Page 36 of The Lake of Lost Girls

I glanced in my rearview mirror at Southern State University sitting proudly on top of its hill.

This town was my whole world. For better or for worse.

I kept driving until I reached the blue sign with its whimsical script. A bright red cardinal sat on the limb of a pine tree above an official goodbye.

‘You are now leaving Mt. Randall. Come back soon!’

I headed out of town.

Five miles later I took a hard left, down a well-worn gravel road flanked on either side by a thicket of trees. The weeds and grass had been flattened by decades worth of tires. It was a recognizable spot, yet hidden.

If you weren’t from Mt. Randall, you’d never find it. But if you were from Mt. Randall, you knew it well.

My car skidded to a stop at the edge of a large meadow. The massive body of water lay still and unmoving. It wasn’t quite large enough to be considered a lake, yet that’s how people around here described it. In actuality though, it was a man-made reservoir that had been there for close to a hundred years.

The water was ringed by an abundance of red-berried Banberry plants, or Doll’s Eyes which they were sometimes called and for which the locals named the lake. In the fall, the berries turned bright white with a black spot in the middle, making them look exactly like creepy little eyeballs. Most people had no idea the pretty plant was, in fact, incredibly poisonous.

Doll’s Eye Lake was a place heavy with shadows, tucked away from the main road. It was easy to see why it had given birth to a number of urban legends over the years. Kids swore it was haunted, daring each other to venture out to the dark trees late at night, hoping to see the apparitions that supposedly lingered there.

Wailing women. Crying children. Angry men.

Anonymous specters waiting to terrify unsuspecting visitors.

And they weren’t the only stories.

In Mt. Randall, adults whispered of bodies wrapped in cloth and weighed down by bricks at the bottom of Doll’s Eye Lake. None—or all—of it could be true. No one knew. But the tales frightened people all the same.

Dad would bring me to the lake when I was little. We’d take our small orange paddle boat out to the center, fishing gear propped between us. He’d tell me to look into the water. He’d ask me if I could see the tops of the houses that were said to be down there.

We’d float along, our fishing lines bobbing lazily. We never caught a thing. But that wasn’t the point. This was our place. Just Dad and me. Mom never came and we stopped going by the time Lindsey came along. But for a few years, it was special to us.

“It’s too heavy,” I complained, dragging my fishing pole in the dirt as I followed Dad to the edge of the lake. He immediately came over and took the yellow pole he had bought me, carrying it to the boat.

“You only have to ask for my help, Jess, and I’ll always be there. I’m your own personal superhero.” He lifted me up, zooming me around like an airplane, making me giggle uncontrollably.

He put me down gently in the paddleboat. “Buckle up your life preserver, sweetheart,” he instructed before pushing the boat into the water and hopping inside, making it teeter precariously.

I shrieked in delighted terror. “Don’t make us fall in, Daddy!”

He sat down and used his arms to balance the boat. “Better?”

He handed me my fishing pole and carefully attached the brightly colored plastic used as a lure. “It’s not real is it?” I asked, peering at the fish hanging from the hook, my lower lip trembling.

He chucked under my chin. “Of course not. It’s just a pretty piece of plastic,” he assured me.

“What will we do if we catch a real fish? Will we have to eat it?” I sounded horrified.

“We’ll throw it back into the water. I promise.” Dad kissed the top of my head and I leaned into him.

“We can’t take the baby fish from her daddy fish!” I exclaimed, not able to think of anything worse than a child being taken away from their father.

Dad looked at me with grave seriousness. “Absolutely not. Baby girl fishes belong with their dads.”

We never caught anything. But that wasn’t the point. I loved spending hours listening to my father’s stories. Hearing his voice, calm and comforting. There was nowhere I’d rather be than by his side. It’s where I thought I would always belong.

I parked my car and sat there for a time, staring out the window, trying to remember what it felt like to be young and carefree. Before life led you down ugly paths and the people you loved twisted into someone unrecognizable.

My heart started beating fast and my breathing became shallow. Tears pricked my eyes and I felt an anger that frightened me.

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