“Ask her the question,” Astrid whispered.
Hank did nothing. She could hear the fabric of his bee suit crumple as his body sank into the metal of the tank.
“Ask her the question,” Astrid whispered again.
She was speaking to herself as much as she was speaking to Hank. They had the question memorized. They had practiced the question countless times. And now, somehow, neither Astrid nor Hank could call it forth.
“What do you . . . ?” Hank tried.
“What do you want?” Astrid said.
The woman on the other side of the gate blinked at them, but she made no answer. Like Astrid and Hank, she seemed to be taking a moment to decide whether or not they were real. So Astrid tried again, yelling the question this time.
“What do you want?”
Her voice boomed out across the hills and echoed back against the rim of the valley beyond. The strange woman seemed to jump at the sound of it. But she didn’t run away. Instead, she looked Astrid right in the face and smiled.
• • •
The question. It had been drilled into Astrid and Hank since they could speak, all but tattooed onto their brains. The question was the first thing they were supposed to say on the slim chance that they should ever encounter a stranger. The only thing they were supposed to say. If their parents were to be believed, the question might as well have been a magic spell.
It sorted the wicked from the true.
A long time ago, back before the wickedness flooded the world, there were better methods. If you suspected somebody of being wicked, you could bring them to any hospital or clinic in the country and be absolutely sure. Doctors would take samples and run them through spinning machines to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt whether or not a patient had been infected. But now there was only the question. Anybody who saw a stranger was supposed to ask them what they wanted. If the stranger was true, they’d give you a normal answer. Like “a sandwich.” Or “Who the hell are you? Can you put down that gun?” But if they were wicked, their answer would be straightforward, sincere, and totally terrifying. Like “I want to hold one of your eyes in each of my hands to see which one is heavier.” Or “I want to smell you in the brain.”
At least that was how it was supposed to go. Neither Astrid nor Hank had ever had to ask the question before.
Again Astrid hollered, “What do you want?”
“I want that rabbit,” the woman said. She emerged fully from the woods and stepped up onto the crumbling road. Her movement seemed to loosen something in Hank. He suddenly scrambled, grabbing Astrid by the wrist and pulling them both down off of the tank. Together they took cover on the far side of Mother, peeking out at the woman from behind the tank’s massive steel treads.
“You keep away from our gate,” Hank yelled. He sounded half choked, like he was having an allergic reaction to his own fear. But Astrid was feeling something very different. They’d asked the question. The woman had answered, and answered right.
She wasn’t wicked. And she wasn’t wearing a bee suit.
Could this really be happening?
“Don’t you try and take my rabbit,” the woman said.
Hank started pawing at his bee suit, trying to open the clasp on one of his pockets. But the panic made him all thumbs, his gloved fingers useless.
“Nobody wants to take your rabbit,” Astrid called from behind the tank. “And nobody is going to hurt you, either.” Hank was still fidgeting beside her, so frantic that you would have thought his bee suit had filled up with singers. Astrid placed a hand on his shoulder to try to calm him down.
“Please don’t run away,” she called.
“I’m not going to run away,” the woman answered. Her voice was hesitant and brittle. Astrid guessed that the woman hadn’t said anything aloud in a long, long time.
“That’s good,” Astrid said. Very slowly she let go of Hank’s shoulder and took a single step out from behind Mother. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“God, don’t be stupid!” Hank hissed.
Just then Astrid heard the snap of a fastener opening and glanced back to see that Hank had unsealed one of the outer compartments of his bee suit. He shoved his hand inside and pulled out a small revolver. This shouldn’t have been surprising—carrying a gun whenever you went beyond the greenway was in the Goldsport community handbook. Hank had been doing it, at his father’s insistence, for years now. But the gun basically just lived in that pocket, like a kind of good luck charm. Astrid couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen it. She wasn’t even used to thinking of it as a thing you could hold like that, a thing you could aim. But that’s exactly what Hank did. His greeting to the first stranger either of them had ever met was to point the revolver at her.
“Hank,” Astrid said. “Stop it.”
She would have snatched the revolver from his hand if she weren’t so afraid that it would accidentally go off. The little pistol shook in the air.
“Put it down,” she whispered.
“She could still be wicked,” Hank said. Then he returned his gaze to the woman beyond the gate and asked her the question again, barking each word.
“What. Do. You. Want?”
The woman glanced at the rabbit, lying dead and bloody at the base of the gate. Then she turned to face Hank, looking right into the little mouth of his wavering pistol. She didn’t seem particularly stressed by this turn of events. Maybe the woman didn’t think Hank was serious. Or maybe she’d simply seen enough of the world that it took more than a teenager with a six-shooter to rile her up.
“I want something to eat,” she said. “I’m very hungry.”
“Are you wicked?” Astrid tried, keeping her gaze nice and steady.
The woman cocked her head. It seemed like she was giving the question serious consideration.
“I don’t think I am,” the woman said.
“Then why aren’t you wearing a bee suit?” Hank said, the outstretched gun dipping in his grip.
“Why would I wear a bee suit?” she asked.
