As the minivan entered the gridlock of a parking lot at Breathtaking Paradise, screams echoed from the roaring roller coasters and mile-high drop towers. In the back row of the car, Emi’s brother and his friend yelled as they swayed left and right, pretending to be on a ride. Emi sat quietly in her car seat, fluffing her princess dress and straightening the ribbons in her neatly braided hair.

Inching the car forward, the mother glanced at her daughter through the rear-view mirror.

“Don’t mind the boys, Emi,” the mother said.

“I know. They’re so silly,” replied Emi. “I bet they aren’t even brave enough to go on Terror Falls.”

The two boys froze mid-sway.

“Stupid, Emi,” said her brother. “You know that ride is closed.”

His friend snickered. “It’s closed because somebody died on it.”

“Boys!” The mother’s forehead creased in the rear-view mirror. “Don’t scare Emi.”

The boys laughed and began daring each other to go on Terror Falls. By the time the mother found a spot to park, the back row of the car was a mass of flying elbows. Emi was silent, nose pressed against the window.

It took another hour to get through the line at the entrance, during which Emi’s brother practiced wrestling with his friend. When they finally got tickets, the mother shoved a map into the boys’ interlocked biceps and sent them off, calling, “Meet back here at 1 o’clock  for lunch!”

When they were gone, the mother let out a breath and snapped a photo of Emi, who was craning her little neck upward to look at the towering rides.

“Those boys are a handful,” the mother said. “Now, honey, what do you think about going to the Princess Palace to take photos with Cinderella, huh?”

Emi rolled her eyes and agreed, taking her mother’s hand. While they were pushing their way through the crowd, the mother decided to stop for a bathroom break.

“Wait right here for me,” her mother said, gesturing at the bench outside the ladies room. Emi nodded and gingerly sat at the corner of the bench, pressing her dress tight against her body to avoid a puddle of ketchup. Her mother smiled and snapped another photo before disappearing into the restroom.

While Emi waited, she watched the children who were milling about, stuffing cotton candy into their faces and proudly holding up stuffed toys they had won at the nearby ring-toss stand. Little girls danced in lacy dresses like hers, and little boys wielded plastic light sabers at everything they could see. She cringed as a sword came inches away from knocking over an orange roadblock that closed off an area under renovation. The sign on the roadblock said “Terror Falls temporarily closed.”

Emi got off the bench and tip-toed to peek over the roadblock and get a better look at the legendary ride. Above a tangle of overgrown oaks and weeds protruded a plaster mountain with chipping paint. A dry trench ran all the way down, moldy and eroded from the water that used to rush down, plunging boatfuls of screaming passengers into an icy river — and one passenger to her death.

Emi ducked under the roadblock and entered the depths of foliage that surrounded the ride. Slowly she made her way through the leaves until she reached the dry river bed. Lifting her skirts, she stepped inside and followed its path, winding downwards into the musty cave. Water dripped from the ceiling, dousing her princess hair with freezing droplets. Tiny creatures scurried around her, leading her deeper and deeper into the darkness.

Eventually she reached the clearing where the passengers normally disembarked. She was surprised to see flickering candle light coming from the employee’s control booth. Silently peeking through the window, Emi saw a scraggly man dragging his hand along the unlit buttons of the control panel.

Emi’s eyes tracked the path of a single tear that dripped from the man’s eyelash and rolled down a single hair of his beard, down the buttons of his frayed coat until it landed in the center of a button on the control panel.

When he looked up and saw Emi through the glass, his eyes popped like ping-pong balls.

“Mary?” The breath escaping from his hanging jaw condensed onto the glass between them.

Before Emi could say anything, the man ran out of the booth and wrapped his arms around her tiny waist, lifting her up into a tight embrace.

“Oh, Mary,” the man wailed, sobbing into her shoulder. “I knew you were okay. They kept saying you had d-d-died but I never believed them ‘cause I knew you were okay… how could someone d-die on an amusement park ride …  ridiculous…  I waited for you here, inside this mountain, for days …  and you came back, you really did come back to Papa...”

