WHEN THE CICADAS SING

Calendula loved trees, which is why she came to Sandhurst as a stranger that spring. Unknown to her, strangers weren’t generally welcome in Sandhurst, except when the cicadas sang, but Calendula knew nothing of this.

Sandhurst was a small town where everyone knew everyone else and could trace their lineage through the living memories and stories of elders back and back. Mostly the townsfolk accepted each other’s foibles and quirks and existed peacefully together generation after generation. The town wasn’t known for much except its trees. The trees were grand and beautiful such as chestnuts, elms, maples, and oaks. These trees were in and around the town. They were tended as needed by everyone working together because the cicadas loved these trees, and the townsfolk loved the cicadas. They had created the Cicada Festival generations ago and it had become an essential tradition bonding the past, present, and future of the town every seventeen years since the spring of 1902, the year of the first cicada emergence in the town’s recorded history. The two ancient oaks in the town square were central to the first emergence, so the founders built the town square around them and those two oak trees lived still when Calendula came to Sandhurst.

Upon entering the town, Calendula walked the lovely tree lined streets, sat on the benches beneath the great oaks in the town square, and she sketched copiously in her journal. She would attend art school in the fall. This visit to Sandhurst was part of a family tradition of making a walk-about in one’s seventeenth year. The idea was to walk and explore a self-chosen area beyond the bounds of large cities to understand oneself in relation to a specific environment. Calendula had chosen Sandhurst because of a painting created by her mother depicting the grand oaks in the town square.

Resting under the oaks, she remembered seeing a collection of cabins near the entrance to Sandhurst with a vacancy sign, and so she decided to investigate that vacancy.

The proprietor welcomed her with a smile, saying she could certainly stay for a week. He told her the cicadas were due to emerge any day.

“Cicadas?” Calendula was surprised.

“Oh, yes,” the proprietor nodded, “and when the males start singing, that’s when the fun starts. May I see your ID please. You have to be seventeen or older to rent a cabin in Sandhurst.”

She handed him her ID. “Marvelous,” remarked the proprietor, “You are seventeen. Maybe I’ll see you when the cicadas sing. Here’s your key.”

She found her cabin clean and accommodating. She took out her phone intent on looking up cicadas, but had no internet service. That’s odd she thought. She decided to walk to one of the nearby cafes to see if she could get service there.

Calendula opened the door of the Happy Eats Café and was immediately struck by the delicious smells emanating from the kitchen and the happy feeling pervading the whole café---laughter, smiles, yummy sounds and smells. The walls were covered with murals of the Sandhurst trees. She sat in a small booth and perused the menu provided among an array of condiments. The waiter arrived, she gave her order, tried to no avail to get internet service on her phone, and finally just let her eyes absorb the beauty of the trees depicted in the murals. One of the trees reminded her of a painting of her mother’s.

“Welcome to Sandhurst,” a male voice interrupted her reverie with the trees. “Beautiful, aren’t they? May I join you?”

Before she could answer, a good looking young man with striking green eyes, clear caramel colored skin, and closely cropped textured dark hair slid into the booth across from her. He smiled and said, “I’m Tyler and I’m on the welcoming committee for the Cicada Festival.”

She smiled back and introduced herself saying in a rush, ‘I’m Calendula and I love trees. What is the Cicada Festival and why is there no internet service in this town anywhere?”

Tyler chuckled, “Glad to meet you, Calendula. You have arrived just before the Emergence and all internet service is blocked from now until after the Cicada Festival ends. We apologize for any inconvenience. Have you ordered?”

She nodded and said nothing.

Tyler continued, “The Cicada Festival is our way of honoring the life cycle of the cicadas as we are descendants of the 1902 Emergence, the first in our town’s recorded history. Are you staying at the Cabins? Oh,

there’s a landline pay phone in the office at the Cabins and outside the Post Office.”

She nodded.

“Good, great accommodations at the Cabins but they are only open at the time of the Emergence and in the Fall when the leaves are ablaze with color.” Tyler winked at her like he had told a joke, but the wink was somehow unsettling. And nothing he had said made her laugh.

Just then, her food arrived with coffee for them both.

Tyler spoke, “I already ate, but I will share a cup of coffee with you while you eat. I am here to answer your questions and make you feel welcome. What would you like to know?”

Calendula sipped her delicious coffee and considered, “Tell me about the cicadas, please.”

“The cicadas love our trees, and their life cycle is intimately connected to our trees. The adults emerge every seventeen years to mate and reproduce. During their life, they live underground among the roots of our trees. They tend the trees in different ways. If you visit our library on the next street, you can learn all you want to know about cicadas,” Tyler finished speaking and sipped his coffee.

