Where the Crawdads Sing(42)

Suddenly she shrieks as the power rushes beneath her, fondles her thighs, between her legs, flows along her back, swirling under her head, pulling her hair in inky strands. She rolls faster into the deepening wave, against streaming shells and ocean bits, the water embracing her. Pushing against the sea’s strong body, she is grasped, held. Not alone.

Kya sits up and opens her eyes to the ocean foaming around her in soft white patterns, always changing.



* * *



? ? ?

SINCE CHASE HAD GLANCED at her on the beach, she’d already gone to Jumpin’s wharf twice in one week. Not admitting to herself that she hoped to see Chase there. Being noticed by someone had lit a social cord. And now, she asked Jumpin’, “How’s Mabel doing, anyway? Are any of your grandkids home?” like the old days. Jumpin’ noticed the change, knew better than to comment. “Yessiree, got fou’ wif us right now. House full up wif giggles and I don’t know whut all.”

But a few mornings later when Kya motored to the wharf, Jumpin’ was nowhere to be seen. Brown pelicans, hunched up on posts, eyed her as though they were minding shop. Kya smiled at them.

A touch on her shoulder made her jump.

“Hi.” She turned to see Chase standing behind her. She dropped her smile.

“I’m Chase Andrews.” His eyes, ice-pack blue, pierced her own. He seemed completely comfortable to stare into her.

She said nothing, but shifted her weight.

“I’ve seen ya around some. Ya know, over the years, in the marsh. What’s yo’ name?” For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to speak; maybe she was dumb or spoke a primal language, like some said. A less self-assured man might have walked away.

“Kya.” Obviously, he didn’t remember their sidewalk-bicycle encounter or know her in any way except as the Marsh Girl.

“Kya—that’s different. But nice. You wanta go for a picnic? In my boat, this Sunday.”

She looked past him, taking time to evaluate his words, but couldn’t see them to an end. Here was a chance to be with someone.

Finally she said, “Okay.” He told her to meet him at the oak peninsula north of Point Beach at noon. Then he stepped into his blue-and-white ski boat, metal bits gleaming from every possible surface, and accelerated away.

She turned at the sound of more footsteps. Jumpin’ scurried up the dock. “Hi, Miss Kya. Sorry, I been totin’ empty crates over yonder. Fill ’er up?”

Kya nodded.

On the way home, she cut the motor and drifted, the shore in sight. Leaning against the old knapsack, watching the sky, she recited poetry by heart, as she did sometimes. One of her favorites was John Masefield’s “Sea Fever”:


. . . all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

Kya recalled a poem written by a lesser-known poet, Amanda Hamilton, published recently in the local newspaper she’d bought at the Piggly Wiggly:


Trapped inside,

Love is a caged beast,

Eating its own flesh.

Love must be free to wander,

To land upon its chosen shore

And breathe.

The words made her think of Tate, and her breathing stopped. All he’d needed was to find something better and he was gone. Didn’t even come to say good-bye.



* * *



? ? ?

KYA DIDN’T KNOW, but Tate had come back to see her.

The day before he was to bus home that Fourth of July, Dr. Blum, the professor who’d hired him, walked into the protozoology lab and asked Tate if he’d like to join a group of renowned ecologists for a birding expedition over the weekend.

“I’ve noticed your interest in ornithology and wondered if you’d like to come. I only have room for one student, and I thought of you.”

“Yes, absolutely. I’ll be there.” After Dr. Blum left, Tate stood there, alone, amid lab tables, microscopes, and the hum of the autoclave, wondering how he’d folded so fast. How quickly he’d jumped to impress his professor. The pride of being singled out, the only student invited.

His next chance to go home—and only for one night—had been fifteen days later. He was frantic to apologize to Kya, who would understand after she learned of Dr. Blum’s invitation.

He’d cut throttle as he left the sea and turned into the channel, where logs were lined with the glistening backs of sunbathing turtles. Almost halfway, he spotted her boat carefully hidden in tall cord grass. Instantly, he slowed and saw her up ahead, kneeling on a wide sandbar, apparently fascinated by some small crustacean.

Her head low to the ground, she hadn’t seen him or heard his slow-moving boat. He quietly turned his skiff into reeds, out of view. He’d known for years that she sometimes spied on him, peeping through needle brush. On impulse, he would do the same.

Barefoot, dressed in cutoff jeans and a white T-shirt, she stood up, stretching her arms high. Showcasing her wasp-thin waist. She knelt again and scooped sand in her hands, sifting it through her fingers, examining organisms left squiggling in her palm. He smiled at the young biologist, absorbed, oblivious. He imagined her standing at the back of the birding group, trying not to be noticed but being the first to spot and identify every bird. Shyly and softly, she would have listed the precise species of grasses woven into each nest, or the age in days of a female fledgling based on the emerging colors of her wingtips. Exquisite minutiae beyond any guidebook or knowledge of the esteemed ecology group. The smallest specifics on which a species spins. The essence.