“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?”