How We Became Wicked

by Alexander Yates

  Natalie didn’t turn around.

  “Give me a hand, will you?” He was beginning to get desperate. “I need the wrench to fix the light. I need to fix the light so that people in Goldsport will see us. I need the people in Goldsport to see us so that they can come to the island. So that they can let me out of this lighthouse. So that I can set you and your mother on fire.”

  The poor old nut had no clue whatsoever that this wasn’t a persuasive argument. It was one of the many perplexing symptoms of the wickedness—an inability to imagine, even at the most basic level, what another person might be thinking or feeling. A total collapse of empathy—which is itself an act of imagination. Her grandfather kept talking, explaining just how important it was that he be allowed to do these horrible things. But Natalie simply closed her ears to it. She returned to the bunkhouse, deposited her lobsters into a big tub filled with seawater, climbed the loft stairs to her bedroom, and put her head under a pillow. She tried to sleep.

  For a long time, she couldn’t.

  CHAPTER 9

  Lights in the Dark

  SOMETIMES NATALIE THOUGHT THAT KEEPING her grandfather locked up inside of the lighthouse was the cruelest thing they could have done to him.

  The tower wasn’t a horrible place to live. In fact, as prisons go, Natalie guessed that it was a pretty good one. The rooms inside were furnished, and they were warm. The thick walls offered protection from the harsh climate of Puffin Island. On clear days her grandpa could even go out onto the gallery and take in the fresh air. But still, there was something about it that always seemed wrong to her. She felt as though they’d done more than simply lock her grandfather up inside the lighthouse. They’d also imprisoned him within his own disease—locked him tight inside the wicked person he’d become.

  Natalie knew that this was an ugly thought, but it still occurred to her from time to time. It wasn’t as though they had any real alternatives. If they let the old man live with them in the bunkhouse, they might as well just count the hours until someone got stabbed. If they dragged him off to the mainland, he probably wouldn’t make it six months before starving or freezing to death. Even if her grandpa did survive, with time he might find his way to Goldsport. That was the town he’d been raving about—an old fishing village that sat just opposite them on the mainland. According to Natalie’s mother, none but the wicked lived there.

  They didn’t know how many there were, but it had to be at least fifty. Possibly much more than that. At dusk they could often see lights twinkling. If they paddled close, they could just make out human figures wandering this way and that through the strange glass tunnels. Even from a distance, it was obvious that the wicked men and women of Goldsport were living together in complete harmony.

  This was the cruel irony of the disease. The wicked would attack literally anyone—from a sleeping baby, to an armed soldier, to even a mildly convincing scarecrow—except for another wicked person. It had something to do with the virus in their brains, some mechanism that kept it from feeding upon itself. Natalie had even read some old reports about people voluntarily exposing themselves as a way to stay safe. This was in the early days before the vex, back when the epidemic looked more like a war. Back then whole families were known to walk out into the woods together and let the singers infect them. At least that way, the thinking was, they’d still be together. Wicked husbands and wives. Wicked mothers and daughters. Arm in arm, laughing together, forever safe from fear and from one another. Just like the people in that odd glass village.

  That was why they could never allow Natalie’s grandfather to go to Goldsport. If he ever made it there, it would be only a matter of time before he led a smiling mob right back to Puffin Island.

  And what about the other option—the unspoken one?

  What about simply putting the old man out of his misery?

  Natalie wasn’t proud that this thought had occurred to her, but it had. Obviously it was out of the question. Besides, it didn’t even seem like her grandfather was miserable. Actually, he enjoyed almost everything about his life.

  At least that made one of them.

  • • •

  These familiar thoughts kept Natalie up for hours. Then, just as she’d finally begun to drift into sleep, a blinding flash of light filled up the bunkhouse, followed by a long howl of delight.

  Somehow, her grandfather had turned the lighthouse on.

  “Here I am!” he called into the night. “It’s me!”

  Natalie stayed in bed for a minute, hoping that the lamp would sputter out by itself. Light flooded and drained.

