What Lies Beneath
I was lucky as a child to spend a week every summer at my grandparents’ cabin in the Pocono Mountains. We spent most days on the nearby Lake Minisink, paddling its circumference in the family row boat. My sister and I liked to bring along our Barbie dolls to tow on string behind the boat.
One afternoon, as I stared into the murky water, imagining my doll on a deep-sea mission – two glistening eyes rose from the depths. A scaly fist-sized head followed, then a long sinewy neck. I watched in disbelief as a black mouth opened, swallowed one of my doll’s legs and tugged. The string snapped. And the creature sank back into shadowy darkness, taking with it my favorite Barbie.
You’d think I would have been traumatized, and I was a little. Though my dad reassured me that it was just a big turtle – that experience shaped how I saw the world: full of magic and mystery. I still feel that today.
While my grandparents’ Pennsylvania cabin is long sold, perhaps it’s time to start a new lake tradition with help from the first story below.
– Sunny Montgomery, editor