“And here we are,” Wes said.

Devin ran to the clearing. Wes stayed at the very edge, as far back as he could get without disappearing into the trees.

Kate walked over to him, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. She was the one who was winded, yet he was the one who looked like he was about to pass out. “Are you okay?”

He managed a smile that didn’t quite reach his blue eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.”

“Oh, God. Wes, I didn’t realize. Is this the first time since the fire?”

“No,” he said, lowering himself to the ground and leaning against a tree. For a big man, he moved easily, deliberately, aware of his body and its proximity to those around him. He brushed some dirt off his hands. “The last time was when I was nineteen. I said good-bye to a lot of bad memories.”

He still didn’t want to be here. She could tell. He’d done this just for Devin. And knowing that he’d done this for her daughter, at a cost to himself, made her stomach feel strange, trembling slightly the way it did those last days at the lake all those years ago. Sometimes she thought she’d forgotten what selflessness looked like, until she ended up here again.

She sat beside him, stretching her legs out and leaning back on her hands, trying to cool the places where sweat collected, in the crooks of her elbows and the bends of her knees. “Who owns this property now?” she asked.

“I do.”

“You kept it all these years? Why?”

“I don’t know.” They watched as Devin kicked around in the dirt and looked under rocks. “Is Devin looking for something specific?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. She’s not talking to me about it.” Kate stared at her daughter for a few more moments, then turned back to Wes. “Thank you for bringing her here.”

“The trail wasn’t as hard to find as I thought it would be. Some guests from the lake probably found it and walked it over the years. Not lately, though.”

Kate frowned. “When did the camp start going downhill? When did people stop coming?”

He shrugged. “The hotel by the water park was built about fifteen years ago. That, combined with the economy, Eby’s aging guests, and the fact that Eby doesn’t advertise, just started taking its toll, I guess. I hadn’t been out to the lake in a while, so I didn’t know how bad it had gotten. If I had known, I could’ve helped. Repair work is what I do. When George was alive, he used to take care of all that.”

“What was he like?”

“George?” Wes smiled. “He wasn’t tall, but he was big shouldered. You could hear his laugh across the lake. He liked steaks and liquor. He loved entertaining. And he loved Eby. He would pull her into his lap when he was sitting at a picnic table, and she would kiss him before insisting he let her pass. He called it a toll.”

“Why do you think Eby didn’t sell after he died?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know. She was devastated when it happened. But there were a lot of people around her during that time. It kept her busy. She liked that. She’s always liked that. She and George were very social.”

“When was the last time she left Lost Lake? I mean for a trip or a vacation?”

“It’s been years.” Wes raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I think Eby wants to leave. But the more I think about, the more I’m convinced she doesn’t want to sell.” There. She said it out loud, and it didn’t sound as outlandish as she thought. There was something more going on with her great-aunt. Eby’s decision to sell wasn’t as straightforward as she was letting on.

Wes shook his head. “I think it’s too late.”

“She hasn’t signed anything. She told me.”

“What I mean is, it’s not just a matter of wanting to stay. There’s a matter of capital, too,” Wes said tactfully.

“Oh. I see.” She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. It never occurred to her that Eby couldn’t afford to stay.

Several quiet minutes passed. The thought had been immediate. She kept pushing it away, but it kept rolling back to her. Could she? Would she? Was it possible? Would Eby even let her?

“I know that look. You always got that look on your face before you jumped out of a tree or poked a snake and ran. What are you going to do now?” Wes asked suspiciously.

That made her laugh—that he knew her on such a level. “I’m thinking, what if I offer to buy Lost Lake, or at least buy into it? That way Eby won’t lose it. She can come back to it. Everyone can come back to it.” She turned to him and asked earnestly, “Does that sound crazy?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

That made her laugh again. “Good. Because if it made sense, I’m not sure she would agree to it.”

“Kate…”

“I haven’t said anything about it to her,” she said quickly. “Maybe I won’t. I don’t know. When I think about it, it makes me happy. That’s a good sign, right?”

“What about your life in Atlanta?” Wes asked, giving her the strangest look.

“What about it?”

“Your friends. Devin’s friends. Family. Job. You’re just going to leave it all?”

She finally understood. “Oh, you thought I meant I’d buy into Lost Lake and move here.”

“That’s not what you meant?”

“No. But…” Kate allowed herself to enjoy the thought. “Maybe I could. That doesn’t sound any more crazy than just giving Eby the money and leaving.”

He looked away. “Giving up everything isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

“Only if you have a lot to give up. The only thing that matters is Devin. And I think she’d be happy to stay here forever.”

“It’s getting late,” Wes said, suddenly standing. “We should get back.”

Kate stood and called to Devin. When Devin ran over to them, Kate asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“No. This would be so much easier if I was told what I’m supposed to find instead of just being given stupid clues.”

They followed Wes, who had already started off back down the road, running away from whatever ghosts he had here.

“You just said a mouthful, kiddo.”

After dinner, no one was in any particular hurry to leave. The evening held them down the quiet way a mother puts her hand on her infant’s chest to lull it to sleep. At least half an hour passed in silence, and they all remained seated, staring off into the distance.

But then Devin got up when she saw a frog. And Jack got up to show her how to feed it dead moths. Eby and Bulahdeen started cleaning and clearing. Kate had told Wes about “accidentally” throwing her phone in the lake, and he asked her to walk down to the dock to show him. Maybe he could retrieve it. Only Selma remained motionless, nursing the last of her drink, ignoring everyone, as she was wont to do. But Kate could feel her eyes on them, curious, as they disappeared into the darkness.

When they reached the dock, the blackness of the water made it look like silk, billowing as if pulled from a bolt.

“It’s out there in the middle of the lake, near the ghost ladies,” Kate said, pointing in the general direction she remembered throwing it. “I don’t think it’s retrievable.”

“I don’t know. We dove for a lot of treasure back then. The lake isn’t that deep.”

“It’s not worth it. Besides, according to Devin, there are alligators to think about.” Kate paused. “You know, when Devin mentioned earlier that her imaginary alligator talked about you, it startled me a little. I know she misses her dad, but she dealt with the transition so well, better than any of us. She always seemed to have him with her emotionally. I just … Why would her alligator talk about you and not him?”

Wes shook his head gently. “She’s not going to forget him, if that’s what you’re worried about. If Devin’s obsession with alligators is anything like my brother’s, then it’s harmless. It was just his way of dealing with things.”

“What sort of things?” she asked as they walked back to the lawn.

“Our father, mostly. Alligators are powerful, and Billy was powerless. I think it helped him to imagine a way of being in control, when our childhood was full of such chaos.”

They got to the lawn in time to see Selma floating down the path toward her cabin. The light from the lawn touched her red dress, making it glow with strange images, like a slide show as she moved.

They stopped and watched for a moment. “So, are you ever going to tell me what was in that letter you sent me?” Kate asked, thinking for just a moment how her life might have changed if they’d kept in touch, how his might have.

“It was a long time ago,” he said. Kate waited until he finally shook his head and smiled. “Great plots and schemes from the mind of a twelve-year-old boy. I wanted to move to Atlanta.”

“Really? What happened?”

“The fire happened.”

There was no going back after that. There was nothing to do but let those words sweep them through the years and land them solidly back in the present, older, wiser, different.

Kate finally said, “Don’t you wish you could take a single childhood memory and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?”

He shook his head. “You can’t live on a single memory,” he said as he walked away, toward his van.

“Wes,” Kate called. “You haven’t said anything about my offer to help Eby. What do you think?”

“I think it’s very generous,” he said. He got to his van and stopped. “But you can’t save everything, Kate. Sometimes it’s best to just move on.”

11

Bulahdeen sat on the couch in the sitting room while Kate dusted the bookshelves. It was an afterthought, a last-minute decision that the main house should look presentable in case anyone at the party decided to come inside. Lisette kept the dining room spotless, but the sitting room had an air of neglect, as if Eby had walked out of it one day, to get a cup of Earl Grey or to answer the phone, and had never returned. There was even a book laying open on one of the chairs, a fine film of dust on its pages and a tiny spiderweb along its spine.

Every once in a while, Kate would peer out the window to see if Devin was still on the dock. Today, the last day before the party, Wes was outside scraping the driveway with a grading attachment he’d secured to the front of his van, so that people arriving tomorrow wouldn’t spin out or get stuck in the uneven road when they parked. The dust he kicked up had sent Selma running to her cabin earlier, her handkerchief dramatically over her mouth as if she were fleeing a forest fire. Jack was in the kitchen with Lisette, helping her put the finishing touches on the cake. Eby had disappeared into one of the cabins, as she had for the past few days, while the party preparations were going on, emerging around dinnertime, dust in her hair, as if she’d crawled through a secret passageway, a portal from past to present.

There was an undeniable sense of anticipation in the air. No one knew exactly how many people were coming, but there was a possibility of it being something big. Kate found herself hoping that it would be, that it would be something grand, that it would be all that Bulahdeen wanted it to be. Kate had been waiting for the perfect time to approach Eby about helping her financially, and the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that tomorrow would be it.

“I remember reading this book here, on the dock, fifteen years ago,” Kate said, picking up the book Eby had left on the chair.

Bulahdeen took a bite of the ham-and-Brie sandwich Lisette had brought her earlier. Lisette seemed to instinctively know when there was someone hungry nearby. She had appeared holding a plate with tiny violets painted on it as soon as Kate and Bulahdeen had entered. “I learned to read by that book,” Bulahdeen said, chewing her sandwich in tiny bites, like a squirrel.

“You learned to read by Jane Eyre?” Kate asked. “You must have been a very advanced reader.”

Bulahdeen shook her head. “Actually, I got a late start. We were so poor I didn’t even know I was supposed to go to school until I was seven. Then I couldn’t get enough of books. That’s why I taught literature. It always made me feel sneaky and giddy. Like I was getting away with something. I always thought that, at any moment, someone was going to tell me to put down my books and get a real job.”

“Have you read all of these?” Kate asked, indicating the wall of bookshelves.

“Every one.”

Kate laughed. “Eby should update her library, then.”

“No, I’ve read enough.” Bulahdeen finished her sandwich and licked her fingertips. “I never thought I’d say that, but it’s true.”

Kate put Jane Eyre on the shelf and continued to dust. “Why do you keep coming back here, Bulahdeen, when everyone else stopped?”

“Because life is my books these days. And every summer here is a new chapter. Ever read a story that you simply can’t imagine how it will end? This place is like that. The best things in life are like that. My husband has Alzheimer’s. You’d think that would be the end of that story, wouldn’t you? A brilliant man who loses his mind. The End. But, every once in a while, when I’m visiting him at the nursing home, he’ll turn to me and suddenly start talking about Flaubert. Then he’ll ask me how our sons are doing. As long as he’s still there, as long as this place is still here, the story goes on.”

Kate smiled as she looked out the window again. Devin was still on the dock, the cypress knee in one hand, her other hand up, shielding her eyes from the light as she looked across the lake. She was wearing her green bathing suit, white shorts, and a blue polka-dot capelet. She looked like a pint-size superhero on watch.

