Waves rose off my sweat-dampened body as I tossed in my bed.
Sleep was impossible in such swelter. Rufus, at my feet, panted heavily in a
vain attempt to shed heat. Worst of all, cicadas drove me mad with their
incessant “chee”. I clutched a pillow over my head, but their chirping droned through.
Eventually, I tossed it onto the heap of blankets laying useless on the floor. Rufus,
obviously tired of my flopping around, uttered a moan and leapt down to curl up
under the open window.
Morning found me hunched over the kitchen table, face mashed
against my forearms. Mom breezed into the room and ruffled my curly hair.
“Whatcha doing up so early, hon?”
How could she be so
cheerful? “Couldn’t sleep in all this heat and the cicadas kept me up all
night.”
“Oh, my! Let me look at you.” She fussed over my swollen
eyes and pallid cheeks for a few minutes. “I know just the thing.” She pulled
some milk from the fridge and poured it into a small saucepan, adding a pinch
of nutmeg. “You know, locusts only come out in droves every thirteen or
seventeen years. The last time there were this many was the year you were born.”
She handed me a steaming cup. “Here. Drink up and I’ll tell you a story my
grandmother told me when I was little.”
The buzzing in my head lessened more with each sip of the
warm milk. Satisfied that her concoction was working, she continued her story.
“One year, when Gran was young, the summer was so hot, she
said, ‘you could fry eggs on the front stoop.’” I laughed at that. Great Gran
had a funny way with words. Visibly relieved at my mirth, Mom continued. “That
was the year of the cicada children.” She raised her hand at my puzzled look.
“At night, the cicadas would chitter so loudly, it was believed they were possessed
by demons. Their droning chirps kept the villagers up all night. The kids most
of all. It was like they were calling the children. Not long into the summer, a
shout rand out and people came running. Someone or something had killed a dog
near Gran’s house. Its throat was torn out as though hacked by a saw.”
“That’s horrible! Who did it?”
“Patience.” Her stern look didn’t fool me one bit. She reveled
in telling old tales.
“The constable was called in to investigate. He brought in a
local tracking hound to follow the scent trail. Oddly, it led right to the door
of the dead dog’s owner. Inside, the owner’s wife was weeping and trying to shake
sense into her daughter. The constable found the girl rocking back and forth, eyes
rolled up in her head and humming a strange buzzing noise. The girl was still
dressed in her night clothes which were stained brownish-red. This was the
first of the cicada children.”
“Gross! The little girl did it?”
“Yes. And she wasn’t the only one. Every other morning or so,
screams could be heard all through the village as townsfolk discovered pets and
people with their throats cut. Worse yet, were the children in each home,
rocking back and forth in blood-soaked night shifts holding bloody knives and
mumbling and buzzing like the locusts outside.”
“What did they do?”
“They rounded up all of the children and tied them to
hospital beds.”
“Did it help?”
“Not a bit. Somehow, the children all became infected by the
eerie chirping of the locusts. The townsfolk were up-in-arms. Nobody knew what
to do. They turned to the parson, but his prayers seemed to go unanswered. They
turned to the local doctor, but he had no solution either. Finally, they called
on the constable once again.”
“What could he do?”
“Well, as it turned out, his great aunt was some sort of
local witch doctor. Some of the older men and women of the village went to her for
homemade cure-alls and such. She told him a most unbelievable story of how
every thirteen years, when a certain breed of cicadas rose, the town children
would act in such a way. The constable asked her what they did. And when she
told him, he brought the recipe straight to the hospital. Within the hour,
every child was cured with no memory of what had happened.”
“Really? What was the cure?”
Mom put on a sly grin as though she were pulling my leg.
“Warm milk and nutmeg.”
# # #
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