How We Became Wicked

by Alexander Yates

  Everyone in the crowd turned to face him, but Hank only shrank under their gaze. Still, he said nothing. What a . . . What an utter coward he was. And her father! He wasn’t saying a damn peep to defend himself. He just stood there staring daggers into Mr. Bushkirk. As though that meant anything to the traitorous old shit.

  “Hank!” Astrid hollered, so loud that the feedback stung her ears, the whole town flinching as her voice exploded against the dome above. “You know your dad is lying. Tell them the truth—”

  Just then her father leapt onto the stage and unplugged the PA, cutting her off. Astrid gawked at him, wild-eyed.

  “You’re not helping,” he whispered.

  “Listen . . . nobody has to take my word for it,” Mr. Bushkirk said, grinning victoriously. “Though I’d hope that after so many years of service, my word would be enough. By all means, do go and see for yourselves. The body is out by the western hatch, right where I shot her. Though if you haven’t had brunch yet, I’d skip it.”

  Even before he’d finished speaking, the investors rushed out of the plaza and down the glass shunt, toward the junction. They became nothing but a blur of color through the layers of glass. Soon only Mr. Bushkirk, Hank, Amblin, and Astrid remained in the plaza. There was no point in following—they knew what they’d find there. Astrid knew. Henry would have arranged everything just right to incriminate her father. There’d be a staged scene, with Eliza’s body twisted and bloody on the doorstep of the greenway. A horrifying sight, more convincing than anything Astrid could possibly say. Especially with Hank refusing to back her up. A new thought occurred to her just then. Mr. Bushkirk was a big man, but could he have dragged Eliza down from the wall that fast all by himself? Was it possible that Hank had actually helped him? He’d kept his eyes on his boots this whole time, unable to look Astrid in the face. But now that the plaza was empty, he finally found his voice.

  “Astrid, I’m—”

  “I never want to hear you say another word again.”

  “Ouch.” Mr. Bushkirk chuckled. “A little harsh, no?”

  “You shouldn’t have moved the body,” Amblin said.

  “Moved her?” He winked. The pig was having a grand old time. “Gosh, what an imagination you have!”

  “You know it isn’t sanitary,” Amblin went on. He sounded exhausted, like he’d already accepted defeat. “Especially with how she was bleeding.”

  And at this Mr. Bushkirk cracked a sly smile. He held his hands up in the air and wriggled his fingers. “That’s what gloves are for,” he said.

  “You’re an awful person,” Astrid said. She wasn’t on the attack anymore. As soon as the crowd found Eliza’s body, it would be over. Astrid realized that. But she couldn’t help saying this aloud for them all to hear.

  With the other investors out of earshot, Mr. Bushkirk didn’t mind being stood up to. He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “You have no idea how lucky you are, kid, to live in a world where this is your idea of awful.”

  Down the greenway, they began to hear more shouting. The panicked crowd had found Eliza’s body.

  “You’d better burn that bee suit, just to be safe,” Amblin said.

  “Agreed,” Mr. Bushkirk said. “But no biggie. Plenty more where this one came from. And speaking of that, you might want to put your own bee suit back on.” Again, he smiled. It didn’t even seem that mean anymore. “I’m sure everybody is going to feel a lot safer once you head on outside.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The North Shore

  THE BOARD OF INVESTORS CALLED an emergency vote on the spot. They immediately suspended Amblin Gold as chairman and sentenced him to a full ninety-day quarantine. After that time, if he remained true, he’d be allowed to return to the greenway. Then, by a unanimous show of hands, they elected in Henry Bushkirk as acting chairman. It all happened so quickly. Only minutes ago Amblin had called them all to the plaza to announce the news. And now he was bundled up into his bee suit, exiled from the town that his own father had built and had died defending.

  Astrid’s blood was boiling, but there was no use fighting anymore. One look at the faces of her terrified neighbors was enough to tell her that she was beat. They were too scared to listen—too scared to even think. What a nest of babbling cowards. Astrid couldn’t bear to be near them for even a second longer, so when her father left, she did too. Mr. Collins and Mr. Gregory came along as well, each struggling under the weight of plastic tanks of quiet strapped to their backs. They escorted Amblin away from the greenway as though he were some kind of prisoner.