Kate turned back to Bulahdeen, only to find she’d stretched out on the couch and had fallen asleep with the plate on her stomach. Kate continued to clean, wiping off table surfaces and combing the dust out of pillow tassels.

The rumbling outside stopped, and the sudden silence left a buzz in her ears.

“Selma will be so disappointed now,” Bulahdeen said, her eyes still closed. “There’s one less thing for her to complain about.”

Kate started to respond, but she suddenly felt dizzy.

She grabbed the back of a chair. She thought she heard a splash, and there was a sensation of darkness behind her eyes. She looked to Bulahdeen, but the old lady hadn’t moved. What was happening? She tasted lake water in the back of her throat and felt a clamminess along her skin. She wiped her face, and her hand came away wet, with tiny grains of silt. She’d never experienced anything like it before.

She went to the window and looked out again. Devin was gone.

She ran out of the house to the lawn and looked around, panicked without any reasonable explanation why.

Wes had just gotten out of his van. The dust he’d stirred up from the driveway was settling around them like flour.

“Devin,” Kate said to him. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I think…” That’s when it occurred to her. “The cypress knees!”

In the few seconds it took Kate to turn, Wes had shot off like a stone from a slingshot, down to the lake and around the trail. It didn’t take long for her to catch up with him. He didn’t hesitate when he reached the group of cypress knees and jumped into the water and vanished.

You can’t save everything. Wes’s words echoed in her head.

Through the murky water, Kate thought she could see the billowing of Devin’s blue capelet. She lost her breath when it floated to the surface without her. But almost immediately after, Wes broke through the water. Devin had her arms around his neck, and she began to cough. Kate’s knees gave out as Wes walked out of the water with her and handed her over to Kate.

Kate held on to her daughter tightly. She was so small that it felt like Kate could wrap her arms around her twice. With all the loss Kate had experienced lately, this was the unimaginable one. This was the one she knew she couldn’t live through. She closed her eyes and felt the tears sting.

“There’s something down there,” Wes said, sloshing back into the water.

“What?” Kate said, her eyes popping open. “Wes, wait!”

But he took a deep breath and went under again. Kate could remember the maze of roots down there. It was like swimming through a scribble.

“Mom, you’re squashing me,” Devin finally said.

Kate pulled back. She angrily wiped at her eyes. “What were you doing out here? I told you not to go swimming around these roots!”

Devin looked taken aback at Kate’s tone, as if it never occurred to her that Kate would react this way. Devin had an agenda that made sense to her, but Kate had no idea what it was.

“What if something had happened to you? What if you had gotten hurt? You scared me, Devin.”

Devin’s eyes darted to the water.

Kate pushed her daughter’s tangled wet hair behind her ears. “Sweetheart, what are you looking for?” Kate asked more softly. “What is it? Let me help you. What do you want to find?”

Devin pinched her lips together.

“I know this has been a hard year,” Kate said, “and I know it seemed like I wasn’t there for you, but I was. And I am now. You’ve got to trust me again. You’ve got to talk to me. That’s how we’re going to get through this. Together.”

Devin still didn’t say anything.

“Is this about your dad? Is this about moving?”

Devin finally said, “The alligator doesn’t want any more to change, either. He wants everybody to stay.” Devin wiped her eyes with one hand. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. “That’s why he wanted me to find the box.”

“What box?” Kate asked as Wes emerged from the water again.

Devin pointed to the plastic bag Wes was now pulling out of the lake. “The Alligator Box.”

With his clothes sticking to his body, and inches of water pouring from his work boots, Wes made it to the trail and went to his knees beside Kate and Devin. Devin called it a box, but it didn’t look like a box. It looked like there was something more sinister inside the black trash bag. He unknotted the tie and reached in … and drew out another black bag.

He opened it only to find another. Then two more.

Finally he pulled out an old plastic waterproof tackle box. It was sooty and burned in places, like it had been in a fire.

My God.

Wes set the box down as if it were made of glass, then sat back and stared at it. Finally, pushing his wet hair out of his face first, he slowly reached forward and unsnapped the locks. He took a deep breath as he opened the seal. Out poured a curious counterbalance of smells—musty and dank, smoky and scorched. But there was an underlying scent that was all Billy. It punched Wes in the gut. It was almost too much, all of these memories flooding back, when there were times over the past few years when he couldn’t even remember what his brother looked like. The sheer tangibleness of these things, of Billy’s Alligator Box, almost made him sick.

The box had been here all along.

Billy had been here all along.

And the thought that he’d almost missed it, that he never would have found it once Lost Lake was gone from him and belonged to other people, terrified him.

He reached inside, and the first thing he took out was a cardboard pencil box gone soft. He opened it and poured dozens of alligator teeth into his hand, touching them as if they were jewels, as if they flashed and sparkled. He put them back in the pencil box and set it aside. Next he brought out a small plastic alligator toy Billy used to play with at the breakfast table. Then a key chain shaped like an alligator, which Wes had given him for his sixth birthday. A cigarette lighter that had once belonged to their mother, engraved with the initials ELI. A cracked gold pocket watch Billy had hidden so their father couldn’t pawn it, because it had belonged to their grandfather. And a single aquamarine cuff link Wes couldn’t place.

The box was almost empty now. Wes looked inside and felt the blood rush from his face. His hand shook as he reached in and brought out a single unmailed letter, sealed in a plastic sandwich bag. He automatically looked at Kate. She saw the letter in his hand but didn’t seem to recognize it.

He quickly put the things back in the box, then stood.

“That really is the Alligator Box, isn’t it?” Kate asked him.

“Yes.” He had to leave. That was all he could think of. He had to get away and process this. “I’m sorry, I really need to go. I’ll see you tomorrow at the party.” They were looking at him strangely as he clutched the box, dripping wet. He tried to smile. “No more swimming out here alone, okay?” he said to Devin.

“Thank you, Wes,” Kate said.

He nodded, then walked away.

“We have to talk about this,” Kate said to her curiously silent daughter after she’d taken Devin back to their cabin and washed her off. “What just happened out there? Why did you jump there, of all places, when I specifically told you it was dangerous?” This had been no accident. She’d found Devin’s glasses on a stump by the trail. She’d taken them off before she’d gone into the water.

They were sitting on the couch now, Devin on her lap. Devin sighed deeply. “The alligator kept trying to give me clues to where the box was. I finally understood. I had to get it before it was too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“I’m not sure.”

Kate paused, changing tactics. “Did you see the box—the trash bag—through the water? Did you know what it was, or were you just guessing?”

“No, I saw your phone. I saw it the day Bulahdeen showed me the place where the knees are, but I didn’t realize what it was at first. The alligator must have moved it there, to tell me exactly where to jump.”

“My phone?”

Devin pointed to the coffee table, where Kate thought Devin had placed her cypress knee on their way to the bathroom. But instead of the knee, it was Kate’s phone in its electric blue case, wet and covered in grime. Kate reached forward and picked up it, nonplussed.

“I didn’t realize how deep the water was. I couldn’t make it all the way to the bottom and stay there long enough to pull the bag out of the dirt. And there were all these roots in the way.”

Just the thought of it made Kate shiver. What was going on? Devin was a dreamer, not a risk taker, so this was simply baffling. “Have you ever seen this alligator before?” Kate asked gently. “Or did this just start here?”

“He lives here.”

“And he talks to you?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you where the Alligator Box was?”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you!” Devin said, her skinny arms and legs trembling with frustration.

“Does he have a name?” Kate asked.

Devin suddenly stilled and looked at her curiously. “You know what his name is.”

“No, I don’t.”

“His name is Billy.”

A slight chill ran through her. It suddenly made sense, in a distant way, like remembering a decision you made long ago, one you wouldn’t make now, but one that had made perfect sense back then. Putting aside her disbelief and confusion and worry for a moment—all things the adult in her felt—Kate found that the only thing left was the one true thing.

Kate had left her childhood here.

And Devin had found it.

Decades ago, Wes’s father and uncle—brothers Lyle and Lazlo—jointly inherited two large plots of land on either side of the interstate. Older brother Lazlo had moved from Suley years before, gotten a job in construction in Atlanta, then met and married the daughter of the man who owned the construction company. He quickly went from a manual laborer to the man in charge, the first in a long line of ne’er-do-well, dirt-poor-but-land-rich Patterson men to do so. Lazlo convinced his younger brother Lyle to split the inheritance, giving Lazlo sole right to the acreage to the north of the interstate. Everyone thought he was being magnanimous, because Lyle and his new wife and young son Wes needed somewhere to live, and the land to the south of the interstate was beautiful and had an old hunting cabin on it. What Lazlo didn’t tell his brother was that the northern land was actually prime real estate, and he had plans to develop it. The southern land, on the other hand, was basically worthless without the land that curved around it like a question mark and locked most of it in—Eby’s and George’s Lost Lake property.

So Lazlo developed his land, built an outlet mall and a water park, and brought a lot of money into the county. He became Suley’s golden boy, while Lyle was holed away in a cabin that didn’t even have electricity. Wes’s younger brother, Billy, was born six years later, and their mother left them soon afterward. Wes didn’t know what happened to her. Years ago, someone said they’d seen her hitchhiking just outside of Houston. Hitchhiking west, away from here.

One of the last times Wes had seen his uncle was after the fire, when Lazlo came in for the funeral for Wes’s father and brother. When he stopped by the hospital to see Wes on his way back out of town, Wes remembered asking him when he would be going back to Atlanta with him, assuming, of course, that the only family he had left would take him in. He remembered Lazlo’s vague, stammering reply, and the impact had been staggering: Lazlo didn’t want him.

Lazlo left after the funeral, and even though he came into town almost every summer with his family, to stay for a week at the Water Park Hotel, Wes had only seen him a handful of times.

In fact, he’d seen more of Lazlo in the past few days than he had in the past ten years combined.

Sure enough, as Wes backed his van to the garage door on the basement level of his building that afternoon, he saw Lazlo’s Mercedes parked to the side. The car was running, the air conditioner undoubtedly on high.

Wes pushed the remote control to the bay door, and it rose up, exposing the cavernous concrete garage. Shelves and cubbyholes lined the walls, and the open space was divided neatly into sections labeled ELECTRIC, CARPENTRY, LAWN CARE, PLUMBING, ROOFING, MASONRY. He was meticulous about this place. “A little OCD never hurt anyone,” his foster mother used to say.

There was a small glassed-in office to the side, with its own outside entrance, but no one was inside. His dispatcher, Harriet, and handyman, Buddy, were gone for the day, Fridays being half days for them. All calls were supposed to be forward to Wes’s cell, which he only now realized had been in his pocket when he’d jumped into the lake to find Devin.

All he could think as he’d run to the water was, I can’t lose another one. His legs still felt weak over it, his head light.

He backed the van into the garage, then got out.

“I almost gave up waiting for you,” Lazlo said as he got out of his Mercedes. “Where were you?”

“I’ve been helping at the lake this week,” Wes said. He took his cell phone out of his pocket to see if it was still working. Nothing. It was toast. He went to the phone in the small office to check for messages. Luckily, he hadn’t missed any. He forwarded all calls upstairs.

