Where the Crawdads Sing

“Okay. Thank you, that’d be fine. Bye, Jumpin’.” Then she added, “Oh, by the way, my pa sends his regards to ya.”

“That so, well then. Ya do the same from me, if ya please. Bye yourself, Miss Kya.” He smiled big as she motored away. She almost smiled herself. Buying her own gas and groceries surely made her a grown-up. Later, at the shack when she unpacked the tiny pile of supplies, she saw a yellow-and-red surprise at the bottom of the bag. Not too grown-up for a Sugar Daddy Jumpin’ had dropped inside.

To stay ahead of the other pickers, Kya slipped down to the marsh by candle or moon—her shadow wavering around on the glistening sand—and gathered mussels deep in the night. She added oysters to her catch and sometimes slept near gullies under the stars to get to Jumpin’s by first light. The mussel money turned out to be more reliable than the Monday money ever had, and she usually managed to beat out other pickers.

She stopped going to the Piggly, where Mrs. Singletary always asked why she wasn’t in school. Sooner or later they’d grab her, drag her in. She got by with her supplies from Jumpin’s and had more mussels than she could eat. They weren’t that bad tossed into the grits, mashed up beyond recognition. They didn’t have eyes to look at her like the fish did.

12. Pennies and Grits

1956

For weeks after Pa left, Kya would look up when ravens cawed; maybe they’d seen him swing-stepping through the woods. At any strange sound in the wind, she cocked her head, listening for somebody. Anybody. Even a mad dash from the truant lady would be good sport.

Mostly she looked for the fishing boy. A few times over the years, she’d seen him in the distance, but hadn’t spoken to him since she was seven, three years ago when he showed her the way home through the marsh. He was the only soul she knew in the world besides Jumpin’ and a few salesladies. Wherever she glided through the waterways, she scanned for him.

One morning, as she motored into a cord grass estuary, she saw his boat tucked in the reeds. Tate wore a different baseball cap and was taller now, but even from more than fifty yards, she recognized the blond curls. Kya idled down, maneuvered quietly into long grass, and peered out at him. Working her lips, she thought of cruising over, maybe asking if he had caught any fish. That seemed to be what Pa and anybody else in the marsh said when they came across somebody: “Anythang bitin’? Had any nibbles?”

But she only stared, didn’t move. She felt a strong pull toward him and a strong push away, the result being stuck firmly in this spot. Finally, she eased toward home, her heart pushing against her ribs.

Every time she saw him it was the same: watching him as she did the herons.

She still collected feathers and shells, but left them, salty and sandy, strewn around the brick-’n’-board steps. She dallied some of each day while dishes piled up in the sink, and why wash overalls that got muddied up again? Long ago she’d taken to wearing the old throwaway overalls from gone-away siblings. Her shirts full of holes. She had no more shoes at all.

One evening Kya slipped the pink-and-green flowery sundress, the one Ma had worn to church, from the wire hanger. For years now she had fingered this beauty—the only dress Pa didn’t burn—had touched the little pink flowers. There was a stain across the front, a faded brown splotch under the shoulder straps, blood maybe. But it was faint now, scrubbed out like other bad memories.

Kya pulled the dress over her head, down her thin frame. The hem came almost to her toes; that wouldn’t do. She pulled it off, hung it up to wait for another few years. It’d be a shame to cut it up, wear it to dig mussels.

A few days later Kya took the boat over to Point Beach, an apron of white sand several miles south of Jumpin’s. Time, waves, and winds had modeled it into an elongated tip, which collected more shells than other beaches, and she had found rare ones there. After securing her boat at the southern end, she strolled north, searching. Suddenly distant voices—shrill and excited—drifted on the air.

Instantly, she ran across the beach toward the woods, where an oak, more than eighty feet from one side to the other, stood knee-deep in tropical ferns. Hiding behind the tree, she watched a band of kids strolling down the sand, now and then dashing around in the waves, kicking up sea spray. One boy ran ahead; another threw a football. Against the white sand, their bright madras shorts looked like colorful birds and marked the changing season. Summer was walking toward her down the beach.

As they moved closer, she flattened herself against the oak and peered around. Five girls and four boys, a bit older than she, maybe twelve. She recognized Chase Andrews throwing the ball to those boys he was always with.