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.