“I looked for you in the restaurant first. Your cook said you were out with a girl. I thought you’d gotten lucky,” Lazlo said with a “heh-heh-heh” as he entered the garage.

“I was just going up there,” Wes said, walking back out of the office. Maybe it was the afternoon he’d just had, maybe it was the thought of losing Devin, or the miraculous discovery of the Alligator Box, but suddenly he felt the need to reach out to someone, someone who knew his brother. Someone who understood. “Do you want to join me? Have a beer?”

“That’s nice of you to ask, son. But I don’t think so. I’m just here to tell you that I’m going to Lost Lake to get Eby to sign the papers tomorrow. I thought you might want to come along, get it all squared away. Nice and neat.”

“Tomorrow?” Wes asked, surprised. “Does Eby know?”

“Of course she knows,” Lazlo said in a tone that suggested Wes might be daft. “She agreed to sell.”

Wes shook his head. “I mean, does she know you’re coming tomorrow?”

Lazlo shrugged. “I don’t think so. What does it matter?”

“There’s going to be a party for Eby at the lake tomorrow. Eby’s great-niece is helping to organize it. A lot of people from town are coming.”

Lazlo hitched his trousers up at his thighs and did a lean-sit against the carpenter’s table near the staircase to the restaurant. Warm, enticing scents were floating down, basil and oregano and tomato. It made Wes long for something, something he couldn’t place. A happy childhood, a home. But he’d never understood how he could miss something he’d never had.

“One last good-bye. That make sense,” Lazlo said. “But I didn’t know Eby had family. What’s the niece’s story?”

Wes shifted his weight. He shouldn’t have brought up Kate. “She’s widowed. She decided to take her daughter on vacation to meet Eby. Get reconnected.”

“Eby’s going to be coming into some money,” Lazlo suggested. “Maybe she wants a piece of the pie.”

“She doesn’t need money,” Wes said.

“All women without a husband need money.”

“How would you know?”

“I’ve seen it happen. Not to me and Deloris, of course. She’d skewer me in a divorce. She’s always looking for an excuse, so I’m always very careful about my indiscretions.”

“Kate is helping Eby because Eby needs help,” Wes said. “It’s the reason I’m doing this, too. The entire town would help her if she would just ask.”

“Hmm. That’s unsettling.” Lazlo got up and brushed at the back of his expensive trousers. “But this party is a good idea. A farewell party, just so there’s no misunderstanding. Eby will say good-bye to everyone. I’ll come. I’ll even buy the meat. There’s a cook there, right? She could grill it.”

Wes smiled. “Lisette doesn’t grill.”

“Why the hell not?”

Wes blinked in surprise at his uncle’s change in mood. There was a little of his father in his uncle, in that mercurial temper. “She’s French.”

“Oh.” For whatever reason, that seemed to make sense to him. “Well, my lawyer is here. Might as well bring him tomorrow and give him a meal before we sit down with Eby. I had your and Eby’s land surveyed. This should all go smoothly.”

“So that was you,” Wes said. “I saw the tags.”

Lazlo smiled as he walked out of the garage.

Wes followed him. “Why haven’t I seen Deloris or the girls yet? Don’t they want to see me?” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d set eyes on his aunt and cousins. He wasn’t sure he’d even recognize them. He had vague memories of his aunt Deloris, rich but not beautiful, and his cousins, Lacy and Dulce, who were as sour as little green apples. They’d laughed at the way Wes and Billy were dressed the first time they met. Wes remembered thinking how safe their lives must have been to be able to laugh that way, to be able to express an opinion without fear of retribution.

“Of course they want to see you. But they’re women. They like the hotel, the spa, the shopping.” Lazlo stopped at his car. “Would you like to see them?”

“If I’m investing my land in this development, we’re going to be working together. So surely I’ll be seeing more of you, and them.”

“Right, right,” Lazlo said, in much the same way he’d avoided the subject when Wes had asked when he would be moving to Atlanta with him after the fire. It finally hit him with full force: It was never going to be what he wanted it to be with his uncle.

There were very few good things about his childhood. Billy. Eby. Lost Lake. Kate. Lazlo was not one of those things, and he never would be. The funny thing was, if Devin hadn’t found the Alligator Box, he probably wouldn’t have realized this in time. He didn’t want to let them go. He couldn’t.

He suddenly thought of that aquamarine cuff link in Billy’s box, the one he couldn’t place.

“I found something today, at the lake,” Wes called after his uncle.”

“Did you?” Lazlo asked with no interest, clicking the button on his key fob to unlock his car.

“It belonged to my brother,” Wes said, opening the side door of the van and bringing out the Alligator Box. It was so much smaller than he remembered. But, then, Billy had been small, so even the toy fishing box had been huge in comparison. He opened the box and took the cuff link out. “Billy used to collect things, sentimental things. Things he wanted to keep secret. Things like this.” He held it out to Lazlo.

“My cuff link!” In four steps, Lazlo had walked over and grabbed it like a badger. “Deloris gave me the set. I had no idea where I’d lost this. She gave me hell about it.”

“You lost it at the cabin. When the water park was being built on the other side of the interstate. I remember you gave Dad a job on the site, and then you used to come by during the day, when he was at work. If Billy and I were there, you would give us a dollar and tell us to go away. You brought women out there.”

“So I did, so I did.” He put the cuff link in his pocket, secreting away the proof from Deloris, who was, Wes was beginning to realize, his one big fear. “What’s your point?”

“The point is, you knew how bad things were. You saw how we lived. You saw what our father did to us. Why didn’t you do anything?”

“Whoa, son.” Lazlo held up his hands. “That was a long time ago.”

Wes took a deep breath. He felt relieved now, somehow. “I’m not selling my land.”

“You don’t mean that,” Lazlo said, unfazed.

“Yes, I do.”

Lazlo laughed. “Think this through, son. That land isn’t worth anything unless you sell it with Lost Lake. What do you want, some bonding time? We could do that. But Wes, this business. This isn’t a family reunion.”

“And I realized that just in time.”

Lazlo just shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t need your land. I’ll develop around you. When you change your mind, let me know. No hard feelings.” He opened his car door. “You’re overthinking this, you know. My father beat me, and look how well I turned out. Shit happens. You step over it and keep walking.”

Wes pressed the button to lower the garage door. “In case you didn’t notice,” Wes said, as the door closed between them, “that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

He stood in the darkness for several long moments before turning and walking upstairs.

12

The town of Suley was a strange and independent one. Like most small towns, the older generations were the ones who kept the secrets, to such an extent that the newer generations were growing up with no idea why they were the way they were. Like the reason they craved briny bread and chokecherry jam. Because it was the food of the swamp. Or why they liked to run their hands over the surface of smooth dry boards of houses or fences, why it made them feel restful. Because their great-great-grandmothers had spent so much time keeping the swamp damp out of their houses that their dreams of dryness had become a fundamental part of them, something passed down like bumps on noses and crooked pinky toes.

They had no idea why the idea of someone they didn’t recognize made them leery. And they didn’t understand why, if they sat so long in one place that the day’s shadow passed over them, that they felt like they wanted to stay hidden in that shadow forever. It was because, generations ago, their ancestors had fled into the dark safety of Okefenokee. Deserters from the Civil War and Indians run off their land—they knew what it was like to hide. It was a hard safety and a lot of work, but they knew that it was still far, far better than what they had left behind.

Okefenokee was eventually cleared of settlers, and the swamp people went their separate ways. Suley was one of the places those settlers ended up, a hundred miles west but worlds away. Lost Lake was so named because it reminded those settlers of the swamp they had lost. Not many people knew that anymore. Most people these days thought it was called Lost Lake because the lake was so hard to locate. No one ever found the road to it on the first try.

The original owner of the camp had tried to make a go of it, but he had failed for one very important reason: He hadn’t included the residents. George and Eby had succeeded where he had failed because they knew that what you lost is as much a part of you as what you found. They knew that the lake was a part of Suley history, and they always welcomed the residents out.

And that was why the town had come here today, to Eby’s party.

Even though most residents didn’t know why they were the way they were, they all knew they were connected in some way. Losing Eby meant losing Lost Lake. And losing Lost Lake meant losing a part of themselves, a very old piece to a crumbling puzzle.

Selma heard the noise growing outside and turned up the volume on her Billie Holiday CD. There were dozens of men out there, married men. She could feel them, a prickling sensation along her skin, like goose bumps. She gave up trying to ignore them, checked her makeup, then left her cabin.

It took more effort to make an entrance these days. When she was younger, she’d been able to step into a crowd like this and conversations would stop and heads would turn. Men would be pulled to her the way a sun pulls planets into its orbit. But the older she got, the louder she had to laugh, the more attentive she had to be. Sometimes she felt relieved that she only had one charm left. There was a certain peace to knowing she was almost through. It made her picky, though, because she was, first and foremost, an avaricious woman, and her final husband would have to be rich enough to set her for life. And he needed to be old too, because then there would be a chance he would die before the charm wore off and she wouldn’t have to worry about grabbing all she could. But she’d married two elderly men already, and neither time had she been lucky enough for them to die, so she couldn’t count on it. It would also be nice if he didn’t have children. Offspring were so difficult. All her stepchildren hated her, the daughters especially. She’d never wanted kids of her own for exactly that reason. She’d had eight charms that could force men to be with her. But she had absolutely no idea how to make anyone else do it.

When she reached the lawn, she stopped and looked around, taking stock. Know your arena, she always thought. There was a large vinyl sign hanging on two aluminum poles that read FAREWELL, EBY! THE TOWN OF SULEY THANKS YOU!

Lisette was sitting with a man with a huge beard who was wearing a bowling shirt with the name GRADY printed on the chest. He was reciting a recipe for chicken wings, and Lisette was writing it down, a look of complete fascination on her face—like she’d never heard of chicken wings before. Selma rolled her eyes.

Selma saw Jack and walked over to him first. He was easy and was used to her flirting, and it served the purpose of other men seeing her do it, building the anticipation a little. He was at one of the grills. Several of the town children were around him, asking him questions and generally making him uncomfortable as they waited for their food. When she approached, the children grew quiet. One boy put his thumb in his mouth.

Jack tensed when he realized she was there. Honestly, it wasn’t like she’d broken his foot.

“Well, this turned out to be a bigger affair than I thought it would be. And there are steaks? Who popped for steaks?” she said, taking a handkerchief out of the pocket of her dress and fanning away the smoke coming at her from the grill.

“The steaks are courtesy of Lazlo Patterson, the man buying the property. He’s the one responsible for the sign too. Bulahdeen hates it.”

Of course she did. It didn’t fit into her nice, neat dream that this was going to make a difference, when Eby had clearly made up her mind. “Where is she?”

“Last time I saw her, she was trying to untie the sign. She’s managed to do it three times so far. Someone keeps putting it back up.”

Selma shook her head. Crazy old woman.

