Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

Two hundred years later, they were joined by runaway slaves, who escaped into the marsh and were called maroons, and freed slaves, penniless and beleaguered, who dispersed into the water-land because of scant options.

Ancient and natural, like those hatched from hawks and doves. When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.

But this morning, Ma had been quiet; her smile lost, her eyes red. She’d tied a white scarf pirate style, low across her forehead, but the purple and yellow edges of a bruise spilled out. Right after breakfast, even before the dishes were washed, Ma had put a few personals in the train case and walked down the road.

Coloreds couldn’t use the door or the window.

“Never mind her. You cain’t go blamin’ yo’ sins on somebody else, not even swamp trash. Now, you boys gotta do a good deed, make up fer this. There goes Miss Arial with her groceries, go help carry ’em to her truck. And put yo’ shirttails in.”

Kya never went back to school a day in her life. She returned to heron watching and shell collecting, where she reckoned she could learn something. “I can already coo like a dove,” she told herself. “And lots better than them. Even with all them fine shoes.”

Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.

“Go as far as you can—way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” “Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters. Now, you got any ideas where we can meet?”

Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.

“Your Honor, the People call Mr. Rodney Horn.”