They walked out together, and Kate led them to the Subaru. “Where is everyone?” she asked, opening the hatch with one hand, the plate in the other.
Eby turned and looked at the lawn. There was a wistfulness to her gaze, but also a small sense of frustration. “Two guests arrived, just before you. They’re here for old time’s sake. I’ve recently decided to sell. This is the last summer of Lost Lake.”
Kate realized that they had landed in another big aftermath in Eby’s life, just like last time, when they’d visited right after George had died. It was like they were that strange debris that always washed up after a storm. “I’m sorry. We won’t stay long.”
Eby patted her cheek. The large green stone ring on her finger was cool and calming against Kate’s skin, like a gypsy’s touch. “You can stay as long as you’d like.” She turned to the car. “You certainly brought a lot of luggage.”
Kate looked into the Outback and for the first time realized how packed it was. “Devin, what is all this?”
“My luggage,” Devin said. “You said I could wear whatever I want.”
“Did you bring everything?” In addition to their luggage, there were at least four duffle bags.
Devin shrugged. “All that could fit.”
“We didn’t even know if we were staying.”
“I knew.”
“I see the resemblance now,” Eby said, smiling as she reached in for a piece of luggage.
4
The cabins weren’t lakeside—the trees shielded them from the water—but the lake was nonetheless a palpable presence. Like heat from a fire, the closer to water you are, the stronger you feel it. The cabins were situated in a villagelike pattern, six on one side of the stone walkway, six on the other. Cabin 13 was at the far end, forming a little cul-de-sac.
Eby walked up the steps to cabin 13, which was painted a fading orange with black shutters on the windows. The roof arched to a point right above the door. She unlocked the door, and Kate and Devin followed her inside with their luggage. Kate suddenly realized that this was the same cabin she and her parents had stayed in fifteen years ago. She recognized the nubby red sofa and cheap landscape paintings, also the incongruously expensive pieces mixed in with them—the Tiffany lamp and the antique oak library table.
There was a back door next to the kitchen counter at the far end of the room. Devin dropped her bags and ran to it. “Mom, look at this!” Devin said, and Kate walked over and looked out the window in the door. She saw that there was a large pile of twigs and needles on the back stoop, as if some gigantic creature had made a nest there.
She opened the door.
“What do you think made this?” Devin asked.
“I don’t know.”
They heard the snap of a twig and stuck their heads out in time to see something that looked like the tip of a tail slowly swish away, disappearing around the corner of the cabin.
“Come out to the lawn at sunset,” Eby said from behind them.
They both jumped and turned to her.
“We’re grilling out tonight. I know the two other guests would love to see you.”
“Are there alligators here?” Kate asked, putting her arm around Devin.
“At Lost Lake?” Eby laughed and shook her head. “No. People always think there must be. Truthfully, business might have been better lately if there were. But you have to go all the way over to Okefenokee to see any alligators. Come to the lawn for dinner?”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Kate said. “We’d love to.”
Eby hesitated, staring at them like they were harbingers, like she was trying to figure out just what this meant. She finally turned and walked out, closing the door behind her. Silence stretched in front of them as Kate and Devin stood there, looking around the cabin.
Okay, they were here.
Now what?
“Come on, kiddo,” Kate said, moving forward. “You have a lot unpacking to do.”
* * *
After unpacking, they ate Lisette’s ham-and-cheese puffs and plum cake with just their fingers, standing in the open front door. Kate stared at the quiet run-down camp in something that felt close to a trance.
Her family had spent a little more than two weeks here fifteen years ago. As soon as Kate had seen the books in the sitting room of the main house today, she remembered reading some of them, remembered taking them out to the dock and staying there all day. There had been many guests here but no young people, and she’d been bored.
But then she’d met a boy her age. He hadn’t been a camp guest. He’d lived somewhere close by, in the woods. His name escaped her, lost somewhere in time.
