The Summer had started much like any other before it. The cornstalks had begun to rocket towards the sky in great, green plumes which surrounded the entirety of Cranston. Songbirds joined together in harmonious tunes as the blazing, orange sun crept out from beyond the horizon. Candle flies dipped and dodged one another like children with sparklers would by the time dusk had crept in.
It had always been this way, even as the impending collapse of the environment around us had begun to bring on unbearable heat. Still, the songbirds and the bugs carried on.
It was unusual, to say the least, when the trees which stood aplenty around Cranston had become dotted with the recently discarded shells of cicadas. A brood has passed through not too many moons ago and we hadn’t expected another to lay waste to the crops so soon.
It wasn’t long before the first shells had appeared, clutching their brittle, crunchy legs against the tree bark, that the shrill screams of their untethered beings began to sound. Soon the branches, the trunks, even the twigs were littered with there discarded husks as they all joined together in a cacophony of high-pitched screeching.
Other bugs, like the candle flies, became scarce in the weeks which followed. There glowing spirits seemed equally bogged down by the wretched cicadas whose dead bodies had begun collecting on the ground like leaves in the Fall.
The songbirds took great joy in the feast which now lay at our feet, though their eagerness to partake would lead to their untimely demise. Their fragile bodies began to flutter aimlessly towards the ground and as quickly as they had rid the sidewalks of the cicadas, their own corpses began to pile up.
The Summer had grown so quiet, so void of life. The once lively, green fields of crop had deteriorated into brown, gnarled bits of a harvest which, at one point, promised great yield.
Morning time was void of the tranquil songbirds melodies. Evening time grew darker than ever with the absence of the candle flies. The streets were bare of the playing children, too hungry to expend any energy which wasn’t needed.
The starving livestock beckoned for sustenance, for grain that the farmers desperately needed just to fill the tables for their own families, their own children. They soon followed the cicadas, the songbirds and the candle flies, going belly-up and joining them in kingdom come.
The stench of death, of gut rot, hung heavy in the thick, humid air. Much like the townspeople, the rainfall had grown fewer and farther between. I don’t remember a time Cranston had been so stricken for the sweet, Summer rain.
When ash, like that of the flakes which swim and dance from a glowing campfire, began falling in billows from the heavens, that’s when I tried looking for answers. Answers as to why our land had been forsaken.
When I arrived at the Cranston Public Library, a dainty, brick building with little amenities, I was immediately taken aback. Perhaps by the sore lack of funds which left this place somewhere in the mid-60s, or the huge smile on the librarians face. She welcomed me in, like an adventurer who’d weathered a brutal path, and offered me assistance in finding what I was looking for.
She bore a bewildered look as I beckoned for something, anything, to figure out why these horrible things were happening to our town. After a moment of silence, she motioned me forth, behind the desk and into a small, windowless room.
“Do you know who I am?”, she asked, her brow raised as though she expected me to answer immediately. I shook my head, no. Though the name on the tag which hung by a thread from her green, wool sweater seemed vaguely familiar.
Emilia Crass
“The Mayor sure knew my name, as did the Pastor”, she hissed, picking through a stack of yellowed, decrepit papers. I shifted uncomfortably, unsure of how to present myself.
The equally decrepit, weathered woman yanked a nondescript sheet of notebook paper from the pile and slid it across the table towards me.
‘I do not fear what sits on the other side for me, fore I know the angels weep for my hardships, for the injustices which I faced.
You should fear what’s coming to Cranston, fore once I join the cloudy skies, I will rain ashes from above.
I will not rest until you’re dead, I will not rest until you join the fiery pits below, until then I will simply bring Hell to your front door.’
I drew in a deep, shaky breath and pushed the note back towards the old woman, towards Emilia.
“My daughter wrote that, she wrote that before she killed herself”, her taught smile had grown into a furious scowl. Emilias once cloudy eyes were now crystal clear, hatred bubbling over into tears which fell in large blots upon the paper. She tried to wipe the mess of tear stains from the note but only succeeded in smearing the ink further.
“If you really want to make things right, young man”, she paused, a deep sorrow which was sorely apparent, to take in a ragged breath of her own, “then you must avenge my daughter, you must avenge Betty Crass!” Her voice grew several pitches, on the brink of hysterics.
Betty Crass.
A flood of memories, deep and locked away, began to resurface. I recall an old newspaper article, about the length you’d expect from an advertisement for a bicycle, about the death of Betty Crass. How she’d tried to perform an at-home abortion, how she’d succeeded at first, though she would later die that week from sepsis.
At the time I hadn’t given it much thought. But now, now I understood why the Mayor went to such great lengths to slander the Crass family name, why the Pastor had preached the unholiness of abortion to the Cranston Church that following Sunday.
“Betty tried to tell me about the evil things Mayor Thompson had done to her, but I didn’t…”, she trailed off and began to breakdown completely, leaning against a counter as the tears flowed freely.
I left shortly thereafter, back into the hazy world of ash which Cranston had been reduced to.
I’m not sure what will become of me after you read this, where I’ll be sent off to after the deed is done. The only thing I know for certain is that this world will be a little less evil when I’m through.
Betty Crass Will Have Her Revenge on Cranston