She scanned the crowd for the next man to bounce to and saw Harold, the owner of the Fresh Mart. He smiled at her and eagerly beckoned her over. His daughter was with him—the girl Selma had argued with just a few days ago. Brittany. Poor girl. She was under the impression that she could stop her father from being selfish, from wanting his own pleasure. Children always think that. Sometimes Selma wished women would stop blaming her when men left them for her. She could never take a man who truly loved his wife. So, really, it wasn’t her fault. They should thank her. She separated the wheat from the chaff for them.

She walked toward him, stepping through the crowd, when an arm suddenly slid around in front of her, holding out a black bottle of cold beer. “You look hot,” the male voice said.

Selma took the bottle and turned. He was in his late fifties … too young. Disappointing. But he had money, that she could tell. And he was married. He wasn’t handsome, but that didn’t matter. It used to, but not anymore.

“Selma Koules,” she said, holding out her hand limply in a way that made men unsure whether or not she wanted them to kiss it.

He kissed it.

She smiled to herself. He would be too easy, if she wanted him.

“Lazlo Patterson,” he said.

Selma’s scalp tightened at the name. A strange reaction, she mused. It felt almost like panic, or maybe fear, the kind of disorienting fear you feel when you’re lost. “I’ve heard of you,” she said, taking her hand away.

“And yet I know nothing about you. I don’t think that’s fair.”

He thought he was smooth. And to anyone else, he probably was. He was good. But she was better. Huddled nearby under the shade of one of the umbrellas was a severe, unhappy soul with two unfortunate-looking young women by her side. They were shooting daggers with their eyes at Selma. Those had to be his wife and daughters. It was provocation enough to want to toy with them, but it felt so obligatory. Maybe she was just tired. She saw Bulahdeen sitting at a picnic table near the sign, chatting easily with some people from town. She was reaching behind her and untying the sign as she talked. Selma found herself hoping the old woman would wave and all but force Selma over, to include her in some way.

“I’m buying this property, you know,” Lazlo said.

Without looking at him, she said, “Oh, I know.”

“I’m going to do great things with it.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Let me walk you around. I’ll show you. It’s awfully crowded here, anyway.”

She turned to him and hesitated. Finally, she smiled and said, “I’m all yours.”

“I should be so lucky.”

As soon as he turned and led her away from the lawn, her smile dropped. She would turn it on when he faced her again, but she didn’t want to leave it on in the interim. She felt like her battery was low on charge. When he led her by the dock, to the wooded trail around the lake, she slowed to a stop. He walked ahead a few steps.

On the dock was that child with the unusual sense of dress and glasses. She was on her stomach, looking down into the water, obviously waiting for the alligator she talked so much about. Her whole world was in a bubble, shimmering around her in the sun. The light from it almost blinded Selma, but she couldn’t look away.

She was getting soft.

The sooner this place sold, the better, as far as she was concerned. She had gotten too attached to it. And women like her knew the danger of attachment.

“Are you coming, beautiful?”

She was a little disgusted by him, she realized, but she sauntered over to him anyway. “The best things are worth waiting for.”

The cake sitting on the dining room buffet table was wide and three layers tall. There was a fondant topper shaped like a branch, and from that branch draped candy strings of Spanish moss, flowing down the side of the cake like a veil. Eby kept looking over at it. Why did Lisette make it so large? They were going to be eating cake for weeks.

Eby was sitting behind the front desk in the foyer, trying to focus on the crossword in front of her. What exactly was a seven-letter word for consequence? And why exactly did she care? The sound of car doors being shut distracted her almost as much as the smell of chocolate cake. Bulahdeen had told her that a few people from town might show up. Eby didn’t think it would happen, but the sound of voices outside had her reconsidering. It had just been so long since there’d been actual activity at the lake. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. Still, she strained to make out words, to catch pieces of conversation over the ticking and hissing of the air-conditioning.

She looked back down and tried to concentrate on her puzzle. George could never stand to be inside when he knew there was a gathering out there. He’d had to be a part of everything. He’d taken credit for new friendships, summer romances, first steps, and first swims. He’d loved this place. He’d loved this town.

She heard laughter. An unfamiliar voice. She whirled her pen back and forth between her fingers. Fifty years ago, she would have opened the front door and looked out and would have seen a swarm of people, with George in the center of it all. If she opened that door now, she knew that swarm wouldn’t be there. And neither would George.

Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. The party wasn’t officially supposed to start for another forty-five minutes, but Eby had to go out and see.

She opened the front door, and her lips parted in surprise at the size of the crowd.

The faces were all familiar ones. The past fifty years of her life were crammed into a tiny circle in front of her, nice and compact. Parked cars lined the driveway, disappearing through the trees, seemingly all the way back to the highway.

There was Billy Larkworthy and his bluegrass band, playing music under the canopy next to the dance floor. He’d been such a young man when he’d first started playing on the weekends here. He was old now. His grandson played the mandolin in the band. There were Norma and Heath Curtis, young newlyweds from town who couldn’t afford a honeymoon twenty years ago, so Eby and George let them stay here for free. Ten months later, they had a baby boy, whose middle name was George. There was Grady from the pizza place, and Harold from the Fresh Mart, and Halona from the dance studio. There were dozens of young men and women Eby and George had given jobs to over the years, now grown up with families. These people had welcomed her and George into their lives, into their town, and they in turn had fallen into Eby’s heart.

George would have loved this.

A flash of red hair caught her eye.

She automatically took a step forward. She saw the red hair again and hurried across the driveway and into the party. People began to recognize her, and there were pats on her back and hugs that slowed her momentum. Some people wanted to talk, and she kept saying, “Yes, of course, just give me a minute.”

Another flash of red.

She followed him, lost him for a moment, then caught sight of him again near the edge of the lawn, where the bald spot of grass was. There was no noise around her any longer, just the whoosh, whoosh of her own blood in her ears. His back was to her as she reached her hand up to touch his shoulder.

He turned around.

It was Wes.

“Eby!” he said, bending to hug her. “Welcome to your party!”

She stuttered for a moment, unable to find her words. She hadn’t realized until that moment how very much like George Wes was. “I … thank you. This is certainly a surprise.”

“Everyone—Eby is here!” Wes called to the crowd, and there was a surge toward her. They sang “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and some people even gave her gifts. There was a bit of desperation to the crowd, barely noticeable behind their genuine smiles and happy memories. They weren’t just saying good-bye to Eby. There was something more there. Lazlo greeted her, looking ill at ease in his dark suit in this heat. He told her that his lawyer was here and he wanted her to sign the papers today. He was going along with the party for show, but Eby could tell he just wanted to get this over with.

It took more than an hour before she was finally able to sit down. Someone put a plastic plate with a steak on it in front of her. She was a little disoriented. She kept staring at the sign.

FAREWELL, EBY.

Which meant, Farewell, George. Farewell, Suley. Farewell, Lisette. Farewell, fifty years of memories.

All this time, she’d been looking for a big sign. Just not that one. She wished she would have stayed inside.

“Quite a turnout, isn’t it?” Kate said from behind her. She took a seat beside Eby and handed her a bottle of water. She was wearing a strapless celery-colored cotton dress. With her short hair and long neck, she looked stunning. She’d gotten some sun over the past few days, making her look stronger and healthier than when she arrived. Eby was glad that she’d held on to the lake this long, at least, in order to give Kate a week she really seemed to need.

Eby took the water gratefully. She unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow. “Did you know it was going to be this big?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

Kate laughed. “We all hoped it would be. Word slipped out, and everyone wanted to come. Bulahdeen has decided to take credit for it.” They watched as Bulahdeen walked up to the sign. This time the old woman balled it up and marched toward her cabin with it, and the look on her face dared anyone to stop her. “Lazlo brought the sign. She doesn’t want this to be a farewell party,” Kate explained.

“Truthfully, I don’t want it to be a farewell party, either,” Eby said on a sigh, admitting it out loud for the first time. The words felt heavy. She’d been carrying them around for too long.

Kate suddenly smiled. “Oh, Eby. I knew it! It’s not too late. I think I have the solution. I want to discuss something with you.”

Eby was taken aback by her ebullience. “Discuss what?”

“If you had enough money to travel without having to sell the lake, would you still sell?”

Eby put the cold bottle of water to her forehead, then to her chest. “Probably.”

“Oh,” Kate said, and Eby could almost see the wind blow out of her sails. “All right, then.”

“Mainly because there would be no one to run it in my absence,” Eby continued. “Lisette couldn’t, for obvious reasons, even if she wanted to. And it would take even more money I don’t have to hire employees.”

Kate straightened in her seat. “What if I buy Lost Lake?” she asked. “Or at least buy into it? You’d have money to travel that way. Devin and I could even stay here and run the place while you’re gone. That way you’d have something to come back to.”

Eby laughed before she could stop herself. It was so pie-in-the-sky, like some great scheme a child would make up. “Kate…”

“You haven’t signed anything yet,” Kate quickly reminded her. “You don’t have to give this place up. I have money. What if I invest in it? I love it here. So does Devin. A year. Give me a year.”

Eby stared at her, beginning to understand that she was serious. Kate wasn’t that child who used to spin stories any longer. Eby was seeing that now. “Can you really afford it?”

“It’s the money from the sale of my house. The house you bought. It makes sense to invest it here. I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now. I could put a lot of time and energy into advertising and promotion. It’s what I did with Matt’s shop. I even created the logo. I’m good at it. I could get business up.”

Eby smiled at the thought. But then she shook her head. She couldn’t get her hopes up, not this late in the game. “It’s too late. Lazlo and his lawyer are already here. They want the papers signed today.”

“Wait,” Kate said, confused. “If he has a lawyer, shouldn’t you too?”

“No. I just want to get this over with.”

“It’s not too late, Eby.”

“You should use your money on a better investment than this.”

“There is no better investment than this,” Kate said, turning to stare at her daughter on the dock. Three girls Devin’s age had now joined her. They were laughing, their hands animated as they talked. The girls ran back up to the lawn and beckoned Devin to follow them. Devin looked behind her at the lake once, before running after them.

“You need to move on,” Eby said. “We all do. Even Wes.”

That got Kate’s attention. “What does Wes have to do with this?”

“He’s going into business with his uncle, Lazlo.”

“Wait. Uncle?” Kate’s entire demeanor changed. “Lazlo is Wes’s uncle?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No. What do you mean, he’s going into business with him?”

“Once my deal with Lazlo goes through, Wes is going to give his land to his uncle as an investment in the development. That’s one of the reasons I can’t go back. Everything is already in motion.”

It took Kate a moment to respond. “So he has a vested interest in your selling this place.”

“I don’t know if I would call it that,” Eby said, picking up her plastic fork and knife, getting ready to tackle the overcooked steak in front of her. Her last meal as owner of this place. At least dessert was going to be good. “Wesley’s relationship to this place is complicated.”

They both turned when Lazlo called out over the crowd, “Can I have your attention everyone!”

Kate stood, then hesitated. “Don’t sign anything. Not just yet. Promise me you’ll wait just a little while today.”

“All right,” Eby said curiously, and watched her disappear into the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming!” Lazlo said, as if this had all been his idea. Bulahdeen, back from disposing of the sign, looked furious that he was calling attention to what she’d been trying so hard to hide. “As you know, Eby has decided to sell Lost Lake.”