“Is there information about the festival available at the library as well?” Calendula asked.

“Yes, the Cicada Bulletin is available. That will give you the basics. Enjoy your stay,” Tyler replied.

“Thank you.”

Tyler nodded, slid out of the booth, and left.

Calendula finished her meal, paid the bill, and walked back to her cabin under the light of a full moon rising. Later as the night deepened and the full moon pulsated white light energy, she dreamed the cicadas singing.

When she awoke, all she could hear was the music of the cicadas. She showered and dressed intending to go to the library. But, when she reached the town square, she saw a crowd of adults both young and old were gathered under the oak trees looking up into the branches. She joined the crowd and looked up. What she saw were thousands of very large, winged bugs, which she rightly assumed were cicadas, madly mating in their internal obedience to their life force. Their mating flowed and peaked, riding on the sustaining river of their song.

Calendula shifted her gaze to the people gathered near her. Their fingers were entwining in couplings here and there with increasing intensity in tune with the cicadas singing and mating. The couples were starting to undulate together in a slow dance without ever leaving their place under the trees.

Calendula felt fingers entwine with hers. She tilted her head and looked into Tyler’s handsome, smiling face. She felt her body fall into the undulating rhythm with him. She heard him whisper, “Join me while the cicadas sing.”

As if no other reply were possible, she whispered back, “I will.”

After a while, couples and singles began to meander away from the square. Tyler slipped his fingers from hers and drifted away, leaving her alone. She made her way back to her cabin and lay down trying to make sense of what she had witnessed and experienced under the oak trees. The only sense she could make was the strange, ravenous feeling of yearning for Tyler’s fingers and body connecting with hers. She fell into sleep and dreamed of his green eyes.

That night the cicadas began to sing their mating call song with the rising of the full moon. Calendula awakened as the song filled the air around her. She showered in a daze and slipped into a flowing flowered dress. She had just finished brushing her hair when the cicada song grew louder and more intense and she heard a knock on her door.

Unafraid, she opened the door and found herself falling into Tyler’s green eyes and then his arms. He swept her up and into the cabin where he set her down lightly while keeping her encircled in his arms.

“You are lovely, Calendula,” he murmured and hummed along with the cicadas’ song.

Later, she would swear it was as if the singing of the cicadas burned away all fear and inhibition leaving only the raw urge to mate. She and Tyler danced and swirled, rubbed and kissed, all their clothes dropped away and they delighted in each other’s bodies bringing each other to ecstasy over and over again, while resting lightly in each other’s arms between stretches of love’s ecstasy. Finally, bodies satiated and entwined, they fell deep asleep in the wide bed in the cabin.

When she awoke, Tyler was gone. She wasn’t sure if he had been there one night or more. The whole experience was honeyed and seemed real but strangely unbounded by time. There was no cicada song in the air.

Calendula showered, dressed in her walk-about clothes, and headed for the Happy Eats Café. When she entered, the café was filled with couples happily enjoying breakfast together. Some were looking at cell phones. She was about to call her mother when Tyler slipped up behind her and whispered in her ear, “Thank you for sharing the Cicada Festival with me.”

She turned smiling at him, “It was all real then?”

He nodded.

“I see cell service is back. Is the Festival over?”

He nodded and guided her to the booth where he had welcomed her.

“What next?” she asked after they placed their breakfast order.

“Did you notice all the dead cicadas lying about?”

She nodded.

“Their cycle has ended. The cicadas won’t emerge and sing for another seventeen years,” Tyler began.

“But, what does that have to do with us?” Calendula interrupted.

Tyler sighed. He knew the answer but paused unsure how this lovely girl would react. “I need to tell you more about Sandhurst, its people, and the cicadas, but not here. When we finish breakfast, we’ll sit under the shade of the oaks in the town square, and I’ll tell you a story.”

“Will that story answer my question?”

“I believe so,” answered Tyler.

“Then, I agree,” she answered.

After breakfast, they left the café holding hands and walked to the town square where they sat on a bench in the shade of the oaks. Tyler still held her hand as he began, “We here in Sandhurst connect with the cicadas when they emerge through attuning our life-force to theirs while they sing. Anyone who hears the song is part of that attunement, whether they are residents of Sandhurst or not.”

“So that’s why I was affected by the song?” Calendula questioned.

