“A few years ago, long after it had been closed, Eli said he saw a girl swimming in it, coming out of the water in a bikini, laughing at her frigthtened boyfriend, seaweed snaking around her. He said she looked like a mermaid. Deenie always pictured it like in one of those books of mythology she used to love, a girl rising from the foam gritted with pearls, mussels, the glitter of the sea. "It looks beautiful", her mother had said once when they were driving by at night, its waters opaline. “It is beautiful. But it makes people sick.” To Deenie, it was one of many interesting things that adults said would kill you: Easter lilles, jellyfish, copperhead snakes with their diamond heads, tails bright as sulfur. Don't touch, don't taste, don't get too close. And then, last week.” Female SexualityThe LakeDeenie NashEli Nash Book:The Fever Source: The Fever
“But it only makes visible a darkness that’s already there. Maybe eating it like that…" She looked at Deenie, her voice like a pulse in Deenie’s brain. "Maybe you bring the darkness inside you. Maybe Lise has it inside her now.” Lise DanielsDeenie Nash Book:The Fever Source: The Fever