The crowd made noises of disappointment, and Lazlo nodded, like he understood their feelings, even shared them. Kate found Wes easily. He was taller than most, and his russet hair glinted in the sun. He was watching Lazlo dispassionately. He didn’t look like someone pleased to be going into business with this man. Not that she blamed him. But still, he was.

“I know, I know,” Lazlo continued. He was sweating profusely, and he dabbed at his face with a paper napkin. “But let’s look at this as a step forward!”

Kate came to a stop beside Wes. He seemed aware of her presence before he even turned, like her closeness caused a change in the atmosphere surrounding him. He turned his head and smiled at her.

She stared straight ahead. “Is he really your uncle?”

His smile faded. He didn’t ask how she’d found out. He turned back to watch Lazlo. “Yes.”

Lazlo was saying, “Eby has been an upstanding businesswoman, a community activist, and a damn fine friend to all of us over the years. But she’s ready for a little fun now. I’m told she’s planning to travel. I hope you’ll send us all postcards, Eby!”

The crowd chuckled.

Kate’s voice was low and tight as she said, “Two days ago, I said I wanted to give Eby money to save this place. You didn’t say a word.”

Wes shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“How about, ‘My uncle’s buying this place and I’m investing in it.’ What part of that tripped you up? I feel so foolish.”

“Don’t, Kate.” He reached out to touch her, but she jerked away.

Lazlo continued, “Lost Lake will live on. I will make sure of it. This place will soon be a thriving community! I’ve decided to call it Lost Lake Commons. Lots will start at very affordable prices, with lakeside condos going at a premium. There will be a billboard with contact information on the highway soon, so I look forward to hearing from you. Tell your friends!”

“What were you doing out here all this time?” Kate asked. “You obviously don’t give a damn about what happens here. You’re just going to tear it all down.”

“Let’s lift our glasses to Eby. Have a wonderful retirement!” Lazlo said. “Maestro, music! Let’s dance!”

Billy Larkworthy’s Bustin’ Bluegrass Band started playing again.

“Come on,” Wes said, taking her hand.

She tried pulling her hand out of his, but his grip was like a Chinese finger trap. The harder you fought, the more entangled you became. The only way out of it was to relax into it. “What are you doing?” she whispered loudly as he led her onto the dance floor, where several other couples and a few enthusiastic toddlers were dancing.

“You heard the man,” Wes said, putting an arm around her. “Let’s dance.”

He began to move. She tried stepping on his toes. It didn’t work. “I don’t want to dance.”

“So you just want to stand here and discuss this in front of everyone?”

She set her jaw. “What’s there to discuss?”

He spun her around, smiling at another couple, calling out a greeting. “You had two weeks here when you were twelve,” he said in a subdued voice. “Then you come back, out of the blue, and say you’re going to save everything, that you’re going to make it how it used to be. Forgive me if I had my doubts. Because, even if you did manage to save the lake, you still said you were leaving, which meant leaving the rest of us to deal with the reality of living here. Just like last time.”

Left them here? Is that what he thought? That she’d simply gone off and left them behind, like a glove or a toothbrush, something that was easily replaced?

“There’s no reason for me to hold on to my land if Eby sells. But I only agreed to invest my land after Eby sold hers. Not a moment before. This has been her decision entirely.” He navigated her around the dance floor easily, finding space near the edge. “I’m not blind. These past few days, I’ve seen what you’ve seen. Eby doesn’t want to give up this place. And neither do I. After we found the Alligator Box yesterday, I told my uncle that our deal was off. It’s one of many reasons Lazlo is ignoring me today.”

She wanted to stay angry. Anger was a great motivator. She’d spent the past year feeling nothing but grief, so anger felt good. But she couldn’t hang on to it. He didn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, not meeting his eyes.

His chest jumped as he laughed. “That sounded painful. Did it hurt?”

“Yes,” she said, then added, “Will you tell Eby? Will you tell her you’re not selling?”

“I’ll tell her.”

“Right now?”

“In a minute.”

He didn’t want to let go of her, she realized. He wanted to dance on this floor like he’d seen people do when he was younger. She was sure any number of women here would be more than happy to dance with him, like Brittany, the girl from the Fresh Mart, who was frowning at them from a table. But he wanted her. A slow awareness came over her as they moved. She wished she was still angry, because then she could concentrate on that, and not this. She never thought she’d feel this way again. It frightened her. She didn’t want to fall for anyone. She didn’t want her life to suddenly go back to the way it was when she was with Matt. She didn’t think she had the strength to prop up another person for so long again.

Was that selfish? Was it different if you knew that the man you desired wanted just as much for you to be happy? Maybe that was the most frightening thing of all: Wes was that man. She’d known that when she was twelve, and she knew that now.

“Kate?” Wes said, when he felt her press her forehead against his chest, felt her hand squeeze his, conflicted.

It was too soon. She still dreamed of Matt sometimes. Of being on top of him, of looking down at him through a tunnel of her long hair. The smell of him sometimes met her around corners, stopping her in her tracks. But those were just needs, weren’t they? Not specific to Matt, if she could feel this way again with Wes.

Oh, God. She couldn’t do this again.

And yet she didn’t step away. For several long, glorious moments, she just let Wes hold her, hold her up and feel her weight grow lighter. Beads of sweat trickled down her chest, between her breasts. The electric fans the band brought only managed to move the hot air around, not cool things off.

She finally looked up at him, searching his face for some answer. His eyes went to her mouth, like that day on the dock. He slowly leaned forward.

And that’s when she saw the car.

As people came and left, cars had circled the lawn all day, so the blue BMW approaching didn’t appear out of place to anyone except Kate.

There was nowhere to park, so the BMW simply stopped in the middle of the driveway near the main house.

And Cricket emerged.

She was wearing dark jeans and a loose white blouse, and her dark hair formed a perfect helmet around her head that the humidity could not touch. She was just so cool and measured. Nothing about being here, about stepping into this foreign situation, seemed to bother her.

Kate stepped back from Wes and immediately looked for Devin, hoping her daughter wouldn’t see Cricket. She knew how she would react. If Kate had known her mother and father were planning to leave that day fifteen years ago, Kate would have cried, would have screamed, would have hidden. Anything to keep from leaving.

She found Devin sitting under a picnic table with the other girls. They were chewing on ice, secreted away in their own little fort.

“Are you all right?” Wes asked.

“Yes,” she said, turning back to him. His color was high. “I’m sorry. I see someone I need to talk to. Excuse me.”

She could feel his eyes on her as, every muscle in her body tense, she walked over to Cricket, who was now standing by her car. She was surveying the crowd, getting a feel for it.

Cricket took off her sunglasses and carefully put them on her head as Kate approached. “So this is what has been taking up all your time,” she said calmly, so calm that she could only be angry.

“What are you doing here?” Kate demanded. She didn’t belong here. Everything about Cricket being here was wrong. She brought Kate’s old life with her; Kate could even feel it trying to settle over her skin, like dressing her in clothing she didn’t want to wear. This must have been what Devin felt like every day of the past year.

“You forced my hand when you stopped answering your phone.”

“So you drove four hours here?” Kate asked. “If you found out where it was, then you knew there was a phone number.”

“But then I would have missed that charming little dance,” Cricket said with a click of her tongue. “Who was that?”

Kate didn’t want to tell her. This had nothing to do with her. But Kate had created this mess. She had let Cricket think that her life was hers to control. It was time to fix this. “His name is Wes.”

“Is that who you really came here to see?”

Kate sighed. “No. Of course not. I told you. Devin and I found a postcard. We came here to see my great-aunt, Eby.”

“So you were dancing like that with a man you just met.”

Kate paused, wrestling with Cricket’s control. She almost squirmed with it, but she didn’t want to give Cricket the satisfaction of seeing it. “No. I met him here when I was twelve, the last time my family visited. He lives here. In Suley.”

“Matt has only been gone a year,” Cricket hissed.

“I know that.”

“How quickly you move on,” Cricket said.

“Quickly?” Kate asked, her voice rising. “I could barely function when he died. I lost all direction when I lost Matt.”

“Which is why you need me. Enough of this. I came here to see what the lure of this place was, and I found it, obviously. I want you and Devin to come back with me today. We will make this new commercial and introduce you to the city. And you and Devin will be at my side when I announce I’m running for Congress. You owe me this, Kate. I’ve spent the past year trying to get you ready for this. It’s going to happen. Where is Devin?” Cricket looked around. The little girls had left their secret hiding place and were now zigzagging through the crowd in a game of chase, invisible comet tails trailing behind them. Devin was wearing her tutu, this time with a neon green T-shirt and dozens of plastic pearl necklaces, so she was hard to miss. “My God, all that time I spent getting her out of those clothes, and you just let her wear what she wants.”

“I’m letting her be a kid. This doesn’t last long. It will be gone before she knows it.”

“Devin! Devin!” Cricket called. She held out her arms. “Come to Grandma Cricket!”

“Cricket, don’t,” Kate warned.

Devin stopped in her tracks, and Kate could almost see the color drain from her face when she set eyes on her grandmother. She looked at Kate, and her expression broke Kate’s heart. Kate thought Devin had been coming around, but the moment Devin saw Cricket, Kate realized that her daughter still didn’t trust her. Devin still didn’t trust her to make this right. Devin turned and ran away, disappearing into the crowd.

Cricket dropped her arms and turned to Kate accusingly. “Where is she going? What have you said to her about me?”

“I haven’t said anything to her about you. Go home, Cricket. If you leave now, you can be back before dark,” Kate said, taking a step back toward the party to go after Devin.

“Wait, is that Lazlo Patterson?” Cricket asked. Lazlo was standing in front of one of the fans near the dance floor, and his laughter had caught Cricket’s attention.

Kate turned back to her, surprised. “You know him?”

“I’m in real estate in Atlanta,” Cricket said. “Of course I know him. I’ve never done business with him, though. Rumor has it that he’s connected. What is he doing here?”

“He wants to buy Lost Lake from my great-aunt.” Kate paused. Even though she was a good six inches taller than Cricket, Kate could feel herself standing up straighter, as if steeling herself. “I want to buy it from her instead.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“Oh, Kate,” Cricket said with a shake of her head, as if she pitied Kate for even thinking such a thing. “You don’t want to mess with Lazlo Patterson. You don’t know anything about real estate or about running a place like this.”

She honestly believed that. She had no idea that Kate ran Matt’s bike shop. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t care. “You don’t know who I am or what I can do. I know what’s best for myself and my child. Go back to Atlanta, Cricket. I’m going to find Devin. If you had just given us some warning, I wouldn’t have to go after her to tell her you’re not here to snatch her away, like some witch in a fairy tale.”

“Did you just call me a witch?” Cricket asked.

Kate walked to the lawn, searching. Cricket followed her, until Kate managed to lose her by walking directly across the dance floor in the middle of a song. Kate then walked quickly to the main house, where the scent of chocolate cake was thick and cool in the air. She checked the sitting room, the dining room, then went to the kitchen. As soon as she entered, the chair by the refrigerator shifted slightly, as if the wind from her entrance had moved it. She exited by the back of the house. No Devin. She jogged down the path to their cabin. She went inside and checked all the rooms, calling her name. Nothing. As she hurried back to the lawn, she stopped to look in the windows of the other cabins.