  The quarantine house stood at the far end of the north shore—the portion of their sanctuary that had been destroyed by the wicked all those years ago. To get there they had to cross a desolate wasteland of fire-blackened homes, with giant shards of greenway glass strewn among the tide pools. Only Astrid’s recluse of a mother lived out here. Mr. Collins and Mr. Gregory glanced about nervously. You could tell they didn’t have a lot of practice being outside.

  “You were real stupid back there,” Amblin said, speaking low so that only Astrid could hear. She didn’t know what she expected her dad to say, but that wasn’t it.

  “What?”

  “Getting in Mr. Bushkirk’s face like you did. Insulting him in front of the investors. In front of Klara and Hank.”

  “He was lying, Dad.”

  “He was. And you said so. That’s not what I’m talking—”

  “Somebody had to say so,” Astrid snapped. “I can’t believe you just let him—”

  “Hey!” her father snapped right back at her, loud enough that Mr. Collins and Mr. Gregory jumped in their bee suits. “You want to keep having a tantrum, that’s fine. But I’m your father, and you do not yell at me. Understood?”

  Astrid could only nod.

  “I’m not talking about telling the truth. Which, by the way, I did. I’m talking about antagonizing him. I’m talking about you telling him he’s an awful person. Maybe I’m missing how that’s helpful.” He tilted his bonnet toward Astrid, letting her see just how furious he was. “Care to explain your strategy there?”

  “I didn’t do it to be helpful,” Astrid said, defiant. She’d just stuck up for her dad in front of the whole town, and now she had to defend herself to him? “I did it because Mr. Bushkirk is an asshole.”

  Her dad breathed through his teeth. She’d never seen him like this. “Astrid. I’ve been neighbors with the man for most of my life. I’ve been running this town, with him in it, for all of yours. You really think I don’t know what kind of person he is? No. You need a better reason than that.”

  “I was angry.”

  “And I wasn’t? Wrong. Try again.”

  “But . . . if you were angry, then why didn’t you say anything?” she asked, careful not to yell this time. “I mean, you just folded over. You didn’t even try.”

  Her father quickened his pace. He splashed through a tide pool, getting the legs of his bee suit all wet.

  “Try to what?” he asked.

  “Try to stop him.”

  “Astrid.” Her dad took a long breath. “I know you’ve got a good brain in there, and I’d like you to start using it, please. How do you think it would have gone if I’d called Henry a liar? How do you think it would have gone if it were his word against mine? And meanwhile, just outside, you’ve got the wicked woman’s body bleeding all over the place. Would every single person have believed me? Would every single person have been rational? You saw for yourself how frightened they were. Take it from me. A big group of frightened people can get real stupid, real quick. No, there are things you stop, and things you get out of the way of. This was the latter.”

  Together they crested a dune, and laid out before them was the great ruin of the north shore. The old firehouse, reduced to nothing but a single crumbling brick wall. The swimming pool, now a muck-filled home for crabs.

  “You also need to consider how much trouble Henry went to,” Amblin said. Now that he’d slipped into a lectur
e on leadership, he seemed to calm down a little. “It couldn’t have been easy to drag her body all the way down the road. You have to ask yourself, in a situation like that: If he’s willing to go that far, then how much farther might he go? Sometimes you just have to let him have it.”

  Let him have it?

  Astrid didn’t want to fight anymore, but she couldn’t help herself. “He tried hard? That’s why you let him get away with it? That’s why you let him win?”

  “It isn’t about winning or losing,” her father said. “This is about what’s best for Goldsport. Henry has wanted to be chairman for a long, long time. If this is the only way he can make that happen, then why not just let him get it out of his system? Besides . . . it’s not like there’s all that much to the job. And he’ll have good, smart people around him—the board and the other investors. So let him hold the little wooden hammer at the meetings. Let him sit at the head of the table. Let him be stuck organizing the commemoration. Believe me, Astrid, he could do a whole lot more damage trying to get the job than he can actually do in the job. This one just wasn’t worth the fight.”

