The Devil’s Perch (*ages seven and up)
The Devil’s Perch (*ages seven and up) is a much higher and scarier looking slide than the picture on the website makes it seem and Ellie Gates regrets joining her cousins at the lake today. Her mother thought it would be a good idea since the slides would be closing soon for the season, but she can’t help imagining her tombstone freshly etched with the words ‘here lies Elizabeth Margarita Gates, died screaming at the age of twelve. May she never know another water slide.’
Ellie watches the fourteenth person pass her in line, and feels lucky that none of them can read her thoughts. A twelve-year-old girl shouldn’t be thinking of things like gravestones and epitaphs, but it was hard not to when she had so recently seen a real one herself. Even if there was no one buried beneath it.
She shivers as the next person slides by, droplets of fresh water dripping from his orange shorts and making her toes itch. The boy wearing them turns to look at her before sitting neatly on his inner tube and disappearing into the abyss. Ellie thinks she can hear him screaming and whooping as he slides away and it makes her clutch her own tube that much tighter.
“When the line gets shorter, you can go back the way you came,” the slide attendant tells her again and Ellie nods absently at him. The line had not gotten shorter in the time she had finally summoned enough courage to venture up the rickety wooden steps to the slide’s entrance. It had actually gotten longer.
She sits sullenly on her inner tube as the minutes tick by and the hot vinyl begins to burn her skin. She wonders if her cousins will show up and rescue her, but dismisses the idea in a flash. No, she cannot let them see her like this. They would never let her survive their teasing. She feels her best and only option is to get down the stairs as quickly as possible and hope no one notices her failure.
“You okay?” The boy in the orange shorts has returned for another round and let’s others pass him as he squats beside her. Ellie feels her face flush when she turns towards him. He smells strongly of coconut sunscreen but has a kind smile. “Perfectly fine,” she answers.
“You were here on my last run.”
“Was I? Oh…”
“Are you scared?”
Ellie feels his question pull a small string inside her, tugging at some deep and uncomfortable emotion she isn’t sure if she likes or not. She turns away and sniffs. “No.”
“You look like you are.”
The skin of his arm brushes against her shoulder and Ellie wipes away the warm water it leaves behind. It sparkles like a string of jewels when flicked off and she glances at the line behind them before letting out a huff of air. “What’s the bottom like? Is it deep?”
The boy considers her question and rocks back on his heels. “Not really,” he says and Ellie bites her lip as she leans to look through the wooden slats. The lake below glistens like a foggy emerald and she imagines all the horrors that could be floating beneath the rough surface.
“I don’t like how dark and green the water is,” she says to the boy. “I can’t see what’s under there.”
“Most things down there are scared of you and will swim away.”
“But not everything?”
“My brother said he got bit by a turtle once, but I think he was lying.” Ellie squeezes her eyes shut as she adds another fear to her list, but opens them again when the boy pokes her shoulder. He looks closely into her face and waits for her to say something more.
“But what if she’s down there?” Ellie whispers.
“Who?”
“My sister.”
The boy stands and looks over the wooden rails. “She might be, I see people swimming down there. I guess you won’t know till you go down.”
Ellie takes a deep breath and stands with him, gazing down at the shifting waters. The lake is full of kids closer in age to her cousins, but there are a few teenagers laughing together on the rocky shoreline. When she squints, she can see her sister’s boyfriend laughing with a few older girls and a red-hot rage simmers inside her core.
The boy points to them. “Those are the kids the cops caught sneaking in here after dark,” he says. “It was all over the news last week.”
Ellie grips the inner tube so tightly she feels it could burst, but a cool breeze sweeps across her and she loosens her fists. Without looking back at the boy in orange, she steps forward along the wooden platform. A deep sense of calm begins to wash over her and she drops her tube at the slide’s entrance. After giving the attendant a questioning look, he shrugs his shoulders and gestures with a thumb that she’s free to go down.
The time to find her sister has come and Ellie Gates sits carefully on her inner tube, leaning back so she faces the blue sky and clouds above. The slide attendant’s face appears over her and he counts to five before using his foot to shove the tube away on its journey.
Ellie clamps a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming, but she has to let go and grip the hot plastic handles to keep from slipping off the side. She bites her tongue to stay quiet and manages to keep her face grim and determined as she speeds through the humid darkness. The sounds of carefree screams and laughter grow louder and the air becomes cooler as the slide levels into the lake. Just before approaching the end, Ellie prepares herself for the final plunge by letting go of the handles and plugging her nose with one hand. The other hand she keeps free to push herself from the tube so she can fall into the inky green deaths of the lake.
Taking a deep breath at the last second, she closes her eyes and lets water consume the world when she splashes down. She sinks fast from the surface, falling to the lake’s bottom like some sort of stone treasure chest dropped in a fish tank. Blood pounds within her body when she reaches the bottom and immediately begins to thrash her arms along the lake’s silt and debris, combing frantically through with her fingers. Terror begins to squeeze her throat when her oxygen dwindles and in one last attempt, she opens her eyes. Slowly at first because the lake’s murky water threatens to scratch them apart and then wide when something silver flashes by her face.
Was it the silver of her sister’s hair? It could be, she thinks. That would mean her sister is down here.
Somewhere.
With eyes now open, she’s able to see a golden chain twinkling from the waxy light above. She reaches for it and wraps her fingers around the gold and tugs, but it won’t budge. She tries again and braces her legs against the lake’s bottom, pulling until she feels the necklace snap free from whatever held it in place. She is wrapping the glittering links around her wrist when a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her waist and haul her upwards to the surface.
Sputtering and coughing water from her burning lungs, Ellie staggers to shore with the necklace wrapped tight around her hand. Her cousins close in quickly, surrounding her in a circle and arguing with each other about who will tell her mother what happened. The slide attendant sloshes through the water behind them, hitting the side of his head to dislodge water from his ears. He looks at her and is about to say something when his mouth falls open in shock. He stares at her hand, silent and still, and Ellie begins to notice people gathering around them.
The group of teenagers wander close. One of the older girls covers a scream with her mouth when she sees the necklace and her sister’s boyfriend looks as white as her bed sheets back home. He begins to back away from the scene but the girls, and others who have gathered, block his escape.
“Wait! I can explain…” Ellie hears him stammer, but she refuses to pay attention as the crowd closes in.
She sits on the rocky pebbles and the small waves from the lake wash the grime from her legs. Lowering her hand, she lets the water stream through the necklace while she unwraps it from her fingers. Holding it up, those gathered nearby let out small whispers that quickly turn to animated discussions of guilt and missing girls. The necklace glitters in the sunlight and dangles before her, weighed down by a jewel shaped pendant. Ellie smiles as she unclasps the locket and finds a picture of herself on one side and her sister on the other.
“I found you,” she whispers, but the swarming crowd is too loud for anyone to hear.