Now she was getting worried.

She finally found the little girls Devin had been playing with earlier, back under the picnic table, eating pilfered potato chips. She bent down and asked them, “Have you seen Devin?”

“She ran that way,” one of the girls said, pointing toward the right side of the lake. “Into the woods.”

“Kate?” Eby called from the next table. “What’s wrong?”

Kate straightened. Lisette and Jack were now sitting with Eby. “I can’t find Devin. She ran into the woods.”

“What?” Eby said, standing. “Why?”

“Because my mother-in-law just showed up. And Devin probably thinks she’s here to take her back to Atlanta.”

Wes approached them. He’d been on the periphery for a few minutes now, watching what was going on, taking in the worry on all their faces. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Devin just ran away, into the woods,” Eby told him.

“The cypress knees?” he asked Kate. He looked ready to run.

Kate shook her head. There was no taste of lake water in her mouth, no silt on her skin. Devin was dry and hot, in sunlight. Kate didn’t know how she knew these things, just that this place seemed to want to let her know. “No, the other direction.”

“Let’s go,” he said, heading for the lake. Kate followed. Eby, Lisette, and Jack brought up the rear.

“Kate? What’s going on?” Cricket said, trotting up to her. “Where are you going?”

“Stay here, Cricket. Devin ran into the woods when she saw you.”

“This is no place for a child. If you can’t even keep an eye on her—”

“Don’t.” Kate stopped and spun around to face her. “Don’t you dare.”

Kate caught up with Wes. Cricket hesitated, then followed them anyway, because heaven forbid someone else could be right for a change.

Wes was walking fast, studying the trees along the lake path.

“Shouldn’t we divide up?” Kate asked Eby. “Wouldn’t that be better?”

“Of course it would be better,” Cricket said. “Why are we trusting this person? Does he know where he’s going?”

Eby gave Cricket a passing glance, but one that could see right through her. She almost seemed to pity Cricket. “Wes’s ancestors are people from the swamp. They know these things. They’re all like that, the people in Suley. They never get lost.”

“This way,” Wes said, ducking under some brush where there were a few broken limbs.

It took about ten minutes. They were all calling out Devin’s name and making enough noise in the leaves and twigs that she could probably hear them coming a mile away. They were sweaty and scratched from the whip-thin limbs of new shoots, when finally Wes stopped.

“There she is,” he said, pointing to an incline, where part of Devin’s tattered tutu could be seen from the tree she was unsucesfully hiding behind. She was sitting on some moss, her back to the trunk. The trees were thick here, and the canopy of limbs above dappled the light around them. Kate took a moment to steady herself, to swallow the panic and anger. Devin didn’t need anger. She needed someone who understood, and Kate was that person. She used to be Devin.

The rest stayed behind as Kate walked up to her.

Devin had her legs pulled to her chest, a sad, angry ball of tulle. “I’m not going back,” she said.

Kate crouched in front of her. “You can’t stay in the woods all night.”

“No, I mean I’m not going back with her,” Devin pushed herself up and faced the others. She pointed at Cricket.

“Devin,” Kate said.

“It’s wrong,” Devin said to her mother. “Her house is not the right place to be. You can’t just let people take things from you. You’ve got to fight it. Why aren’t you fighting it? This is a good place. This is the right place. Why doesn’t anyone see that? Do something!” Devin said, her voice growing louder. She looked at all of them accusingly.

They just stood there. Devin faced her mother. “You let her talk you into things you didn’t want to do,” she said. “Why did you do that?”

“Do something!” she shouted again.

Lisette looked away from the intensity of Devin’s stare. Jack put his arm around her.

Kate shook her head, emotion thick in her throat at this wild, delicate creature, this painted child in her bright colors and glasses, in the middle of nowhere, trying to fight for something that wasn’t her fight. “I was sad, sweetheart.”

Devin, starting to cry, turned desperately to Cricket. “I love you, Grandma Cricket, but I don’t want to live with you. Mom and I can make it on our own. Mom just thought she needed you, but she doesn’t. She was just confused.”

Cricket’s lips pinched and she pivoted and walked away. She hated for me to cry, Matt once said about his mother. Cricket Pheris is worse at grief than she is at love. She doesn’t know how to “move on.” She knows how to turn away.

“It’s okay, Devin,” Kate said quietly, and she lifted her crying daughter into her arms.

“We’re not going back, are we?” Devin asked, her arms tightly around Kate’s neck.

“No, sweetheart.” Kate rocked her back and forth. “And if you had just asked me, instead of running away, I would have told you.”

Cricket had started walking in one direction. But Wes headed in another. “This way,” he called to her, and she reluctantly changed course. Slowly, they retraced their steps back to the lake, Kate carrying Devin the entire way.

They emerged from the trail, and the party was still in full swing, a hot mass of music and laughter and smoke from the grills. No one seemed to notice their battered group except Lazlo, who walked down to meet them, just as they reached the dock. His lawyer hurried after him, briefcase in hand.

At first, Kate had an odd impression that he was worried about them. But that notion was quickly dispelled when he said, “Eby, there you are. It’s getting late. Let’s go in the house where it’s cool and sign these papers, shall we?” Lazlo’s eyes slid to Wes. “Wes, son, have you changed your mind?”

Eby turned to him curiously.

“I told Lazlo yesterday that I wasn’t going to be investing in the development, after all. I want to keep my land.” Wes looked at his uncle flatly. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.”

Over her mother’s shoulder, Devin was watching the girls on the lawn, her eyes following them like they were flashing lights. “Mom, can I go play?” Devin asked, which was code for I’m tired of trying to make you foolish adults see what’s right in front of you, and I want to go be a kid now.

Kate set her down. “Stay where I can see you.”

“Bye, Grandma Cricket,” Devin said, patting her arm. “We’ll visit soon, okay?”

Cricket smiled slightly, and they all watched Devin run up to meet the other girls. For a moment Kate felt indescribably sad, because she couldn’t go with Devin back to her childhood. She could only stand here as an adult as the distance became greater and greater until, finally, there was an ocean between them.

Eby put her hand to her chest, her fingers worrying along the neckline of her T-shirt. “Lazlo,” she said, turning back to him. “I’ve changed my mind, too. Lost Lake isn’t for sale.”

“Now, Eby,” Lazlo said, condescending, impatient. “I’m afraid we had a deal.”

“I haven’t signed anything.”

“We shook hands. We had a verbal agreement, witnessed by that mute woman.” He pointed to Lisette, who sucked in her breath. “Wes might have been smart enough not to shake on it, but I’m sorry to say, you weren’t. Timing is everything.”

Eby stood up straighter. “I am perfectly free to change my mind.”

“Do you really want to do this the hard way?” Lazlo asked. “I’ll sue. We’ll go to court. Legal fees will take what little money you have left, and you’ll end up losing the place anyway.”

Lazlo’s lawyer looked uncomfortable, his eyes focused in the distance as if imagining himself somewhere cool, somewhere there was no Lazlo. Eby simply stared at him in disbelief. Lisette was puffing angry air through her lungs. Jack looked at her in concern. Wes was shaking his head, as if this was no surprise to him.

It was Cricket who finally broke the silence by holding out her hand to Lazlo. “Cricket Pheirs, Pheris Reality in Atlanta.”

Lazlo looked surprised as he shook her hand. “I know you.”

Cricket laughed her business laugh. What was she doing? Was she trying to drum up business at a time like this? “We’ve never formally met, but, yes, I believe we’ve seen each other at functions.”

“What are you doing here?” Lazlo asked.

“Eby is apparently my granddaughter’s great-great-aunt.” Cricket waved the subject away. “It’s complicated.”

“I don’t need a real estate agent.”

“I’m sure you don’t. I was just going to offer some advice. And if you know me, you know my advice doesn’t come cheap. There’s a reason why we do these things in private,” she said. “There’s a crowd of people here who could complicate this process if they knew what was going on. From what I can gather, they’re here in support of her, not you.” She leaned forward and said in a confidential tone, as if speaking to the only other competent person here, “I suggest you wait for a more appropriate time. They’ve had a little scare. The child ran away. Emotions are high right now.”

Lazlo looked Cricket up and down. Everyone who had come out of the woods had scratches or tears to their clothes or bits of debris in their hair. Everyone except Cricket. Her shirt was sticking to her chest with moisture, but her hair hadn’t moved an inch and her makeup was still perfect. Her eyebrows and eyeliner were very subtle permanent tattoos, and she had extensions on her eyelashes. Lazlo hesitated before saying, “Fine. I’ll be back tomorrow. It will be your last chance. One more chance, Eby. That’s all I’m giving you. Come on,” he said to his lawyer, nearly knocking him over as he shoved past him. “Christ, I hate this heat. I need to go back to the hotel and change this suit.”

As soon as he was out of earshot, Cricket turned to Eby and said, “Get a lawyer. Fast.”

“What are you doing?” Kate asked, incredulous.

“Think of it as a parting gift,” Cricket said as she took her sunglasses from the top of her head and put them on. “I’ll put your things in storage when I get back.”

Kate hesitated before she said, “Thank you.”

“I wish you would see things my way,” Cricket said, watching Devin with the other little girls, sitting at a table now. Devin took off a few of her necklaces and shared them. Kate could see Cricket warring with herself. She wanted so badly to control this, to turn Devin into something she thought was better.

“For once in your life, Cricket, stop trying to control the people who love you,” Kate said. “Just love them as they are.”

“I didn’t know how to love Matt any other way,” she said softly, and it was perhaps the first true grief Kate had ever heard in Cricket’s voice. She was, for just a moment, simply a mother who had lost her son.

“I’ll never try to stop you from seeing Devin. It’s up to you.”

Cricket nodded, then walked over to her car and left, much to the relief of drivers in the juggernaut of other cars that had stopped behind hers and who were slowly trying to back out because she was blocking the circle.

The group left behind exchanged hopeful glances. Wes and Kate’s eyes met and held. Lisette lifted her notepad to write something. But Eby held up her hands. “Nothing has been settled yet. I don’t want to tell anyone I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to get their hopes up. Especially Bulahdeen. I’ll tell her later. For now, let’s just enjoy the party. Wes, Jack, will you bring out the cake?”

“What’s going to happen, Eby?” Kate asked, as Jack and Wes walked away. Lisette followed them, looking at Eby over her shoulder questioningly. Eby smiled at her to tell her it was all right.

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out,” she said. “So that was your mother-in-law?”

Kate sighed. “That was her.”

“She’s an impressive woman.”

“No match for Devin, apparently.”

That made Eby smile. “No. I don’t think any of us are.”

“If Eby doesn’t sell, then things will go back to normal,” Jack said happily to Lisette as they walked into the main house. “Summers will be the same again.” He reached over to her and took a small twig from her hair. He felt a levity come over him, the feeling he used to get when plans fell through and he didn’t have to go to a dreaded function.