There had been a whole other story going on with Kate’s mother and Eby, one Kate had paid no attention to because she and the boy had spent the rest of those two weeks turning feral, roaming the woods around the lake from morning to night, making up stories and watching imaginary things turn real. The fog on the water in the evening became ghost ladies. They had names and personalities Kate couldn’t remember now. The cypress knees protruding from the water were long-lost markers left by pirates, and treasure had been buried under them. They’d dived for the treasure every day, holding their breath longer and longer until they’d grown gills behind their ears. She’d been twelve years old at the time, a late bloomer, and everything had still seemed possible. After her family left—abruptly, Kate remembered—she’d gone back home, puberty hit, then her father died the next year.
Why did she have such good feelings about this place?
It was fairly simple, now that she thought about it.
She’d left her childhood here.
Kate turned from the door and took the plate to the kitchen sink, while Devin went to her room to decide what to wear that night for dinner. Kate went to her own room to make up her bed, but she flopped back on the mattress instead. A few minutes later, Devin came into her room, saw her sprawled out on the bare mattress, and climbed up next to her without a word.
Kate put her arm around Devin, then she reached into her pocket for her phone. She’d been dreading this.
She texted Cricket with one hand:
Don’t worry when you get home today and Devin and I aren’t there. I took Devin on a mini-vacation to see an old relative. Be back in a few days.
Cricket immediately wrote back:
What relative? Didn’t you read my list? Where are you????
Kate sighed and typed:
I didn’t read your list. Sorry. Devin and I found an old postcard from my great-aunt Eby in the attic this morning. We decided to visit her camp, Lost Lake, in Suley, near the Florida border. Don’t worry. We arrived safely. See you soon.
She turned off the phone so she wouldn’t read what Cricket would say next, then she stared at the ceiling. There was no breeze, yet the dusty ceiling fan was slowly altering the rotation of its blades on its own, back and forth. There was an electric charge in the air. It made the hairs on Kate’s arm stand on end.
“I like it here already,” Devin whispered. “Can we stay?”
Kate leaned over and rested her cheek on top of Devin’s head. “For a while.”
“Do you think Dad would have liked it here?”
Kate felt her breath catch a little and hoped Devin didn’t feel it. When Matt had been alive, Kate had done everything in her power to give him the life she thought he’d wanted. She’d always been tuned in to his cues, ready to turn even a hint into a full-blown wish. Matt hadn’t really known how to be happy, but there had been something about him that had made everyone around him want to find it for him. “I don’t know,” she said, even though she really did. Matt would have hated it here. He’d hated vacations. He’d liked to stay close to home, where he could ride familiar streets and trails alone on his bike, earbuds in his ears.
“There’s no place for him to ride his bike,” Devin said.
“No.”
Devin thought about that for a moment. “I still like it here, even if Dad wouldn’t have.
Is that bad?”
“No, sweetheart,” Kate said into Devin’s hair. “That’s not bad at all. Your dad would want you to be happy.”
“Alligators make me happy,” Devin said right away.
That was new. “Really? Why?”
“Because they’re here.”
“There aren’t alligators here, sweetheart. You heard Eby.”
“I think there are.”
“Okay, then. Watch your toes,” Kate said, reaching down and making a snapping motion with her hand, biting at Devin’s feet. Devin laughed and twisted away. But then she rolled back into Kate’s arm, as if gravity had pushed her there. Right where she was supposed to be.
And that’s how they fell asleep their first afternoon at Lost Lake.
* * *
It was twilight, and Eby, Bulahdeen, and Selma were on the lawn, each sneaking peeks at the walkway to the cabins, silent in anticipation, like waiting for a breeze to blow through the stagnant air. Bulahdeen and Selma had reacted with enthusiasm and feigned indifference, respectively, when Eby told them about Kate and Devin arriving that afternoon. But Eby could tell that they weren’t quite sure what the girls’ presence here meant. Eby wasn’t even sure. It was so unexpected that Eby found herself wondering if it had really happened. Had she really seen them in the dining room? Had she really taken them to their cabin? Or had she just imagined it, daydreaming at the front desk again?
