When Devils Sing(101)

Blind Bucks looked distinctly monstrous in the spare light of the moon.

It was Neera’s turn to stand watch as Reid struggled to break the heavy padlock on the front door with a shovel. Isaiah hovered beside him, his phone in hand, ready to record whatever they found within. The three had been quiet since fleeing the cabin. A palpable anxiety hung between them as they feared the fate of their loved ones—if they were even still alive.

After several minutes of raucous banging, the lock and chains fell to the ground. They all stared at one another. It was one thing to plan to be heroes, it was another to assume the roles. Whatever they found within the abandoned dive bar, they had to be ready to meet it.

Reid didn’t give Neera a chance to consider it further before he was inside the building, and she was following at his heel. They all used their phones as flashlights in the dark of the bar.

All around them was the long-forgotten branding of a place that never was. Those strange, sprawling antlers hung over the entrance, and turned-over tables and chairs were scattered about. Neera scanned the room, desperate to see some sign of life within. “Where are they?” she whispered.

“Somewhere soundproof, I imagine,” Reid whispered back.

“There.” Isaiah pointed to a closed door at the back of the building.

“Oh God,” Neera breathed, her mind’s eye conjuring something gruesome. She pushed forward, ahead of the boys. “Come on.”

Glass and debris crunched beneath her feet. She shone her phone’s flashlight on the remnants of this place, including the small stage—what once was and what never came to be. Ajay’s legacy. Another failed dream for the Singh family. It had to end with her, this longing. She needed to see her life’s dreams made reality.

It can’t end like this.

The door to the back was locked. She tugged the handle, but it didn’t budge.

“Here,” Isaiah said from behind her. “Try this.” He materialized the key she’d found in Dawson’s room a week ago.

Neera put the key in the lock, expecting nothing. But it turned, then unlocked the door. There was the briefest moment of hope before it was extinguished. Inside was nothing but an empty walk-in cooler.

From behind came Reid’s and Isaiah’s flashlights.

“There’s no one here,” Neera announced flatly. “They’re gone.”

Isaiah crouched on the floor, rubbing his hand along smudged footprints. “These are fresh. Still wet. We must’ve just missed them.”

Neera wanted to scream, but Reid beat her to it. He let out an angry cry, kicking the nearest wall with a force that should’ve broken his toes. “We’re screwed.”

Isaiah shook his head. “No, we’re alive. Imagine how screwed we’d be if we were caught trying to save these people. We didn’t even think this through, just acted. We’re not vigilantes.”

“Well, we have to be.” Reid paced the length of the room. “Their lives are in our hands. We have less than twenty-four hours to save everyone or they’ll all be dead.”

Neera and Isaiah whipped their heads around to look at Reid.

“What did you just say?” Neera asked, at the same time as Isaiah said, “You’re not making any sense. Twenty-four hours? What is that?”

“The journal,” Reid sighed. “It’s all in Dawson’s journal. He wrote about some ritual happening on the Fourth of July—tomorrow. Thirteen people are supposed to be killed to symbolize the thirteen years since the last cicada brood. They’re meant to be sacrificed.”

Isaiah shook his head, disbelief written across his face. He looked around the room, no doubt counting the thirteen hooks on the ceiling. “Sacrificed to what?”

Reid was quiet for a long moment, before he finally said, “The devil.”

“No way in hell. That’s just some folktale,” Isaiah countered. “It’s real?”

“Real enough,” Reid shot back. “It’s real to them.”

“Oh, this is fucking insane,” Isaiah said, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “I can’t—how am I supposed to believe—”

Neera tuned out as the boys went back and forth, the tension and fear in the room creating a cocktail of anger between them. She studied the thirteen hooks hung from the ceiling, wondering where her mom had been. For a moment, she imagined how terrified Kiran must feel, but the thought was too much to bear. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to breathe. To think.

It was all painfully real to her, as she knew the devil well. One of them, at least. Like Ajay had taught her, she recalled the details of the folktale. She thought of the kind of place suitable for a ritual. Somewhere isolated, remote, but significant to the town. To Lake Clearwater. The “Three Brothers” folk song drifted into her head, as it often did.

They say

You meet the devil

At the crossroads

Down in Georgia

When there ain’t no options left



It clicked for Neera then.

Thirteen bodies would be left at the crossroads for the cicada.

She had it.

“Both of you, shut up,” Neera shouted. The boys fell quiet, turning their attention to her. “I think I know where they’re gonna be, if not already are.”

The boys both looked at her expectantly.