“To protect you from the singers,” Hank said. “To keep from catching it.”
“They don’t bother me,” the woman said. “I don’t think I taste good to them.”
Sure enough, the singers were still acting as though she weren’t there. Some had gathered above the body of the dead rabbit, and still more had established a dizzy orbit around Hank’s head. They tasted the warmth of his breath, gathering around his face expectantly. But for all the humming insects were concerned, neither Astrid nor the woman even existed.
“You see, Hank? She’s got to be . . .” Astrid trailed off. She tried to contain herself, but this was fucking huge. More than just another person in the world, this might be another person like Astrid. When she spoke again, it was directly to the strange woman.
“You’re vexed, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what that means,” the woman said. Again her eyes drifted to the body of the dead rabbit. Suddenly she turned, striding the rest of the way across the road to the base of the gate.
“I said don’t move!” Hank shrieked.
“Hank. You didn’t actually say that.” Astrid put her hand on his wrist and gently pressed down so that the revolver was aimed more-or-less safely at the asphalt. His attention broke, and Astrid cupped the butt end of the gun and pushed it out of his grip. “Get ahold of yourself,” she said.
Meanwhile, the woman plucked the rabbit up by one of its hind legs, causing the head to dangle. It seemed stitched to the ground by a thin, unbroken thread of dribbling blood. She must have hit the rabbit square in the skull—no easy feat with a slingshot, no matter how experienced you are. She dropped the limp, puffy thing into her sack.
“I killed that rabbit,” she said.
She might not have been wicked, but this woman sure was out of practice at conversation.
“Vexed means ‘immune,’ ” Astrid went on, checking the safety on Henry’s revolver before pocketing it. �
�I’m immune too. My name is Astrid.”
“My name is Eliza,” the woman said.
“I’m happy to meet you, Eliza,” Astrid said. As calm as Eliza seemed to be, Astrid still spoke slowly for fear that she might say or do something to scare her off. “I’m really glad you—”
“She’s too old,” Hank cut her off. “How can she be vexed if she’s that old?”
“Please, Hank,” Astrid said. “Please shut up.”
“I’m—wait.” Eliza held a hand up in the air, as though to shush them both. “You think I’m old?” She sounded genuinely surprised. Astrid found this kind of touching, and sad. “My mom and dad are old,” Eliza went on, her wrinkles deepening as she squinted. “But not me. I’m not old.”
“Your mom and dad,” Astrid said, peering over the woman’s shoulder and down at the bog. She could see no trace of other people, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there, hiding behind the scrim of trees. “Are they still alive?” she asked. “Are they with you?”
Eliza shook her head, causing her sack to bob up and down in her grip. Some of the rabbit’s blood had begun to seep through the burlap. “I’m all alone,” she said. “I don’t know if my mom and dad are still alive. That’s why I came back. My family lives over there.” She reached a hand through the chain link and pointed down the road that led back into town.
For a long while neither Astrid nor Hank could conjure up any response to this. They looked at each other and then back at the strange woman.
“You . . . You mean your family lives in Goldsport?” Hank said.
Eliza screwed up her face, looking annoyed for the first time. “I don’t know where that is,” she said. “That’s not what I said. My family lives out there.” She pointed again, and it was clear now that her finger was aimed not at their little glass sanctuary, but over it. She was pointing out into the bay. She was pointing at the lighthouse.
“My family lives on that island,” Eliza said, “on Puffin Island.”
CHAPTER 7
The Question
YEARS AGO, WHEN ASTRID AND Hank were little kids, they’d tried to run away together to Puffin Island. It had started out as a game. Astrid had said that they should take one of the lobster boats out. Just, you know, to check out the island for themselves. Hank had said that he knew where his father kept the boat keys. Astrid had suggested that they pack some supplies for the trip. And then, somehow before they knew it, they were actually doing these things. The two nine-year-olds found themselves on the dock in the middle of the afternoon, hoisting a crate of Mrs. Wrigley’s canned peaches into the back of one of the lobster boats. If Astrid’s father hadn’t caught them, they might really have gone through with it.
Amblin Gold was not pleased. Astrid remembered the sight of her father charging down the dock in his bee suit, looking short and enormous all at once. He jumped aboard the boat and threw everything they’d packed over the side and into the blue-black water. The kids scrambled out of the boat as he did this, sensing that a good bout of screaming was about to begin. But Astrid’s dad remained deadly silent. He went into the covered wheelhouse, pulled a hammer out of the toolbox, and just began smashing. The boat’s little windows blew out, and the instrument panel shattered to shards of rotten wood. That particular boat remained inoperable to this day. It was a side of her father Astrid had never seen before, or since.
It took a whole day for Amblin to calm down enough to try talking with her. When he finally did, he came up into Astrid’s room, sat on the corner of her bed, and stared at the floor as he spoke. “I know it’s difficult . . . it’s actually impossible for you to understand,” he said, “because you weren’t there when the world fell wicked. But, Astrid, whether you believe it or not, you’re probably the luckiest person on earth. You have a home and plenty to eat. You have walls, and you have medicine, and you have friends.”
