in the woods near the lake our family often visited. My sister and I would actually see them, just disappearing underground as we approached.

I also believed that all kinds of exotic sea creatures might appear at the shore at the beach where we vacationed in summer, if only one were there at the right time. Ten-foot-long sawfish, hammerhead sharks, those weird bottom-of-the-sea fish with rows of glowing lights along their sides and alluring appendages sprouting from their foreheads to help them catch prey — these could show up, and did, right where I waded and swam every day.