  “I’m so happy,” her grandfather screamed. “Oh my gosh, I’m so happy!”

  Natalie forced herself out of bed and down the loft steps. Her mother was already awake, standing before the big window that overlooked the bay. She was bracing her weight on the broad stone sill, one hand placed under her bulging stomach. It seemed like every time Natalie looked at her mom these days, she was more pregnant than she’d been a minute before. Another pulse of light outlined her brilliantly.

  “Any activity in town?” Natalie asked.

  “A few lights.” Her mother sighed, repositioning her weight. “No movement in the harbor, though.”

  She turned from the window, and in the darkness of the bunkhouse Natalie could see her own purple eyes reflected back at her. Natalie’s mother had the vex, too. She might have been the oldest vexed person in the whole wide world. But then again, Natalie knew of only the two of them, so that wasn’t necessarily saying much.

  “Have a look,” she said, holding out the binoculars.

  Natalie took them and focused on the distant village. Goldsport looked like a heap of enormous glass bottles littered across the shore. Natalie could detect a few points of light—windows, probably. Though at this distance, there was no telling if anyone was looking out of them.

  “I’ll go outside and check for boats,” Natalie said, stepping into her unlaced boots, which stood beside the front door. This was a part of their routine. Whenever there was a disturbance, they had to check to see if anybody had noticed, both in town and in the wide ocean beyond.

  “Take a jacket,” her mother said.

  Still bleary, Natalie grabbed a coat off the peg and stepped out into the black morning. It was only after the wet, salted wind hit her in the face that she realized she’d mistakenly taken her father’s coat. He’d forgotten it here when he’d up and left some two months ago. It still smelled like his sweat. Natalie had to fight the urge to take the thing off and fling it down upon the rocks.

  “I know you’re down there!” her grandfather called from his tower. “I know exactly where you are, sweetheart!”

  Natalie trudged around to the far end of the bunkhouse. The bay yawned to her left, digging darkly into old Canada. To her right the black water opened out into the Gulf of Maine, and beyond that the Atlantic Ocean. Natalie brought the binoculars back up to her face and scanned the horizon.

  No lights. No boats.

  She went back inside and saw that her mother had slipped some driftwood into the stove and put the kettle on. Her mom was usually strict about supplies, but she’d been relaxing her grip a little in recent weeks. Natalie had no problem with this—her mother deserved a hot drink whenever the damn hell she wanted one. Natalie watched her lower herself onto one of the solid wooden chairs at the dining table. It seemed a delicate operation, as though her mother’s body were a great ship and she, the pilot.

  Natalie took over the job of making tea. “Nothing in the bay,” she said.

  “Good,” her mother said. She began working her knuckles into the small of her back, her expression at once pained and satisfied. “So,” she said, “I see that you had some good luck last night.”

  “What?” Natalie glanced back at her.

  “With the traps.” Her mom nodded at the tub, where the lobsters were trying in vain to climb up the slick porcelain rims. The tiny commotion produced a faint, unsettling clicking. “That
’s awe-some,” Natalie’s mom said, actually singsonging the word. God—only her mother would be able to focus on those lobsters at a time like this. The lighthouse was blazing, her husband had run off, her own father wanted them all dead, and in another week or so she’d be having a baby on a barren rock in the ocean. And somehow, despite all this, she could still see the glass as half full. Who was Natalie kidding? It was, like, 5 or 10 percent full, at the most.

  Natalie busied herself with the tea, steeping some loose peppermint leaves in the still-bubbling water. Outside, they could hear her grandfather coughing. Or maybe laughing? It was hard to tell.

  “Thanks,” her mother said, accepting the offered mug of steaming tea. Natalie sat across from her. In the darkness, the purple light from their two pairs of eyes was almost enough to illuminate the table.

  “Oh, it’s good!” her mother said, sipping from the mug.

  Natalie shrugged. “It’s totally normal tea.”