“One friend,” Astrid said, not scared enough of her dad to keep her sass in check.
“If he’s a good friend, then one is all you need. In fact, one good friend is more than I’ve got.” Her father sighed. “But that’s not the point. The point is that your grandpa founded Goldsport so that we could all have this wonderful life, free of the wickedness. He built this place just for us, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about being hungry, or cold, or frightened ever again. And yes, sure, maybe it’s a little boring here. And I know you wish that there were more kids your age. But, Astrid honey, you can’t just take the good parts of Goldsport and leave behind the rest. Without the bad parts, there are no good parts.”
With this her father placed his hands atop his knees and pushed himself up into a standing position. He made to leave.
“Dad?” Astrid asked, stopping him on the threshold.
“Yes, honey?”
“Are you . . . ? Did you get so mad because we were going to take the boat out by ourselves? Or because we were going to Puffin Island?”
“I got angry because you were leaving,” her father said with a tired smile. “Puffin Island had nothing to do with it.”
Even at nine Astrid could tell that this was bullshit. Though, at the time, she’d probably used a different word for it in her head.
• • •
“Your family lives on Puffin Island?” Hank asked now. He seemed, at least for the moment, to have forgotten how afraid he was.
“I left a long time ago,” Eliza said. This didn’t really qualify as an answer, but the strange woman seemed to consider it sufficient. “I hope they’re still there,” she added, seeming to speak as much to herself as to either of them. “I’d like to see my family again. I really miss my family.”
“Do you mean . . . ?” Astrid trailed off. After years of questions, she finally had someone to ask them of. But where to start? “Do you know whether or not they’re still on Puffin Island?”
“I don’t,” Eliza said. “But I saw the lighthouse turn on a few days ago, and I thought that I should check. I remembered that there are boats in Port Emory. I thought I would take one of those boats and use it to go to the island.”
At this Hank gave Astrid a look.
“Port Emory?” Astrid asked. “Where’s that?”
Eliza gave no answer—she seemed not even to have heard the question. Instead, her eyes wandered. She examined the walls, the watchtower, and the tank. Finally, her gaze settled on Astrid’s bulging pocket.
“I saw you put the gun in there,” Eliza said. “I saw you.”
Almost reflexively, Astrid put her free hand over the pocket. “My friend only aimed it at you because he thought you might be wicked,” she said. “He didn’t want to hurt you.”
“He didn’t want to hurt me,” Eliza repeated, as though to reassure herself. Her attention lingered on the pocket for a moment before snapping over to Astrid’s other hand. “Tell me what that is.”
“Oh . . .” She’d almost forgotten. Somehow through all the panic and confusion, Astrid was still gripping the foil-wrapped treat in her left hand. She’d hardly eaten any of it. “It’s ice cream,” Astrid said.
With these words Eliza’s hazy, spacey expression seemed to sharpen. Her eyes brightened, and she grinned, exposing an incomplete set of weathered teeth. “I remember ice cream,” she said. “Can we make it so that it’s mine?”
“Oh—um . . .” Astrid knew neither what to make of this request, nor the strange way in which it was asked. There was something about the woman’s diction that she found unsettling. But then again, Eliza did live alone, out beyond the walls. Her oddness was perfectly understandable.
“Yeah. I guess . . . Of course you can.” She stepped up to the gate and pressed the packet through the chain link.
“Careful!” Hank said, but before he could do anything, Eliza dropped her slingshot and canvas sack and snatched the ice cream through the gate. Peeling the wrapper back, she shoved the entire remaining bar into her mouth, chewing with an expression that turned very quickly from delight to confusion. Meanwhile, the sack splayed o
pen at her feet, revealing not just the rabbit but also a string of red squirrels and a raven. The kills were fresh—they looked alive and floppy as dolls. The rabbit was still bleeding.
“I don’t think this is ice cream,” Eliza announced, her mouth full and chalky.
“It’s freeze-dried,” Hank said.
Eliza spat out a jagged glob of rapidly moistening strawberry and rubbed the remainder off her lips. “I’ve had ice cream,” she said. “I’ve had mint-chocolate-chip, and I’ve had chocolate-fudge-brownie. I think you must be confused about what ice cream is.”
“Sorry,” Astrid said.
“It keeps forever,” Hank said a little defensively.
“I’ve never heard of anything that keeps forever,” Eliza said. Then she picked up her slingshot and her sack of game. “I’d like to come inside now,” she said.
“Oh.” Astrid paused. Ever since Eliza had mentioned Puffin Island, Astrid had felt two or three steps behind in the conversation. But this seemed to be a natural next step, didn’t it? Now that they knew Eliza wasn’t wicked, the next thing to do was to tell somebody who could let her inside. Still, Astrid was hesitating.
Why was she hesitating?
“I mean—yeah,” she said. “You should probably come inside.”
“We don’t have the key,” Hank said.
“My father keeps it,” Astrid said. “He’s the chairman of the board.”
“I don’t know what chairman of the board means,” Eliza said.
How We Became Wicked Page 5