When Devils Sing(72)

HOST (phone): What exactly is strange about that?

ARTHUR HUGHES (phone): The data showed that every thirteen years or so, life expectancy increases in Lake Clearwater but decreases in Carrion. The numbers quite literally oppose one another on a graph. One grows while the other shrinks. I’d never seen anything like it. And I’ve traveled to nearly every country in the world. I study people from all walks of life, but this … this data doesn’t align with my mission.

HOST (phone): What do you mean?

ARTHUR HUGHES (phone): (long pause) How would it look if I said the secret to a long and healthy life was to be extraordinarily wealthy? This is a narrative I have never wanted to promote.





Part Two


They say

You meet the devil

At the crossroads

Down in Georgia

When there ain’t no options left





CHAPTER 28NEERA




68 HOURS


“You might wanna leave the guitar in the trunk.”

The first full sentence Kiran had spoken to Neera since she’d won the Cicada’s Song, and it was that. Sitting behind the Nissan’s steering wheel in the Colonial’s parking lot, she cut her eyes to her mom in the passenger seat. She’d enthralled an entire Clearwater crowd, received praise from Grant Langley, vomited a living cicada, but it was her mom’s silence for half the night that unsettled Neera the most.

As far as Neera knew, Kiran hadn’t even seen her performance at all.

“Seriously?” Neera studied her mom’s face in the low light from the motel. “That’s all you have to say after tonight?”

“Can we not do this now? I’m not in the mood to fight,” Kiran murmured, rubbing her temple. “I’ve had a tough night.”

“Yeah, I know,” Neera said. “I can smell it on your breath from here.”

Kiran may have been a bartender, but it didn’t mean she usually drank during her shifts. Instead, she saved the booze for her off days, wasted with glazed eyes in front of their ancient TV. But something about tonight was different. Tonight wasn’t just important to Neera—it had also been a critical shift for her mom. To prove herself to Jason. To earn her place as the preferred bartender during the lavish celebrations Lake Clearwater was known for. It didn’t make sense why her mom had been drinking. Carelessness wasn’t like her—not when it came to her job. To matters of survival.

“I don’t need your judgment, okay?” Kiran fumbled with her seat belt, struggling to unhook it in the dark. “I get it enough as it is.”

It didn’t matter how old her mom got—her grandfather’s unending disapproval held power over Kiran in a way that angered Neera. It was why his heavy gaze from the motel lobby had kept them firmly in the Nissan for the past fifteen minutes. Because once they stepped out of the car, his wrath would be unleashed upon them. For Neera, it would be the sight of the Yamaha, unbroken and intact. For Kiran, it would be her stale breath, the slight slur to her words. Her pitiful uniform and her black apron, stuffed with wads of dollar bills.

Kiran may have been Neera’s mom, but she was also Nanaji’s daughter. The weight of the roles existing simultaneously only rendered her smaller. Neera understood it so well. On good days, she rarely took her mom’s misgivings personally. But it was not a good day. That night, something searing and electric burned beneath Neera’s skin. It charged her every move, her every word.

“Fine,” Neera huffed, calloused fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “I don’t care what you do. Just don’t ask me to leave the Yamaha in the car. Please.”

Without warning, Kiran hit the dashboard with her fist, causing Neera to flinch. “I’m not asking you; I’m telling you. Nanaji’s heart can only take so much. Do you want to be what sends him to the hospital? What kills him?”

He’s killing himself, Neera thought darkly. He’s killing us all.

“That’s not fair,” Neera shot back. “I’m doing more for this family than he ever has.” She didn’t wait for Kiran’s retort before climbing out of the car, slamming the door behind her. Storming around the Nissan, she pulled the guitar from the trunk, grateful to hold the worn leather case in her hands again.

Kiran stalked after her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it,” Neera said over her shoulder.

She could feel Nanaji’s eyes tracking them as they walked across the lot to Room 4, her mom at her heel.

“You can’t just say something like that and walk away,” Kiran barked, the pitch of her voice rising with every word. She grabbed Neera’s shoulder, spinning her around. “Enlighten me. How’re you helping us? With this old guitar?”

Neera studied her mom’s face, now pinched into the familiar grimace that Nanaji wore every single day. It seemed like Kiran felt the same electric charge that pulsed through Neera, as if the night air was giving life to every dark feeling in their bodies. “Did you even see me play tonight?”

Kiran opened and closed her mouth, then crossed her arms. “I was working.”

You couldn’t spare three minutes?

Neera ran her fingers through her thick, wavy hair, turning her head to the expansive night sky above. Ajay would’ve dropped everything to see her play. Why couldn’t her own mom show her the same kind of love?