  “It would have been to me,” Astrid said. “You’re going to be stuck out here, by yourself, for three months.”

  “I’m not saying I’m happy about it. But for someone who’s never seen a real fight, you’re awfully eager to have one.”

  Astrid didn’t know how to respond. She was shocked. Who was this person walking beside her? She was used to her father’s cheerful, constant-optimist routine. The man who was the smiling beacon of Goldsport. Like the lighthouse out on Puffin Island, he shined every way he looked. But maybe deep inside there had always been a harder version of her dad. An Amblin in the dark, working the buttons and levers. Keeping the lights on and the lamp spinning.

  “I’m not looking for a fight,” she said. “I mean, at least . . . I’m not looking to start one.”

  This must have been the answer her dad was waiting for. He nodded at her through the mesh veil. “Good.”

  By that point they’d begun to approach Ria’s big beach house—the only truly livable structure left on the north shore. It was a beautiful property, skirted with verandas and topped with a turret that overlooked the bay. If not for the fact that it was in this wasteland, unconnected to the greenway, it would have been one of the most sought-after homes in Goldsport. Astrid scanned the windows and saw a shape behind the heavy mosquito screen. Ria must have noticed them crossing the shore.

  “You’re going to have to explain to your mother what happened,” Amblin said. “In fact, you might want to stay with her for a few days.”

  “Of course.” Astrid had already decided as much for herself—she had no intention of returning to the greenway.

  “It’ll give Henry a chance to cool off,” he said. “I don’t think you know how mad you made him back there.”

  Only minutes ago Astrid would have had a smart-ass response to this, but who knew? Maybe her dad was right. She glanced behind them and saw a thin, tar-black tendril of smoke curling up into the sky from the far side of the sanctuary. Eliza’s body burning. Meanwhile, up ahead, the quarantine house emerged from the scattered ruins. It looked like a tiny fortress, with windows boarded up and a halo of concertina wire ringing the roof. The door was barred with a solid crossbeam and locked from the outside. The foundation sat half buried in the sand.

  Quarantine was a rare event, but the rules were always strictly enforced. Guards in bee suits would be posted on rotation, twenty-four hours a day. They would bring Amblin his meals, take his temperature three times a day, and keep a logbook of any symptoms. Visitors, even immune ones like Astrid, would be allowed to come no closer than twenty feet. Which meant that once her dad was locked up in there, they probably wouldn’t have a chance for even a semi-private conversation for three whole months.

  “Dad . . .” Astrid didn’t know how to bring it up, but they were running out of time. “Mr. Bushkirk told everybody that Eliza . . . that the wicked woman was from someplace called Port Emory.”

  “Well, he probably just meant—” Her father caught himself and took a breath. Maybe he realized that there was no point pretending anymore. “Yes. He did say that.”

  “Eliza also mentioned a place called Port Emory.”

  “Did she?” Amblin seemed genuinely surprised.

  “Yes. When I was up there alone, talking to her. She said that she was on her way to Port Emory to get a boat. How did Mr. Bushkirk know?”

  Her dad didn’t answer for a long while. The quarantine house drew nearer.

  “Because Henry recognized her,” he finally said.

  “You did too,” Astrid said. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  They both let the admission just sit there for a moment.

  “I’m sorry I lied about it,” he said.

  Astrid dismissed this with a shrug. On the scale of lies told just this morning, that one was puny. “Where did you know her from?”

  “From the world before,” her father said. “But not very well. We were kids. I used to see her in the summers. Some summers. Sometimes.”

  “Were you two friends?”

  “We were kids,” Amblin repeated. From the crack in his voice, Astrid knew not to go down that road any farther. “I didn’t know she’d fallen wicked,” he continued. “I guess I just assumed that she had died.”

  By now they had reached the quarantine house. Mr. Gregory approached the front door, unspooling the nozzle from his tank. He sprayed quiet all over the door. The blue liquid frothed in the air and sent the singers recoiling back toward the tree line.

  “It didn’t look all that bad,” Astrid said at last.

  Her father glanced at her, puzzled.