Emi struggled to get out of the man’s grip.

“E-Excuse me sir—”

“Shhh… c’mon Mary, let’s go home,” interrupted the man, stepping into the dry river bed and carrying Emi deeper into the mountain. The air grew colder, and the screaming of bats echoed off the walls.

“I’m not Mary— I’m Emi— I—”

“Shhh…”

The man finally stopped at the dinosaur scene of the ride. Someone had furnished the T-rex’s nest with a baby’s blanket and stashed a pile of churros under a plastic bush. The mother dinosaur loomed over the nest, casting triangular shadows of canines.

“Home, sweet, home,” sang the man. “I’ve made your bed for you, Mary, and prepared lunch.” He stepped into the display and gently laid Emi into the nest.

Emi blinked.

“I know it’s not the same as our old home, Mary, but it’s all we have now. Aren’t you hungry?” the man cooed. He pulled out a churro and attempted to break off a chunk. When the churro remained solid, he smashed it against a fake palm tree until it crumbled into a pile of sugar.

“Sorry, Mary, I’ve been waiting a long time for you,” he admitted, offering the crumbs to Emi.

“I’m not Mary. I’m Emi. You’re mistaken,” Emi explained as politely as she could. “I’m going to leave now.” She got up and started picking her way back through the dry river bed.

“Mary, no!” The man chased her down, grabbed her under the arms, and carried her back to the nest. He kneeled over her, pinning her to the straw. Emi gagged at the moldy stench of his breath.

“You will stay here with Papa. Papa will tell you a story,” the man said.

Emi’s limbs flailed for a few seconds before going limp.

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Mary. She was a tomboy — short short hair, T-shirt — don’t even mention dresses in front of her — oops I just did.”

The man giggled and continued, stroking Emi’s flinching cheeks. “When her mother took her to the amusement park, she insisted on going on the scariest ride—”

The man’s calloused hands landed on Emi’s braids and he sucked in a breath.

“Never!” he gasped. “Mary, not pigtails!”

He stared at her filthy princess dress.

“Mary! Dress? Wait—” The man let out an agonized bellow that echoed throughout the interior of the mountain. “Imposter! How dare you!”

The man grabbed Emi by the braids and flung her onto his shoulder. Then he jumped into the river bed and ran. Thumping along, Emi felt the ground getting steeper and the temperature steadily dropping. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the flapping wings of the bats encircling them. Occasionally, a wing would slap her nose, leaving a streak of cold slime on her skin. Finally, they reached the peak of the mountain.

“You will be punished! You will die like they say my daughter did!” the man cried, holding Emi out over the edge of mountain.

Her legs dangling and skirts fluttering in the wind, Emi could see crowds of tiny people below, like clumps of sugar. Her cheeks flushed as she realized that they would see her underwear if they looked up.

Scanning the world below, she noticed a woman frantically talking to a security guard. Beside her were two little boys. It was strange to see her brother and his friend actually behaving themselves, for once.

Emi wanted to call out to them and say, “I’m right here!” but she knew they would never hear her, miles above. Her heart clenched at the sight of her mother burying her head in her arms, the security guard attempting to console her. Even her brother and his friend began to pace.

Emi began to cry. Would her mother become as insane as the man, who had lost his own daughter? Become a child abductor, a … murderer?

“I am Mary!” Emi screamed into the man’s face. “Your daughter! Don’t hurt me!”

The man shook his head. “You are not Mary, little liar.”

“I am not her, but I am her! And the woman down there, my mother, is you! Don’t you see?”

When the man looked down at her mother, Emi kicked him hard enough to send them both tumbling back into the mountain, somersaulting down the dry river bed until they reached the dinosaur scene. Lifting the remains of her skirts, Emi fled.

She hurdled over the orange roadblock and reentered the crowds, and Emi saw her mother running towards her, her brother and his friend close behind.