  “Well . . .” Her mother closed her eyes, savoring. “Normal tea is good.”

  The conversation that they weren’t having loomed over them like smoke in the rafters. How were they going to get the light turned off? Natalie’s grandfather had pulled this stunt a few times before, and over the years her parents had developed a pretty solid routine to deal with it. The problem was that the routine had two parts, and her father’s was central. Now he was gone.

  “Can’t we just shoot the lens out?” Natalie asked.

  “The windows up top are reinforced,” her mother said. “We’d only waste bullets.”

  “Then maybe . . .” Natalie paused, trying to gauge her approach. “Maybe I should be the one to lead Grandpa outside?”

  “Honey,” her mother said, glancing at her through the steam rising off her tea. “That is a terrible idea.”

  “Okay.” Natalie looked at her for a moment. “Do we have any better ones?”

  Her mother made no answer to this.

  “Could we just . . . ?” Natalie paused. “I mean, what if we just left it on? The wicked people in Goldsport might ignore it. They’ve never bothered us before.”

  At the mention of the word—Goldsport—Natalie’s mother shuddered.

  “You mean they’ve never bothered you before,” she said. “No. One way or another, that light has to go off.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The Iron Door

  NATALIE WAS PRETTY SURE THAT she could pinpoint the exact moment her father had decided to abandon them. It had happened six months ago, right at the crest of winter. The family was gathered in the common room of the bunkhouse, listening to an old episode of The First Voice on their shortwave receiver. It was one of the last in the series, featuring a dramatic reading from The Tempest, an incomprehensible debate about the best actor to ever play Batman, and a rapid-fire series of obsolete news bulletins. The voices on the radio talked about how the singers had been pushed back to the far rim of the Rocky Mountains. They gave an update on efforts to reestablish contact with Beijing and Paris and spoke about promising early test results for the vex. The lady announcer was simply overjoyed as she shared the news. It had come to nothing, of course. The woman had no doubt died before Natalie was even born. But there was her voice, crackling out of the radio, her hope preserved like an extinct bug in amber.

  As the show ended, Natalie had gotten up to deliver breakfast to her grandpa—dried mackerel and some of the peas they’d canned the previous autumn. He had snatched the meal off of his windowsill, talking while he ate.

  “Sometimes I like to pretend that I have bread,” her grandfather said, sounding wistful.

  “I hear you,” Natalie said. She’d had bread before—bread was a hell of a thing.

  “I bet we could make some,” her grandpa said, his mouth full of mackerel, words jellied by the fatty skin and softened bones. “I remember that they have flour in Goldsport. I remember that they have it treated and packed in special vacuumed bags and stacked in stacks in an underground room. They have enough to feed me, and you, and everybody we know, for as long as we know them. I think we should go there and take the flour and make bread. I think we should make waffles, and French toast, and beer batter, and blintzes.”

  The old man had gotten well into the realm of things that Natalie had never heard of. What on earth were blintzes? But whatever—if they were made of flour, then they were probably delicious.

  “And if anybody over there tries to stop me,” her grandfather continued, “I will strangle them and I will roast them, and I will eat them on the bread.”

  “That sounds great, Grandpa,” Natalie said, ignoring the business about the strangling. “But you know we can’t go to Goldsport.”

  “I can go to Goldsport!” he snarled, his teeth threaded with silvery strips of mackerel. “I can go wherever I want, whenever I want!” This was demonstrably false, but saying the words at least seemed to calm him down. He fell back to chewing, once again happy as a clam, his sudden craving for bread forgotten. “I love breakfast,” he said. “I love eating in the morning. I could eat breakfast every morning.”

  “You do eat breakfast every morning,” Natalie said, smiling slightly.

  At this her grandfather stopped chewing. “Lucky me,” he said. He sounded really, just profoundly delighted by this.