“Here they come,” Bulahdeen said from where she was sitting at a picnic table, a jelly jar full of wine in front of her. Eby turned from the grill to see the girls materialize from the dark end of the walkway. Kate hadn’t changed from her yoga pants and T-shirt so big it fell off one shoulder, revealing a racer-back tank. But Devin was in another costume, this time a tie-dyed T-shirt dress, red cowboy boots, a red cowboy hat, and a fringed vest. “She favors you, Eby.”
“Kate or Devin?”
“Kate, of course.”
“Although the child does seem to share your sense of style,” Selma commented dryly.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, from both of you,” Eby said, watching the girls approach. Eby secretly agreed with Bulahdeen. Kate did favor her in some ways. Kate had inherited her green eyes from Eby’s sister, Marilee. But her long nose, which was both elegant and awkward, and her coltish limbs—those were all Eby. Even her short choppy hair, flipping up at the ends in the humidity, was the same heavy chestnut color Eby’s had been. When Eby had first met Kate, she’d seen in her a dreamy, bookish version of herself, and she had wanted so much to know her. But Kate’s mother, Quinn, had left in anger that summer, and Eby knew from experience that there was nothing left to do but keep the door open and hope Kate might walk back through one day.
“You say she just showed up?” Bulahdeen asked.
“I tried to keep in touch with her, but her mother wouldn’t have it. Apparently, today Kate found a postcard I sent her fifteen years ago. She decided to come see me.”
“Atlanta is a long way to come just to stop by,” Selma said, staring out over the darkening lake.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bulahdeen asked.
“It means she wants something.”
“Oh, hush,” Bulahdeen said. “Don’t listen to her, Eby.”
When Kate and Devin reached them, Eby waved away some of the smoke billowing in front of her like a potion. “The hot dogs will be ready soon and hopefully not too burnt. These grills are unpredictable,” she said. “Kate, Devin, I’d like you to meet Bulahdeen and Selma. Ladies, these are my nieces.”
“Come here, baby. Sit with me,” Bulahdeen said to Devin, patting the seat beside her at the picnic table. “Would you like a piece of candy?” She took a warm linty roll of Life Savers from her trouser pocket.
Selma had yet to acknowledge them, her gaze still on the lake. She was sitting alone at the next table, leaning back with her legs crossed and her skirt billowing down like a stage curtain. She was fanning herself with an old complimentary card fan from a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Selma sniffed and suddenly put the fan down. Eby knew she’d been paying attention. “You call that candy? That’s not candy. Come with me … girl,” Selma said, as if she’d forgotten Devin’s name already. “I’ll give you some real candy.”
“Can I, Mom?” Devin asked.
Kate automatically turned to Eby, and that made Eby smile. No one looked to her for direction like that anymore. People in town used to do it all the time. It had been the reason most locals came out here. Eby always used to know what to say, what to do. And the falloff had happened so gradually that she wasn’t sure if the reason she stopped helping was because people stopped coming, or vice versa. Eby nodded at Kate, telling her it was all right. Selma made terrible first impressions with other women.
“Okay,” Kate said to Devin. “But save it until after dinner.”
“Selma, don’t take that child into your cabin,” Bulahdeen said. “It looks like a brothel in there.”
“What’s a brothel?” Devin asked.
“A place for only beautiful women,” Selma said as she walked by them. Devin hurried after her like a cat following a string.
“Don’t worry,” Bulahdeen said as Kate watched them go. “Selma really does have better candy. But she’s not doing this out of the goodness of her heart. She’s doing this so she can specifically say, ‘I’ve got the best candy here,’ and make it a double entendre. Mark my words.”
“Selma doesn’t seem very … happy to be here,” Kate said.
