Follow me.
She sucked in her breath. It turned and ambled left, toward the lake, then out of sight.
Devin ran out of her room and into her mother’s. “Mom!”
Kate’s head was covered with a pillow. “Hmm?”
“Mom!”
When her mother didn’t answer, Devin couldn’t wait. She ran out of the bedroom, then out of the cabin, leaving the door wide open. She darted barefoot down the path, exhilarated. She turned when she got to the lawn and ran down to the lake. Her feet pounded on the new boards Wes had laid down as she ran all the way to the end of the dock. Her breathing was heavy, and it sounded loud over the water. She looked around, turning in circles, trying to find it. The lake had no beach; the water simply butted up against the ground, forming a muddy ledge.
Where was it?
She pushed her tangled hair out of her face, and that’s when she realized she’d been in such a hurry that she hadn’t put on her glasses. She used to wear an eye patch, back when she was little. She’d loved it. As she grew older, she got to wear it less and less as her lazy eye improved, until finally the doctor said she didn’t need it anymore. He was wrong. Sometimes she still put it on when her mother wasn’t looking. She was convinced she saw things better with her lazy eye, better than other people. If she put her hand over her good eye, she could find the back of an earring lost in the rug. She could find where Grandma Cricket hid her secret stash of M&M’s in her office, and the T-shirt that had belonged to her dad that her mom still kept hidden.
She put her hand over her right eye and slowly looked around. It only took moments, and there it was. The alligator had swum out to the middle of the lake, and all that could be seen was the top of its head and its tiny black pebble eyes. It was so still, the water didn’t even move.
“Hi,” she said, going to her knees.
It immediately submerged itself.
“No!” she called. “I won’t hurt you!”
She wanted to scream in frustration. She didn’t know what to do, short of jumping in, which she knew she shouldn’t do. She wiggled on her stomach to the edge of the dock, then she put her fingers in the lake. She moved them back and forth, waving a greeting in the water. She smiled when she felt its rough skin glide under her fingers, like a cat arching to be petted.
The alligator’s eyes appeared above the water again, several feet away.
It said something to her, and she blinked in surprise.
“What box?” she said. “I don’t see a box.”
The alligator disappeared under the water, resurfacing even closer to the dock.
The Alligator Box, it said.
It disappeared again. Minutes passed and Devin finally sat up. Her head felt swimmy from dangling it over the dock. Suddenly there was a tremendous splash and the alligator seemed to jump right out of the water. Midair, its body arched as if in a spasm, flinging its head in the direction of the dock. Devin heard a small clacking sound as she was sprayed with water. The alligator fell back into the lake with a great splash.
Devin looked down and saw that it had tossed her what looked to be a wet knobby root the size of a large ice cream cone. She picked it up. She’d rather have had a tooth, like the one her mom found and gave to Wes, but she’d take what she could get. After all, how many people got gifts from alligators?
“Devin!” her mother called. Devin turned. Uh-oh. She knew that tone of voice.
“I’m here,” Devin called back. “I’m fine.”
Kate slid on the wet grass as she crossed the lawn. Her short dark hair was sticking up in spikes from sleep. It made her look like an elf. Devin remembered when her mother cut it. It took a long time to get used to it, waking up in the mornings and not recognizing her. First her father died, then her mother changed her appearance so drastically. Then Grandma Cricket came into their lives, and Devin had to go to a new school, and they had to sell their house and move in with Grandma Cricket. It was strange, when she thought about it. Her dad was at peace, but no one else was. For almost a year, her mom had floated around, not really present, not happy, not anything. Devin had hated it.
But now, Devin could see her start to change. It was hard to trust at first, but her mom was happier here. Devin was happier here. And what a strange set of circumstances it was that brought them to this place. It almost scared her, how much could have gone wrong. What if they hadn’t seen the alligator on the road? What if Devin hadn’t found the postcard? She’d been playing in that trunk of clothes almost all her life, and she’d never noticed that corner of paper, tucked almost completely into the lining.
They were meant to be here.
“What are you doing out here so early?” Kate asked when she reached Devin. She knelt in front of her. “How did you get so wet? And look at you—you’re barefoot.”
Devin leaned forward and said softly into her mother’s ear, “I saw the alligator.”
Kate smiled and ran her hands up and down Devin’s arms, as if to warm her. “Sweetheart, there aren’t alligators here.”
“Yes, there are!” Devin insisted. She held out the root as proof. “It gave me this. I’m not sure what it means yet.”
“I see. That was nice of him.” Kate met Devin’s eyes. “Okay, make me a real Devin Promise. You will not leave the cabin alone like this again.” Devin Promises were what Devin and her mother had agreed were the most serious promises to make. You made them, you kept them.
Devin sighed. “I promise. But I tried to get you up first.”
Kate stood and took Devin’s hand. “I know you did. The trick is to wait for me. Then we both go.”
“Okay,” Devin said, looking over her shoulder as they walked away.
The alligator watched her go, then dipped under the water and vanished.
That afternoon, Eby was gazing at the ceiling in cabin number 9. There was a water stain here that looked like a bicycle wheel. It had been here for years, growing progressively larger. It had appeared the year George died. Back then it had looked like a tiny black beetle, and she used to come to this cabin and stare at it, sometimes swearing it would move, that it would run around the ceiling and spell out words like hope and love and real. But then she would blink and the words would go away. The stain was in the corner of the room, and its moisture had caused the coral wallpaper to peel away from the top. She’d always meant to fix that tiny leak, but then she’d thought, What if the ceiling wanted to tell me something else? So she’d left it.
This cabin also had a truly magnificent sleigh bed, antique and handcrafted. The camp was scattered with antiques from Eby and George’s halcyon days, hidden like secret treasure among the cheaper stuff. The vanity next to the yard-sale dresser was one George had bought on their honeymoon, an antique with inlay, the mirror slightly smoky, as if it would magically show you the most beautiful version of yourself if you asked. But she’d never asked. Her sister Marilee had been the beautiful one in their family. Even so, George, who had risen to the top of Atlanta’s eligible bachelors when he’d unexpectedly inherited his estranged grandfather’s money, had chosen Eby over her. Oh, Marilee had tried to win him. But she would have had to overcome a lifetime of teasing him in school about his red hair and bad teeth. Eby had always been kind to him, in love with him most of her life because he drew the most beautiful things with pencil and paper during classes. He was a dreamer, like her. And he’d wanted to marry her when he’d inherited his money, much to everyone’s surprise. He could have had his pick of beautiful belles. He could have had Marilee, before she’d fallen in love with Talbert, the gas station attendant. But he’d loved only Eby.