In the pine woods of East Texas, the cicadas come every thirteen years. They emerge from the ground where they have waited in the dark, and they climb the trees, and they split their skins, and they sing.Mark Branch is thirteen the first time he hears them. Thirteen when he meets Tim Foster, who becomes the closest thing to a brother he will ever have. Thirteen when Terry Sanders moves to Beulah with her dark hair and her quiet opinions about Hemingway and theology and the proper w...