“Yes, he replied, “but there’s more to it. This attuning by strangers was studied and led to the Sandhurstians who experienced the first emergence to realize that female strangers could potentially add new DNA to the Sandhurst gene pool. This led to the birth of the Cicada Festival and why strangers, especially females, are welcome at the festival,” Tyler paused watching her as she processed this information. He continued before she could ask a question, “You, my lovely Calendula, are a returnee, and I also was conceived in the last emergence seventeen years ago. My mother chose to stay and raise me here. Your mother chose to leave.”

“I’m a returnee!” Calendula gasped.

He nodded.

She was stupefied by this revelation, and yet, it explained so much, such as her family sanctioned walk-about choice of Sandhurst, her love of trees, her mother’s painting, and their shared love of trees, not to mention her own comfort with being in Sandhurst.

“I have questions,” she stated.

He nodded.

“How long did the cicadas sing?”

“Five weeks and a couple days,” he replied.

“Then, our coupling wasn’t just one night?”

“No,” he replied and squeezed her hand.

“Were we together the whole time the cicadas sang?”

“Yes, and it was lovely,” he replied.

“This is a lot to process,” she stated.

He nodded and waited.

“OK, is there some test I can take today to see if I have conceived?” she asked, ever practical.

Tyler sighed with relief, “Yes, I can escort you to the medical clinic. The town will pay for everything including the bill at The Cabins.”

“I have to ask, did my mother know?”

“Yes, of course, she was tested and found out she had conceived, and then signed a contract with Sandhurst that she would help you return here in your seventeenth year,” Tyler explained.

“And if this test shows that I have conceived?” Calendula squeezed out the question.

“Then, you will have a life-choice to make. You can decide to stay here in Sandhurst, marry me, and we will be a family. Or, like your mother, you can decide to leave and live your life away from Sandhurst. Of course, you will have to sign a contract with the town just as your mother did. You will not be harmed. Basically, you will be promising that if your baby lives, then in the spring of its seventeenth year, you will see that your son or daughter returns to Sandhurst at the time of the next emergence bringing their DNA home to Sandhurst.”

Ever curious, Calendula asked, “Are there male returnees, as well?”

“Yes, and they become attuned and couple with a female Sandhurstian during the Cicada Festival. Male returnees also have to make the choice to stay or leave. We don’t have as many male returnees as females,” answered Tyler and paused. Then, in a gentle tone he asked, “Are you OK? You see, I was conceived at the last emergence just like you were. My mother chose to stay, not leave Sandhurst as was your mother’s choice. I wanted to be chosen as your mate when the cicadas sang, and I was. I will support whatever decision you make in the end,” Tyler’s voice trailed off.

“Thank you,” murmured Calendula. “I want to call my mother before we go to the clinic.”

“Of course,” he replied.

Calendula made the call. After exchanging hellos and other pleasantries, her mother surprised her by saying, “Dearest Calendula, I hope you are enjoying the beauty of Sandhurst. Did the cicadas sing?”

“Sing they did and the festival was amazing,” she answered.

“Yes, I remember it well. My darling, enjoy the trees. All choices are yours to make. I love you always.”

“Thank you, Mother, we’ll speak again soon. I love you too.”

Calendula ended the call. “I’m ready to go to the clinic now,” she declared.

The tests at the clinic showed that Calendula had indeed conceived. She waited a few more weeks in Sandhurst before making her final decision. She sketched and did water color studies of the trees and spent companionable time with Tyler. Their last trip to the clinic, they found out her baby was a girl. Tyler was kind and solicitous of her wellbeing. On their last day together, she told him that she wouldn’t be staying, and he escorted her to the City Council’s office where she signed the required contract. They said their good-byes sitting under the oak trees in the town square. They never saw one another again.

Calendula left with her backpack which contained her pencil sketches and watercolor studies of the Sandhurst trees, a sketch of Tyler, and her copy of the signed contract between herself and the town of Sandhurst, and sweet memories of when the cicadas sang. She never returned to Sandhurst.

Calendula made a life for herself as an artist. She never married, and loved her daughter deeply. She painted seventeen magnificent paintings of the Sandhurst trees, beginning and completing one each year of her daughter Annabella’s life. These paintings brought a modicum of commissions and regional fame. When her father died, her mother came to live with Calendula and Annabella.

Thus, it came to pass, that Annabella fell in love with the Sandhurst trees naturally and chose Sandhurst when it was time for her to experience the family walk-about of self-discovery in the spring of her seventeenth year. Calendula and her mother stood arm in arm smiling and silently blessing Annabella as they watched her leave on her walk-about into her future.