Read Lost Lake for Free Online Page B

Carolina.
    The tourists turned and stared at Devin when the screen door slammed shut. She was dressed in cowboy boots, green lederhosen from last year’s school play, Heidi, and fairy wings that were crushed from hours spent in the car. And she was now wearing her favorite zebra-striped glasses. She looked like an escaped summer-stock extra. When she had emerged from her bedroom wearing all these things that Cricket had told her to leave behind, Kate had smiled. But then she’d realized what it meant. Devin was treating this like it was her last chance to wear what she wanted, so she was going to wear everything . She didn’t think Kate was going to sway Cricket on the matter.
    Kate went to the ancient cola cooler. She took out a can of Pepsi for herself and a Cheerwine for Devin. There was a display of cinnamon pecans in paper cones beside the register, and she picked up two cones.
    “Will that be all?” the old woman behind the register asked. She had small green gooseberry eyes.
    “Yes. I mean, no,” Kate said, taking the money out of her pocket. “I mean, could you tell me if I’m on the right road to Suley?”
    “Yep,” the woman said, making change. “Suley is about an hour south if you keep on the highway. But you’re probably wanting to go to the water park in Suley. Fastest way there is to get back on the interstate.”
    Water park? She didn’t remember a water park in Suley. “I’m looking for a place called Lost Lake.”
    The old woman shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
    “It might not be there anymore. It was sort of a camp, with cabin rentals.”
    “Oh. Well, camping would be in the old part of Suley. The old highway will take you there. Just keep heading south.”
    “Thanks.”
    Kate called to Devin, who had been talking to the tourists, and she and Devin walked back outside. Kate stood by the Outback and drank her Pepsi and ate cinnamon pecans while Devin ran as fast as she could back and forth across the gravel lot, trying to straighten her wings out with the wind. After about five minutes of this, breathless and sweaty, she joined Kate by the car and downed her Cheerwine and ate her pecans in record time.
    Devin burped and Kate laughed, and they climbed back in the car and headed south.
    Over the next hour, Kate grew more and more tense, though she kept telling herself to calm down. This was an adventure. She was alive and awake and in charge, and Devin needed to see that. A kaleidoscope of landscapes passed like a slide show—farmland, sandy pine barrens, cypress ponds. This is what Kate’s mother had referred to as the “Wet South,” as they’d made their way to Lost Lake the last time. She’d made it sound unexplored and exotic, something untoward and almost fearful. Someplace only Eby would choose.
    But mile after mile, there was no Lost Lake. There was no camp.
    Kate squeezed her tired eyes shut, trying to create moisture. She opened them quickly when Devin yelled, “Look out!”
    Kate gasped and jerked the steering wheel sharply to the left to avoid hitting what looked like a large alligator, which had suddenly appeared on the gritty ribbon of highway in front of them. A car coming in the opposite direction honked, and she swerved back into her lane, skidding to a stop on the shoulder.
    The blood had rushed from her face, and her skin had tightened from the near miss. She quickly turned in her seat to see the other car disappearing into the distance.
    But there was no alligator there.
    Devin was looking behind them also. “Where did it go?”
    “I don’t know,” Kate said. They sat for a moment in silence. Kate finally took a deep breath and smiled encouragingly at her daughter. “How about we drive into Suley and try to find that water park? That sounds like fun.” They’d come this far. She couldn’t leave without giving her daughter something good to remember.
    “ No, ” Devin said, suddenly panicked. “I have to go to Lost Lake and have the last best summer, like