When Devils Sing(25)

CHAPTER 8REID





Reid was almost five years old when the cicadas last arrived in Carrion, but he had been too young to attend the celebratory luncheon. He’d stayed home with his mother, watching as his father and siblings disappeared out the front door in their finest Sunday best. That’s how it often had been, when Caroline Langley was still with them: Caroline and Reid were one unit; Russ, Jonah, and Farris, another. But the thing Reid remembered most about that day was how badly his stomach had hurt from hunger.

As soon as his family had disappeared down the driveway, his mother pulled out a small bag of frozen grapes. They’d been tucked away in one of their many freezers, hidden beneath a layer of ice cubes. At the time, Reid was too young to understand why his father had locked away all the food, not yet privy to Lake Clearwater’s traditions.

He’d eagerly eaten the grapes with his mother, sitting outside on their dock on the water. Geese from the lake swam over. Reid and his mother shared their paltry meal, laughing as they watched the geese bicker and compete for the same scraps of food.

“My stomach still hurts,” Reid had whined to his mother after devouring the grapes. “Why can’t we eat?”

“We’re honoring the cicadas.” Caroline patted his head, tousling his brown hair. “It’s tradition, Reid.”

“Well, I don’t like the cicadas,” Reid said with childish defiance. He tossed loose pebbles into the lake water, watching them sink. “They’re creepy and loud.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Caroline gave Reid a sly grin. “Can you keep a secret?”

Reid nodded eagerly, gray eyes lighting up at sharing something special with his mother. “What is it?”

She leaned forward, their foreheads nearly touching. In a soft voice, she whispered, “You won’t ever have to be hungry again.”

“How?” Reid whispered back.

He remembered how his mother’s face had turned serious. “Because the next time the cicadas come, you and I will be far, far away from Lake Clearwater.”

Thirteen years had passed, and Caroline Langley had been unable to fulfill her promise to Reid. This time, he had to attend the luncheon with the rest of the family, his mother a noticeable, painful absence. Sitting at the long outdoor table on the lawn of the Langley Plantation, Reid could almost taste the icy-cold burst of grapes on his tongue as his stomach growled. He frowned down at his own abdomen.

“You’re such a child,” Farris said from beside him. “How can you not handle fasting for one day?”

“Sorry.” Reid scowled, fanning himself with his hand against the midday summer heat. He craved a cold sip of water, but even that was forbidden until the feast began. “I don’t have as much practice starving myself as you.”

Farris rolled her eyes. “It’s called intermittent fasting, Reid. It enhances your body.”

Jonah snickered. Farris hit him in response.

“Jesus,” he yelped, clutching his arm. “I’m injured. Have some respect.”

“You’re an embarrassment,” Farris snapped. “I can’t believe Dad let you show your face today.”

“It would’ve looked worse if I hadn’t shown up. I’m the eldest son,” Jonah fired back. Farris had applied a hefty layer of makeup on his face that morning, but it wasn’t enough to fully cover the black eye and swollen lip. Reid still wasn’t sure if his brother’s injuries were from the car accident or their father.

Farris adjusted the large sun hat on her head. “People are staring.”

Reid followed her line of sight. It was true; the well-dressed guests in attendance were staring and whispering among one another. Gossiping, no doubt. “People are always staring.”

Even though the Langley siblings were virtually untouchable, the gilded children of the founding family of Clearwater, they weren’t immune to the community’s judgment. It was no secret how others felt. Reid had heard the snide comments all his life.

The Langley bloodline was tainted when Russ Langley had children with that woman.

How do we know the children won’t grow up to be just like their filthy mother?

There’s something not quite right with the youngest Langley boy.

Before Reid’s mother had become a Langley, she was Caroline Cochran. Born elsewhere but reared on the outskirts of Carrion in a run-down trailer park. Her parents barely raised her past the crib, with her father in and out of prison and her mother drug-addicted and absent, and she eventually settled down with an aunt in Carrion when she was nine.

Then at the age of thirteen, through what his mother had said was wit and sheer, dumb luck, Caroline was accepted into the private Clearwater Academy with a rare full-ride scholarship, awarded to two “disadvantaged” students each year. Caroline enrolled in the eighth grade, met Russ Langley sometime in high school, and the rest was history. What made Caroline so resented was that she not only survived Clearwater Academy, but graduated at the top of her class, with the affections of his father in tow.

“Your father would’ve followed me to the ends of the earth if I had chosen to leave Clearwater. He would’ve left it all behind for me,” Caroline had confessed to Reid in a rare moment of reflection when he was ten. He’d been bullied again that day. A classmate pushed him to the ground and taunted him about his mother. “That fact scares a lot of people around here.”