Bulahdeen shook her head. “Oh, that’s just the impression she likes to give. She’s come back every year for the past thirty years. I think she comes for the rest. She’s been married seven times. I know I’d need the rest. But she only has one more to go.”
“One more what?” Kate asked.
Bulahdeen leaned forward and said, “Husband. Selma has eight charms. Eight surefire opportunities to marry the man she wants. She’s used seven of them. I’m anxious to see who she’ll use number eight on. He’s bound to be a big deal, being her last and all. He’ll have lots of money. And he’ll probably be old.”
Kate looked to Eby again. This time, Eby just smiled. Kate hesitated, then said to Bulahdeen, “You mean eight actual, physical charms?”
“That’s what she says.”
“So she thinks she has magical powers,” Kate said, her eyes going to where Selma and Devin had disappeared, probably second-guessing her decision to let her daughter go off with this woman.
That made Bulahdeen laugh, and she reached over and patted Kate’s hand. “Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we can’t have. It makes her happy to think she’s a femme fatale. We go along with it.”
A minute later Devin came running back, delighted with a single piece of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. Selma sauntered after her.
“I’ve got the best candy here,” she said, taking her seat back at the separate table, away from them.
“What did I tell you?” Bulahdeen winked at Kate. “Selma, there’s not a man for twenty miles. Don’t you ever turn it off?”
“Of course not,” Selma said.
“She really does have the best candy here,” Devin said. “I don’t want her to turn it off.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Selma said.
Darkness fell, and the only illumination came from the umbrella poles wrapped in strings of twinkle lights, which Eby had found in the storeroom and brought out for one last summer. They created round dots of light across the lawn. As they ate hot dogs with brown mustard and dill potato salad on paper plates, they talked about the summers they’d had here. The summer it had rained every day and all the wallpaper peeled off the walls, and a carpet of frogs took up residence on the lawn. The summer it was so dry you could see the bottom of the lake, and guests waded out and found trinkets they thought they’d lost in the water years ago—coins with wishes still attached, old barrettes, hard plastic toy soldiers. Kate didn’t say much, but she seemed to enjoy the
stories. It relaxed her a little.
Eby kept glancing at her. Kate had said it had been a hard year after her husband died. That in itself wasn’t unusual, not for a Morris woman. But the fact that she was here was significant. It showed some focus, some purpose, which was unusual for a grieving Morris woman. She had the look of someone stepping outside for the first time in a long time.
After they ate, there was silence, save for the thrumming of the nighttime wildlife, a strange sort of chorus that seemed to call from one side of the lake and answer on the other.
Devin held up the piece of candy Selma had given her earlier, and Kate nodded that she could have it now. The rattling of the candy paper caught Selma’s attention. As Devin put the chocolate in her mouth and made a dramatic this-is-so-good face, there might have been a hint of a smile on Selma’s lips, but it faded as quickly as it had appeared.
“This is almost how it used to be, with young people around. I’m going to miss this place,” Bulahdeen said, filling her jelly jar with wine again. She always got a little tipsy at this time of night. Eby sometimes wondered if she came here because she could drink what she wanted and her children couldn’t stop her. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to plan a party. For right here. With decorations and liquor and music. Yes! We’ll say good-bye to this place with a party! Next Saturday. That’s a good ending to this story. Not the best, but good enough.” Bulahdeen foraged around in her purse until she found a notepad and pen, and she started writing.
“Will there be dancing at this party?” Selma asked from her table.
“Only if you want to dance with me,” Bulahdeen said.
Selma sighed. “No, thank you.”
A farewell party. Rattled, Eby got up and started collecting their paper plates and cups. Kate immediately stood and helped her. Devin wiped her hands on her dress and went to inspect a frog who was taking advantage of the bugs the twinkle lights were attracting. Selma leaned back as Devin passed her, as if afraid Devin was going to touch her with her chocolate-covered fingers.