  Not at all a bad interaction with the old man, as far as those went. Natalie had returned to the bunkhouse feeling cheerful. But the moment she stepped into the common room she realized that in the few short minutes she’d been gone something had transpired between her parents. The First Voice was over, but neither of her parents had switched the shortwave off. It sat between them on the broad dining table, crackling with empty static. Natalie’s father’s eyes were closed. His arms were at his sides and his hands gripped the wooden bench so hard that they looked drained of blood to the wrists. Natalie’s mother held her husband in her gaze, scrutinizing him in that way that Natalie knew he hated.

  “It never works,” Natalie’s father said, pitching the words down at the tabletop. For a moment Natalie thought he could be talking about the shortwave—but no, that wasn’t right.

  “It has worked,” her mother said. “At least twice. You’ve got two examples standing right in front of you.”

  “Okay.” Her father’s eyes were still closed. Natalie could tell that he was trying, very hard, not to have a tantrum. Her father’s screaming fits did not occur frequently, but when they did, they were embarrassing for everybody. He took a breath, swallowing it down like a gulp of water. “Yes. The vex has worked. Shall we count the times when it didn’t? Do you even remember their names?”

  “I know you’re angry, but that’s beneath you,” Natalie’s mother said. “Of course I remember. But it worked with Natalie. And it’ll work with the next one.” Then she glanced at her daughter, frozen in the frame of the bunkhouse door. “You can come in, honey,” she said. “We aren’t keeping any secrets.”

  Natalie stayed where she was. It wasn’t unusual to find her parents arguing about the vex—it was the oldest, most ragged wound between them. There were no singers on the island, and so a few days after Natalie was born her mother had stolen her away in the middle of the night, sailing them to the mainland. There she’d sat with Natalie in the woods and waited until the singers descended, perching one by one atop her bare skin and drinking their fill. Natalie’s dad had been dead set against this, and he’d never forgiven her for doing it in secret. He wasn’t interested in the fact that the vex had worked—that it had made Natalie immune, just like her mom. He stayed fixated on what could have happened. What should have happened, given the odds.

  But why were they talking about it now? And what the hell did her mother mean when she said the next one?

  On some level Natalie knew before she knew.

  “How can you possibly think this is a good idea?” Tears began to collect in her father’s pinched eyes. Whether they were tears of rage, sadness, or self-pity, Natalie couldn’t tell. “I don’t know how you co
uld have let this happen.”

  “As I recall, you had something to do with it,” her mother said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” her father said.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You’re pregnant,” Natalie said. She immediately regretted how horrified she’d looked when the words came out of her mouth. Her father seized on it like a fish on a lure.

  “You see?” he snapped, jabbing a finger in the direction of his daughter. He gave a barking, jagged, desperate laugh. “Even the kid knows it’s a shitty idea.”

  “Well,” her mother said with a sigh. “It’s a lot more than an idea right now.”

  • • •

  There could be no doubt that was the reason. That was what caused her father to disappear. By the end of the spring thaw, he was gone.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d departed Puffin Island in a huff, after some blowout fight with Natalie’s mom. But the longest he’d ever stayed away before that was a full night. It had been two months now, and he hadn’t come back. Honestly, Natalie was still working out how she felt about it. Often it seemed as though she was able to put her dad’s disappearance out of mind entirely. Whatever feelings she had about it were still there, she guessed. They were probably just working themselves out under the surface without her being completely conscious of it. Like a pot left to simmer out of watch. Or maybe more accurately like a stick of dynamite—who could say how long the fuse was? Once or twice, when Natalie was alone in the loft, she’d uttered the words “I fucking hate you” aloud. They escaped her unbidden, like a hiccup. And then, just as quickly, even as she was feeling embarrassed about talking to herself, she would mutter, “I’m sorry.”

  So, yes, it was fair to say that Natalie was not dealing super well. But at least this business with the lighthouse had given her something tangible to feel. It allowed Natalie to miss her dad for really solid, practical reasons. It allowed her to wish that her dad were still on Puffin Island to help them turn the lighthouse off. It would have been so much easier with him there.