Lisette turned away quickly and headed for the kitchen.

“Lisette, aren’t you glad?” Jack asked, following her, because it seemed to him that this was perfect. Things had been solved without anyone having to do anything.

She nodded.

“We’ll see each other every year, like always. You don’t have to leave.”

Lisette lifted her notebook and wrote, There are things I need to tend to in the kitchen.

She disappeared inside, sliding the lock in place.

Wes was standing at the buffet table, his hands on one side of the large piece of wood the cake was sitting on. “Are you ready, Jack?” Wes asked.

Jack nodded absently, something the little girl said suddenly in his thoughts.

Why aren’t you fighting?

Selma watched Lazlo gather his wife and daughters, then leave with his lawyer in his black Mercedes. She was relieved. She didn’t feel like dealing with him anymore. She looked around for someone else, then sighed and sat down with her fan. She really should just go back to her cabin.

“Looking for a husband to steal?”

Selma looked up and saw the Fresh Mart girl standing there. She was wearing too much makeup, and it was melting off her face in the heat. Her hair had split ends from too many blow-dries. Youth really was wasted on the young. “Brittany. How nice to see you again.”

Brittany sat down across from her. “You know, I’m beginning to think I’ve been too hard on you.”

“Oh, really,” Selma said drolly. “Do tell.”

“There’s something to be said about getting exactly what you want. I want to know how you do it. I try so hard sometimes to get boys to like me. Like Wes. We had a pact, sort of. Then I saw him dance with Eby’s niece. Sure, she’s thin and all, but her hair. What’s with all the crazy layers? Why won’t he look at me the way he looks at her? Tell me how to be like you.”

Brittany wanted it. And it would have been so easy. All Selma would have to do was blow a wish on her. But she’d never done it before. She’d always thought it was because she didn’t want the competition. But deep down inside of her, she wondered if it was really fair. Young women know so little about consequences.

Selma set down her fan. “Listen, child. You wouldn’t be able to get Wes even if you were like me. Because you can only steal something that wants to be stolen.”

Brittany looked confused.

“For example, do you see Lisette over there with that man?” Jack and Lisette, along with Eby, Kate, and Wes, had all disappeared for a while. They were now standing on the far side of the lawn, near the dock. Obviously, they were having some little confab to which they hadn’t bothered to invite Selma.

“Jack. Sure. I know who he is.”

“If they got married, I would never be able to take him from Lisette. Do you know why?”

“Because Lisette would put a curse on you?” Brittany asked. They watched as Eby said something to Jack and Wes, and the two men walked across the lawn and went inside the main house. Lisette followed.

Selma sighed. “No. Because Jack loves Lisette. On the other hand, look at your father over there with your mother. Do you see the difference?”

She did. Selma knew she did. She simply didn’t want to accept it. “So you’re not going to tell me how to be like you?”

“You don’t want to be like me,” Selma said.

“Yes, I do! I want to be happy.”

“I just told you how,” Selma said, angry with herself for giving away too much already. She stood and began to walk to her cabin. She had a headache.

“Selma, there you are!” Bulahdeen said, stopping her. “I haven’t been able to find anybody. Where have you all been?”

Selma liked that Bulahdeen thought she had been included in the lake group’s little getaway. “Here and there.”

“Hasn’t this been an exciting day? I got rid of the sign. But I wish that man hadn’t made a speech. No one seems to like him. Eby doesn’t even seem to like him. That might work in our favor. I’m glad he left. Look, they’re bringing out the cake!” Jack and Wes were now exiting the house, carrying a chocolate monstrosity.

Sometimes Bulahdeen was simply exhausting. And Selma was in no mood for her right now. “Why are you trying so hard? Why is everyone trying so hard to save this place?”

“Because we love it here,” Bulahdeen said.

“Speak for yourself.”

Bulahdeen tsked. “Selma, if you keep acting like you don’t care, pretty soon everyone is going to believe you.”

“You’ve known me for thirty years and that is just now occurring to you? I’m not acting. Bulahdeen, why don’t you just give up? She’s selling. And, contrary to what you may believe, you can’t stop it from happening. Everyone is here to say good-bye. It’s what people do when they go their separate ways. They say good-bye. I’ve done it a lot. It goes like this.”

Selma turned and walked away.

13

Bulahdeen Ramsey was born in a shanty area in upstate South Carolina that locals called the End of the World, which was just that for everyone who lived there. They knew how they were going to turn out. They knew the ending to their stories in this place, with its muddy streets, its smell of unwashed men, and grease from the kitchens that turned all the window coverings yellow. Those lucky enough to have a pig or chickens guarded them fiercely. There had been more than one lifeless body hauled away to town, shot trying to steal animals. Protein was a commodity greater than gold.

Women from the Baptist Church came once a month with charity boxes of flour and sugar and old clothes. Shoes in the winter. The men had seasonal jobs on the nearby farms. They were carted away in trucks and would stay gone for weeks at a time, coming back for sex and drink, before going back again. The women were calmer when the men were away. There was more food, less drink, no babies conceived to be born in the dead of winter, like Bulahdeen.

Doctors rarely traveled to the End of the World, because payment was never a given, not even in the form of vanilla pie or a burlap bag of walnuts. So when Bulahdeen’s mother went into hard labor, no doctor was there to help her. She died giving birth. Bulahdeen’s father cast her away from him and ran as far as he could. He died of drink in the river.

Bulahdeen grew up in her aunt Clara’s tar-paper home. Her aunt weaned her with a cousin close to Bulahdeen in age, then set her aside, leaving Bulahdeen to figure out things on her own. Sometimes it seemed they forgot about her entirely. When the people from the county came to check on the kids, to document their health and ages, Bulahdeen was always away, staving off hunger by picking wild blackberries and chicory and fireweed in her own personal glen out near the polluted river that ran from the cannery. The school system didn’t know Bulahdeen existed, so she was never made to go.

Her aunt had too many children to care for, so Bulahdeen became like a stray cat that only came close enough to be fed table scraps at night. She spent the rest of her time walking the roads and fields. In the summer she slept in the shelter made by two felled trees and a canopy of ivy. In the winter she slept on the porch, curled near the crack under the door, covered with a blanket.

When Bulahdeen was six, she was run out of her glen by some boys who had discovered it and claimed it for their own, so she was forced farther out to forage, closer to where no one at the End of the World was ever supposed to go near. The Waycross Estate. The owner of hundreds of acres of farmland lived there, the man responsible for what little wages were earned in the End of the World.

That’s where she met Maudie Waycross, the boss’s daughter. She was known to be pretty and generous and absolutely off limits to anyone, much like the estate itself.

She was sitting under a tree, on a quilt, picnic food in waxed paper pouches around her. She didn’t seem to care about the food. She was completely engrossed in a book. She didn’t even notice Bulahdeen standing there until Bulahdeen took a small step forward, thinking she could just reach over and take one of the pouches and run. When Bulahdeen stepped on a twig, the girl looked up, startled.

Bulahdeen turned to run away, but the girl called to her. “Stop!” She put the book away and smiled. “What a surprise to see you. You look like a wood nymph. You have beautiful hair.”

Bulahdeen didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what a wood nymph was. And no one had ever told her that her hair was beautiful. It was wild and strawberry red and never fully contained with a dirty scarf and an old clip she’d found in a nearby dump site.

“I’m Maudie. What’s your name?”

Several seconds passed. “Bulahdeen.”

“You’re from the End of the World, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not supposed to be here. But I’m not supposed to be here, either. So let’s not be here together. Come, sit with me. I’ll share my food with you.”

Bulahdeen sat on the very edge of the quilt, and Maudie handed her a sandwich. Bulahdeen ate, timidly at first, then voraciously when she realized how good it was. Maudie rested back, the book on her stomach, and looked up at the sky through the trees. She told Bulahdeen about the book she was reading, a story set in a place called England, involving a man who had a madwoman in his attic but who was in love with a young woman who taught a little girl who lived in his house. It was all very confusing to Bulahdeen.

Maudie suddenly sat up. “What’s your favorite book?”

“I don’t have one,” Bulahdeen said, eyeing the rest of the food on the quilt.

“Don’t you like to read?” Maudie asked, handing Bulahdeen an apple.

“I don’t know how.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“I don’t go to school.” Maudie just stared at her. So Bulahdeen told her about her family and her life—all of it. She hadn’t meant to talk so much, but no one had ever listened the way Maudie listened. By the time she finished talking, the food was all gone—she’d eaten it all without realizing—and the sun was setting.

Maudie reached over and brushed some of Bulahdeen’s hair behind her ear. “You can’t change where you came from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don’t like the ending, you make up a new one.” There was yelling coming from the direction of the main house on the estate, and Maudie quickly stood. Someone was calling her name. As she gathered the quilt and the empty waxed-paper packets, she said hurriedly, “In two years, I turn eighteen. My dad thinks I’m going to marry Hamilton Beatty, because he wants me to. But I’m not. I’m leaving when I turn eighteen. I’m going to see the world! Meet me back here tomorrow, Bulahdeen.”

“Why?” Bulahdeen called after her.

Maudie turned and smiled. Bulahdeen would always remember that smile, how beautiful it was, how it made Bulahdeen’s stomach feel jumpy and wonderful. She’d never felt anything like it before.

Hope.

It was the first time she’d ever felt hope.

“Because we can change your ending, too,” Maudie said, then ran away.

That was the day everything changed.

Maudie taught Bulahdeen to read. She got Bulahdeen enrolled in school. And nearly every day, Maudie and Bulahdeen met in the woods and ate and read to each other, and Maudie told Bulahdeen of all her plans when she would turn eighteen.

On the day of her birthday, Bulahdeen picked blackberries and made Maudie a crown of clover, and met her at their spot, only to find a wooden box sitting on the folded quilt instead. Inside the box there was a large stack of paper, envelopes, pencils, and postage stamps. There was also a small package and a note, which read:

I had to leave in the middle of the night. Daddy found out my plans and locked me in my room. I’m going to my aunt’s house in Boston. Here is her address. Write to me there, Bulahdeen. Write to me about how you’re making your own ending, and I’ll tell you all about mine.

Bulahdeen opened the package to find it was the copy of Jane Eyre Maudie had been reading when they’d first met.

Of course Maudie made it out. She had the means to make her own ending.

But no one got out of the End of the World.

Still, Bulahdeen wrote to Maudie. Every day at first, then every few months, when she’d collected enough events to fill a sheet of paper. Bulahdeen excelled at school, which didn’t mean anything, really. She still went home to the same place and slept on the porch and waited for her life to play out.

The summer she turned fourteen, her aunt Clara made a bed for her in the corner of the kitchen because she needed the help. Several of Bulahdeen’s cousins, cousins not much older than Bulahdeen, now had lap babies and hip babies and babies on the way, and all they seemed to do was eat and poop.

Bulahdeen didn’t pay much attention to the men in town. If it was one thing she’d learned, it was to avoid them. But one day, when she was alone in a nearby field collecting dandelion greens to boil, out of nowhere came Big Michael, young and mean. His eyes were light blue and close set, and Bulahdeen had caught him staring at her sometimes when she would hang out a line of diapers.

