When Devils Sing(50)

She and my mama raised me on these sorts of stories, like most everybody around here. They used fear to keep me in line, to make sure I never did anything that’d attract the devil. If a crow was sittin’ outside our window or a cottonmouth was spotted down our little dirt road, they said it meant the devil was watching, just waitin’ to come into our lives.

And God forbid a cicada ever made its way inside, screamin’ and hollerin’. It meant there was a sinner in the home, calling the devil himself to the doorstep. Granmama would beat us all silly until we confessed to somethin’—anythin’. Most times, nobody had done nothin’. But she’d say those awful, thirteen-year cicadas were a mark of death. The only way to save yourself was through confession and the good Lord’s forgiveness.

(long pause)

Sometimes I wish I’d taught Dawson the same stories I was raised on, even if they scared me.

HOST: Why is that?

ANDREA SUMTER: Maybe … (sniffles) maybe … he’d still be here if I had. Maybe he would’ve been more careful. Maybe he would’ve never gone to that godforsaken lake in the first place. (sobs) I’m sorry.

HOST (to audience): Andrea Sumter’s eighteen-year-old son, Dawson, was the first reported drowning on Lake Clearwater this past summer. He died shortly after his high school graduation.

As a senior in high school, he had plans to become a veterinary technician after he graduated. Faculty and staff of Langley County High School described him as having a “heart of gold.” Dawson was seemingly adored by his peers, his friends, everyone that met him. He even volunteered at the Langley County animal shelter on the weekends.

And like most of Lake Clearwater’s deaths, his body was unable to be recovered from the water.

ANDREA SUMTER: Dawson was a lifeguard at the YMCA before he started workin’ at the lake. Tell me this: How does a lifeguard drown in calm lake water?

HOST: In the police report, they attributed his drowning to alcoholic inebriation. Empty liquor bottles were found by his abandoned car on Lake Clearwater’s shore.

ANDREA SUMTER: (sighs) Like I told you before, Dawson never drank a drop of liquor in his life. You could say it was his own personal philosophy. Probably because … well, all his life, he’d seen me drink. He hated it, always had. Maybe even hated me sometimes for it, too.

I’m tellin’ you, on my granmama’s grave, I’m certain he wasn’t drinkin’ that night.

HOST: What do you believe happened?

ANDREA SUMTER: I think my boy got caught up in somethin’ he shouldn’t have at Lake Clearwater. Saw or heard somethin’ he wasn’t supposed to.

(long pause)

And I think they took him because of it.

HOST: I’m sorry, Andrea. I’m not sure I’m following. What do you mean by “they took him”?

ANDREA SUMTER: I know how crazy I sound, but I can feel Dawson. I can feel that he’s still alive somewhere. It’s a mama’s instinct, somethin’ I can’t quite explain. (sniffles) I think the Clearwater folks took my boy and faked his drownin’. The car on the lakeshore, the alcohol, all of it. The police are in on it.

HOST: Why would they do that?

ANDREA SUMTER: To protect their own, like they’ve always done.





CHAPTER 20NEERA





Early that evening, Neera sat at the edge of the motel’s pool, her feet pruning in the chlorinated water as she stared into the woods behind the Colonial. It was the golden hour, the sun hanging low and heavy in the sky, but the heat hadn’t let up—not just yet. Absently, she picked at a fresh scab on her thigh, coaxing it off her skin. The Cicada’s Song was tomorrow night, but Neera wasn’t any closer to getting on that stage with a lick of confidence.

A family of four waded at the opposite side of the pool, splashing in the shallow end with floats and toy water guns. The parents laughed and cheered with the children. The dad pretended to be a sea monster, dunking his son’s head beneath the water, while the daughter climbed onto his shoulders.

A flash of a memory came to Neera. She was seven years old, swimming in the Gulf with Ajay, bobbing in the ocean at his side. Seawater sprayed into her eyes as they had waded past the sandbars, to the place where her small feet couldn’t touch. The air was warm, the breeze soft against her face. Seagulls swooped and dived overhead, calling to one another.

Neera gripped her uncle’s arm as she struggled to find her footing, but there was no sand beneath her. Just the open ocean and the waves that carried her up and down in the salty, crystalline water.

Ajay gently untangled Neera’s fingers from his arm. “Neera,” he said, a grin spreading across his sun-kissed face as he floated away from her. “Can you swim to me?”

She floundered in the water, chin dipping below the surface. “I can’t swim.”

Ajay smiled at her. “But you can, like this.” He kept gliding backward, farther into the ocean. “Don’t think about it, just do it.”

She kept swimming, fearing the deep ocean and the fish that darted beneath her churning feet. When Neera finally reached him—her arms and legs heavy with exertion—she wrapped herself around his torso and scaled him like a tree, climbing away from the water.

Her uncle had only laughed and wrapped his arms around her, swinging her high above the waves. “You did it, Neera!”