“There’s still water out there, though, isn’t there?”

“Yep, there’s water, but it’s low. Lower than it’s ever been in anyone’s memory. And that could be bad. Bad for all of us.”

“Bad how?”

“Well, maybe things that always used to be underwater ain’t under no more.”

Where was this going?Was it going anywhere?

“Carl—”

He stared toward the Everglades. “The good thing bout your daddy’s and Miss Anya’s places here on the pond is you never have to look into someone else’s backyard…”

Jack glanced out at the endless expanse of grass. “Yeah. A panoramic view.”

“Pan-o-ramic?” Carl said carefully. “What’s that?”

Jack wondered how to explain it. He spread his arms. “It means wide angle…a wide view.”

“Pan-o-ramic…I like that.”

“Fine. The panoramic view is the good thing, but I’ve got a feeling you were about to tell me a down side.”

“I was. The bad part is…they’s real close to the Glades and the Glades ain’t happy these days. You might even say it’s kinda pissed. And if it is, we’d all better watch out.”

Jack stared across the mile or so of grass at the line of trees. He’d seen a bunch of weird things lately, but an angry swamp…?

You were right, Carl, he thought. I do think you’re loco.

2

Semelee stood on the lagoon bank with Luke and watched the small dredgin barge suck wet sand out of the sinkhole and deposit it into one of the even smaller, flat-bottomed boats it had towed along behind it. Excess water ran out the gunwales and into the lagoon. The clan had moved the houseboats aside to give the barge access to the hole.

“I still can’t believe you done this, Semelee,” Luke said. “You of all people.”

Semelee had been surprised herself. She didn’t like outsiders gettin anywheres near the clan’s lagoon, and especially near the sinkhole, but these folks had offered too much money to turn down.

“You been sayin that for two weeks now, Luke. Every time the barge shows up you say the same thing. And every time I give you the same answer: We can use the money. People’re pretty tight with their spare change these days, in case you ain’t noticed.”

“Oh, I noticed, all right. Probably cause they ain’t got all that much to spare. But I still don’t like it, specially this time of year.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll be outta here before the lights come. The deal I made with them was they had to finish up their business before this weekend. The lights’ll start comin Friday night. Told them Friday was a stone-solid deadline. Didn’t care how much they offered me, by sundown on Friday, they’re gone.”

“Still don’t like it. This is our home. This is where we was born.”

“I know, Luke,” she said, rubbing his back and feeling the sharp tips of the fins through the cloth. “But just think. The top of the sinkhole is above water for the first time anyone remembers. Maybe for the first time ever. When the lights come this time, they won’t have to shine through the water. They’ll shine straight out into the night. That’s never happened before, at least not in anyone’s memory.”

“I ain’t so crazy about that neither.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “My daddy said them lights made us the way we is, twisted us up, just like it’s twisted the trees and the fish and the bugs around here. And that’s from when they was just shining up through the water. What happens this year when there ain’t no water?”

Semelee felt a thrill at the prospect. “That’s what I want to see.”

The lights had been comin twice a year—at the spring and fall equinoxes—for as long as anyone could remember. Her momma had told her they’d kept that schedule every year since she’d been born, andher momma had told her the same thing.

But Semelee’s momma’d said that years back the lights started gettin stronger and brighter. And it wasn’t long after that, maybe a few years, that the people livin around the lagoon started noticin changes in the plants and the fish and things around the sinkhole. It started with the frogs missin legs or growin extra ones. Then the fish started lookin weird and the plants started gettin twisted up.

All that was bad enough, but when the lagooners’ kids started bein born dead or strange lookin, the lagooners moved out. Not as a group to the same place, but piecemeal like, in all different directions. Some stayed as close as Homestead, some as far as Louisiana and Texas. After they moved away, they stopped havin strange kids and they was happy about that.

But the strange kids they already had wasn’t happy. Not one bit. Not because they was all mistreated by people as they was growin up—Semelee hadn’t been alone in that—but because when they all finally growed up they felt like somethin was missin in their lives.

One by one they all—all the misshapen ones—found their way back here to the lagoon and learned that this was where the itch stopped, this was where they felt whole, where they belonged. This was home.

And home was where your family lived. They came to call themselves a clan, and all decided to stay here on the lagoon.

Yet even with this big family-type gang around her, Semelee still felt a yearning emptiness within. She wanted more,needed more.

“Why do they hafta takeour sand? There’s plenty of sand around. Why they want ours?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Semelee said.

“Who is they, anyway?”

“Blagden and Sons. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know the name, but that’s all it is: a name. Whoare they? Where do they come from?”

“Don’t know, Luke, but their money’s good. Cash up front. That’s bout as good as it gets.”

“Do they know about the lights?”

“That one I can answer: Yeah, they know about the lights.”

Some guy named William somethin from this company called Blagden and Sons come around in a canoe a few weeks ago askin if anyone’d been seein funny lights about this time of the year. The clan folk he talked to sent him to Semelee since she was sorta the leader round here. Not that she’d ever looked to be the leader, but it seemed whenever somethin needed decidin, she wound up the one who did it.

Semelee played it cagey with this William fellow until she was pretty sure he wasn’t no tour-guide type or scientist or anything like that, and wouldn’t be bringing boatloads of strangers or teams of pointy heads to peek or poke at the clan and the sinkhole. Nope, all William wanted was to haul off the dirt and sand from around where they’d seen the lights.

When Semelee had told him they’d been comin up through this sinkhole that used to be underwater but was now gettin dry, he got all excited and wanted to know where it was. Semelee pretended she wasn’t gonna tell him, and held off even when he offered money. So he offered more money and more money until Semelee had to say yes. Maybe she could’ve held out for even more, but there weren’t no sense in gettin all greedy about it.

When she’d took him to the sinkhole she thought he was gonna pee his pants. He danced around it, callin it a senn-oaty or somethin like that. When she asked him what he was talkin about he spelled it for her: C-E-N-O-T-E. Told her it was a Mex word and you said it like coyote. Semelee liked sinkhole better.

The dredgin was all hush-hush, of course. The clan wasn’t upposed to be livin here on the lagoon, this bein a National Park and all, and Blagden and Sons wasn’t upposed to be takin the sand.

“Matter off act,” she told Luke, “I’m pretty sure they want the sandbecause of the lights.”

“That’s kinda scary, dontcha think? Them lights ain’t natural. They changed us and everythin around them. Probably even changed the sand in that hole.”

“Probably did.”

Luke looked uneasy. “What on earth could they want it for? I mean, what’re they gonna do with it?”

“Can’t rightly say, Luke. And I don’t rightly care. That ain’t our worry. What I do know is that our little sinkhole is gonna be a lot deeper without all that sand. And that just may mean that the lights’ll be brighter than ever. When the time comes maybe someone can even look down into that hole and see where they’re comin from.”