He smiled at her and then picked a dandelion in full fluff from the ground. He blew on it, and tiny bits of fluff stuck to her hair like dust. He reached over to pick them out, but she backed away. Quick as a flash, he grabbed her and fell to the ground with her, face-first, the force knocking the air out of her chest. Then he was on top of her, grabbing at her skirt and pulling it up. He lifted himself slightly to pull at his own pants, and that’s when she twisted herself around enough to catch him in the side of the face with her elbow. The pain was like fire in her bone, and, from the sound he made, it didn’t feel too good for him either. She managed to knock him off of her, and she scrambled away on all fours before picking herself up and running faster than she’d ever run in her life.

Her aunt Clara found her in the kitchen later, cradling her arm, clothes torn, covered in dirt. The only thing she said to Bulahdeen was, “Next time, don’t fight so hard. It’s easier that way.”

That’s the moment Bulahdeen realized that she did fight. And she’d fought because she hadn’t wanted that ending. She’d wanted something else. Not this. It had been six years since Maudie had left, and Bulahdeen hadn’t received a single letter from her. Still, that night, Bulahdeen wrote to her at the address she’d given her, and told her everything that had happened. She told her she wanted things to change but she didn’t know how.

She started staying longer at school, helping the teachers clean their rooms, because she wanted to stay away from the harm of home as long as possible. Then one of the teachers hired her to help bathe and feed her elderly mother in the afternoons.

One day, as Bulahdeen was leaving the home after feeding the elderly woman, hurrying because she wanted to get back to the End of the World before dark, the next-door neighbor stopped her and invited her inside. She was the local librarian and, out of the blue, she offered Bulahdeen a place to stay in the home she shared with her husband, who happened to be the police chief. They didn’t have any children, and they were getting up in years, she said. She saw the way Bulahdeen tended to the old woman next door, and she said she’d give Bulahdeen room and board if she helped out with chores around the house and at the library.

Those two years with the Bartletts were the safest she’d ever known. And not a single night went by that she didn’t lie in her bed and wonder at the turn her life had taken. She had no idea how she’d gotten so lucky.

Until the day before she left for college.

That’s when the librarian handed her a stack of letters. They were all the letters Bulahdeen had sent to Maudie at her aunt’s address in Boston.

Maudie had never made it to her aunt in Boston. No one knew where she went. No one knew what happened to her. Over the years, Bulahdeen had made up hundreds of stories about Maudie’s whereabouts, none of them the truth. That was Maudie’s ultimate victory. Her ending was her own. No one else could touch it.

But Maudie’s aunt in Boston had read all of Bulahdeen’s letters, enchanted by this depiction of the rural South. She’d begun to look forward to them. When the letter about the attack had reached her, she’d panicked. She hadn’t known what to do. She’d contacted the police chief in the town where the postmark came from, and he’d told her to send the letters to him. When he’d gotten them, he’d been charmed and then alarmed, and he’d shown them to his wife. She’d recognized the name. It was the redheaded girl who’d helped tend to the elderly woman next door.

That’s when Bulahdeen truly understood what Maudie had been trying to tell her all along. And she’d never once wavered in her faith that endings were never absolute.

Not until now.

She’d spent enough time in this life to know that not everything will go your way. She’d read enough books to know that they weren’t all happy endings. Still, it broke her heart a little after the party when Eby finally told Bulahdeen that she had changed her mind, but that it didn’t matter, because Lazlo was going to fight her.

Bulahdeen recognized people who could make their own endings, as easily as she could recognize the taste of a fine summer wine, and Lazlo was one of those people.

That meant they weren’t going to win. Not because they didn’t want it more, but because they didn’t have the power he had to make it happen.

He was kidnapping their ending, and there was nothing more Bulahdeen could do about it.

She simply had to close the book and walk away.

After having leftover cake for breakfast because, for the first time anyone said they could recall, Lisette had slept in, Devin and Kate walked outside into the bright muggy morning. Jack was still waiting with worry in the dining room. Bulahdeen, who had been unusually quiet, was now on the dock, standing at the very end, a tiny lone figure surrounded by water. The lawn was messy, but not as messy as it had been when the party had ended last night. It looked like someone had come out and cleaned after everyone had left. Devin remembered her mother carrying her to their cabin then. She’d set her down on her bed, then she’d crawled in next to her.

“We’re not going anywhere for a long while. But no matter what happens, we’ll get through it together,” Kate had whispered. “I’m here. I’m not going to leave.”

When Devin had woken up, her mother had still been curled beside her. It had been the best feeling. She hadn’t moved for nearly twenty minutes, staring at her mother’s face, loving her so much that she would have done anything to preserve that moment, to stick it in a jar like a firefly and watch it forever. But then she’d finally had to get up and go to the bathroom.

As they stood there, looking at the lake, Devin was quiet, tilting her head, listening to something only she could hear through the chirping of the birds and the rustling of the trees.

“Are you all right, kiddo?” Kate asked.

“He’s still anxious.”

“Who?”

“The alligator. Can we go for a hike through the woods to the cabin again?” Devin asked.

“Sure. I’ll get some bottles of water from the kitchen,” Kate said.

“Can I go down and see Bulahdeen? I won’t go anywhere. It’s a Devin promise,” she said when her mother hesitated.

Kate nodded, and Devin raced to the dock, feeling the fairy wings against her back and wishing she could fly. The thought of hovering above the earth, weightless in a lilac sky, appealed to her, in the same way imaginary friends appealed to her, or talking alligators. Not long ago, back in her old life, she had started to feel a restlessness, a pressure, as she outgrew all her clothes and needed the feel of her mother’s hand in hers less and less, that possibilities were becoming more finite, and everything was becoming more real.

It didn’t feel like that here. She was glad they were staying longer. It still didn’t feel as permanent as she thought it would feel, but at least they weren’t going back to Atlanta. She decided to be glad for that. If they went back, her mother might change again. And Devin liked her exactly as she was. Her dad was gone, but her mom was here. She was here.

She slowed as she reached Bulahdeen, then stopped by her side. “Hi, Bulahdeen! What are you doing out here?”

Bulahdeen brushed at her eyes under her sunglasses.

Devin instintively reached out and took her hand. Her fingers felt like green wood. “What’s the matter?”

Bulahdeen smiled and squeezed Devin’s hand. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, baby.”

“You look sad.”

“I am,” Bulahdeen said. “I am sad.”

“Why?”

“Because this place is special. If I can’t save it, does that mean I can’t save the rest of my endings? My husband Charlie’s ending? The ending of the girl who saved my life when I was little? If I lose this place, I lose my sense of possibility, and that’s the only thing that has kept me going.”

“That’s what I like about this place, too,” Devin said. “Anything is possible.”

“Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. They can’t all be happy endings, can they?” Bulahdeen paused, then turned suddenly to see Selma standing behind them, holding a white Chinese paper parasol over her head in one hand, her high heels in another. “Selma, I didn’t hear you come up,” Bulahdeen said coolly.

“I took off my shoes so I wouldn’t fall into this cesspool,” Selma said.

“What’s a cesspool?” Devin asked.

“A place beautiful women avoid,” Selma told her.

“What is it, Selma?” Bulahdeen asked. “Did you want something? There are no men here, and it’s not like you to come out here only to spend time with us.”

“I just passed Kate, sitting over there.” Selma waved in the direction of the lawn. “She wanted Devin to come up when she was ready.”

“Go on, baby,” Bulahdeen said, turning back to the water.

Devin and Selma walked down the dock in silence. Selma was so pretty, but sometimes, Devin thought, if she touched her, she would find that she was as sharp as wire. “Why don’t you like anybody here?” Devin asked her.

Selma’s mouth set into a thin line. She hesitated before she said, “Because they don’t like me.”

“Sure they do. They all do. I do.”

“You’re one in a million, kid,” Selma said as they stepped off the dock and she stopped to put back on her shoes.

“That’s what my mom says,” Devin said, stopping with her.

There was some movement near the water.

“Oh! Look!” Devin said, excited. “Do you see him?” She crouched down near the edge, almost like she would for a small dog, to get it to come closer. She could see the alligator’s eyes, just barely, over the water. He hadn’t talked to her since she found the Alligator Box. Whatever was in the box hadn’t made everything right. Not yet. She’d searched and she’d fought and she’d run. Devin didn’t know what else to do.

Selma stood next to her, her parasol resting on her shoulder, but she wasn’t looking in the water. “Who is that?” Selma asked, which Devin thought was an odd question, because clearly it was an alligator. “There was a boy there,” Selma said, pointing to the trail, “walking through the woods.”

Devin looked up but didn’t see anyone.

And when she turned back to the water, the alligator was gone.

Eby stepped out into the sunshine and took a deep breath. She felt like she’d been away for a while. She and Lisette had slept well past breakfast, which had vexed Lisette. Even when she was sick, Lisette always went downstairs in the mornings to see Luc. Eby thought it was marvelous, the sleep, like the way you sleep when you’re finally home. The dance floor and the canopy were still on the lawn, and some stray cups and plates were still scattered around, but Lisette had cleaned up the rest. Eby had heard her leave the house when everyone had gone home and the grills had finally cooled. Lisette missed nighttime.

Last night Eby had dreamed of George again, but not in Paris. He was right here. He was sitting on the lawn, and she was lying beside him in the grass with her head in his lap. He was stroking her hair, smiling down at her. There was such a feeling of peace around them, it was soft and pink and smelled of butter. She woke up to Lisette standing over her, petting her hair away from her face. Lisette had pointed to the clock on the bedside table, then left.

Eby saw Kate sitting on one of the picnic tables. She had two bottles of water in her lap.

Eby walked over to her. When her shadow fell over her, Kate turned. “I was just waiting for Devin. She wants to go for a hike.”

“Like myself again.”

“Is she okay today?”

“I think so. I think we’re both finally okay.”

Eby looked down at the lake, at Devin crouching by the water in her pink romper and fairy wings and Selma standing next to her with her white parasol. Selma pointed to something, and Eby followed her finger to the trail around the lake, where she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of a little boy in overalls, walking away.

Eby’s breath caught.

“Eby? Are you all right?” Kate asked.

Eby turned to her. “What? Oh, yes. I’m fine. I thought I saw … it was nothing. Just a little déjà vu.” She shook her head. It was so long ago, she’d almost forgotten. “I was remembering the first picture of Lost Lake I ever saw, just after my honeymoon. It was on a postcard George showed me of some investment property. I felt like I was looking into the future. Maybe I was. Maybe I was looking at this very moment. Maybe I’ve come full circle.”

Kate stood. “Or maybe it’s just a new circle forming.”

Eby smiled at her as Kate walked away to get Devin. Eby put her hand to her chest, to check for that familiar fluttering there. But it was gone now, released to the wind like a caged bird.

The only thing she could feel now was the life inside her, the beat of her heart and the filling of her lungs.

She was alive and well, with plenty of fight left in her.

She looked at the postcard scene at the lake again and shook her head.

The big sign she’d been looking for had been here all along.