  “The wickedness,” she said. “Eliza didn’t seem to be in pain. She wasn’t scared, or upset. She probably had it for a long time. But I don’t think she was suffering.”

  Now he had to look away. The mesh veil meant that he couldn’t wipe his face. “You’re a good kid,” he said.

  Mr. Gregory had finished treating the door. He lifted the crossbeam, opening the quarantine house and revealing the grim interior. A paunchy sofa and card table sulked in the darkness. There was a lantern on the table, and an oilcan. A spare bee suit hung from a peg on the far wall, looking like a faded pelt in the shape of a man.

  “Sorry, Amblin . . . ,” Mr. Collins said, butting shyly into their conversation. “Could you put your arms up, please?” He unspooled the nozzle from his tank. “Don’t want to take any singers in there with you,” he said.

  Without a word, her father raised his arms into the air.

  Quiet burst out of the spray nozzle in a fine blue mist, running down Amblin’s bee suit in hissing streams. It gathered in a sizzling puddle on the sand below. Some also floated back in Mr. Collins’s direction—he hadn’t thought to stand upwind—speckling his veil and even his bifocals underneath with little droplets of blue.

  “Good enough,” Mr. Collins said, coughing and gagging.

  Amblin gave him a cold nod, then turned back to Astrid. “I’d hug you, but . . .” He held his arms out, still dripping. “I should get inside before this wears off.”

  “Do you want me to bring you anything?” she asked.

  He stepped into the darkened doorway, and Mr. Gregory began to swing the door closed.

  “You visit me,” Amblin said, “and I’ll have everything I need.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The Coward

  AFTER THAT, ASTRID HEADED STRAIGHT for her mother’s place. She flung open the front door and banged through the entry hall—which Ria had made into a little do-it-yourself quiet room—and into the den.

  “Mom!” she called. “I need to talk to you.”

  There was no answer, but Astrid could hear something bubbling away in the kitchen. She kicked off her shoes and stomped across the hardwood.

  “Mom, are you—”

  What Astrid saw brought her up short. Dinner was well underway
in a big steel crock atop the gas range. Onion skins and carrot ends slumped in a wet mound on the counter, beside a tin of freeze-dried beef threads and a half-emptied glass of red wine. But Ria herself wasn’t there. Instead, sitting at the round kitchen table was Hank. He still hadn’t changed out of his bee suit. His gloved hands rested flat on the table. His chin was on his chest, and his bonnet drooped forward. He didn’t say anything when Astrid stormed into the room. He didn’t even look at her.

  Just the sight of him brought every bit of her rage flooding back.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “You’re right to be angry at me.” The words leapt out of his mouth.

  “You think I need you to tell me that?”

  “Of course not,” Hank said.

  “Like, I need your permission?” Astrid approached Hank. She pressed her fist into the table, and the wood seemed to compress under her knuckles. “You helped him lie about my dad. You lied about my dad.”

  Hank kept his eyes down. “I’m really sorry, Astrid.”

  “Sorry?” The word could have been a knife, a snake, and still she’d have tossed it right back in his face. Astrid didn’t want an apology. She wanted to leave bruises. “Sorry doesn’t get him out of quarantine. Not unless you want to go back to the greenway and tell everybody what your father did.” Astrid leaned over the tabletop, trying to look him in the eyes. But she couldn’t see anything under his crumpled bonnet.

  “I wanted to say something . . . ,” Hank pleaded. “He said that if I told, he’d—”

  “He’d what? Yell at you? Kick you out? Gosh, Hank, I already knew you were a coward, but that’s just something else.”

  Wow, that was mean. Astrid cringed even as it came out of her mouth. But she could hardly stop—she was furious. Not just with Hank. She was furious with Mr. Bushkirk for being a lying piece of trash. Furious with the investors for being so easily herded by fear. And maybe most of all, furious with herself. Astrid never should have stayed up there with Eliza. The second they saw a stranger at the gates, she and Hank should have run right to the greenway. Astrid had been so obsessed with finding somebody else in the world like her that she’d endangered them all and had gotten her dad locked away in the process.