Humidity lay heavy as a sopping-wet wool blanket thrown over the swamps, the distant horizon a band of bruised violet beneath the half-moon. Distantly plucked chords wove their way through the spanish moss at a syrupy, languid pace, and fireflies bobbed up from the grass in lazy little waltzes, blinking in and out of existence in the twilight. Slowly fading in to earshot, a rich timbre of a voice rose up, out of the dark, accompanying cool respite from the sticky heat, a gale gasping out from the swamp like a last breath before suffocation, heavy with the sickeningly-sweet smell of blooming vanilla - masking the rot. Another light bobbed through the trees, something quite a bit larger than a firefly.
"Summertime, and the livin' is easy..
Fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high.."
There were stories about will-o-the-wisps, or spooklights as they were sometimes called, in circulation all throughout this swathe of the country, had been for two decades - but not a single tall-tale mentioned the singing, the terrible and beautiful singing, thrumming all through the bogs like a pulse, like the heartbeat of something old waking up. It was a sound so rich and deep, it buzzed behind the eyelids, echoed behind the ribs in a way that itched, made goosebumps rise on the skin. Not even crickets made their attempt at chorus.
"Oh, your daddy's rich, and your ma is good lookin'..
So hush, little baby, don't you cry.."
The singer redoubles effort, cries out into the night air of the swamp in a howling bid for any company at all. By the side of the road, ants that had set to feasting on a snake's rotting carcass, start to move in strange, swirling patterns on the ground, circling in on themselves. The swaying light recedes through the trees, away from the roadside, but somehow always the same distance away, fireflies hovering deeper into the treeline's embrace with it, like moths drawn to a flame. The grass grows higher, the further away from the road one goes, long overgrown cascades of green reeds and tangles of weeds, and a stamped down path right through all of it - like well-traveled deer path. The plucked chords that previously played accompaniment to the voice fade out of registry, but the voice, the persistent voice, remains, the vocalist just out of view.
"One of these mornings, you're goin' to rise up, singin'!—"
The grass parts like an emerald curtain, and the singing stops - abruptly. There's a lone willow, reaching out of the swamp like an outstretched hand, and underneath, a lantern is set in place on a flat rock, and a man sits with his back braced against the trunk, the neck of a banjo exposed where it sits slung over his shoulder - the man looking out towards the still, calm waters of the swamp, as all goes stiflingly quiet. He doesn't stir at approach; of course he doesn't. When stood in front of the man, he can be seen clearly for what he is - naught but remains, only bones, long-rotted.
There's the sound of claws scrabbling for purchase on smooth bark, and it reveals a figure standing tall on a broad bough above - black of hair, eyes like two red-hot coals where they reflect the light from the lantern, and, oh, sure as anything, he's dead, dead as anything that looks like him could ever be, skin gone ashen pale, and not a rise or fall of breath seen in his gore-smeared chest, the button-down he wears soaked to lay flat to his skin with sticky garnet-red ichor. He wears a broad smile that is all canines, the corners of his mouth slick with foamed drool, an errant strand webbed in his stubble. He's still as a scarecrow, savoring the moment that eyes meet eyes unblinking, and with a sense of finality, his mouth closes, he swallows his salivation, and the man starts to sing again, a rabid gleam in his eyes as he lowers into a crouch, palming the bough, like a mountain lion about to pounce - but he doesn't shift from his place above.
"Then you'll spread your wings, and you'll take to the sky.."
Distant, another voice joins in, singing along to a well-loved little tune sung a thousand times before, knowing every word with intimate recollection, like the lines on their palm, like the paths of the juiciest veins in a throat. And another takes up the chorus, this time, closer. And quickly, another, just a stone's throw behind. Another, another, their voices rise out of the bog, baying like wolves circling a pronghorn gone astray. Multiple pairs of eyes catch the lantern light, reflecting in uncanny ways from the surrounding tall grass, a variety of faces peering out of the bog with hungry expressions, broad smiles, and all echoing his refrain as they take the time to play with their food.
"But till that morning, there's a nothin' can harm you..
With daddy and mammy standin' by.."
