The Light Pirate

New Year’s Day comes and goes, and Lucas still hasn’t received any responses to his college applications. He allows himself to daydream that he has been accepted and then feels ashamed of himself for imagining leaving his family and the town that needs him. The rainy season begins in March, two months early, and lightning limits what the linemen can do. One stormy afternoon, Kirby absentmindedly asks Lucas to pick Wanda up, and the sight of Phyllis’s blue house causes Lucas to relive his memories of Flip’s death. Phyllis tells him, “Wanda is a special girl, you know. [...] But—maybe even more than we thought” (183). Phyllis teaches Wanda how to cook. Watching his little sister move confidently about the kitchen fills him with a combination of guilt for the way he treated Frida and relief that his self-sufficient sister will be all right if he goes away to college.

As months pass, Phyllis and Wanda continue to investigate the glowing microorganisms that fill any body of water at the girl’s touch. One day, they stop at a tag sale that a friend of Kirby’s named Arjun is holding in preparation for his move to Montana. Wanda feels something drawing her to the man’s yard, where she discovers an old canoe, “an algae-crusted, mud-smeared vessel with two bench seats and what looks like gator teeth marks on the hull” (188).

Kirby goes to city hall and finds it abandoned with the sole exception of a middle-aged employee cleaning out his desk. The man informs Kirby that the entire municipality has shut down due to bankruptcy. Although Kirby has seen the signs for decades, he never expected to be alive when this disaster struck. Numbly, he drives to the Edge and gazes out at the ocean. When he returns home, Lucas shows him his acceptance letters to Georgia Tech, Michigan, and Berkeley. Words have never come easily to Kirby, but he holds his son close and whispers, “You did real good” (194).

As Lucas prepares for college, he must let go of his dream that his education would make him Rudder’s “prodigal son, coming home with exactly the right tools at exactly the right time” (197). Kirby tells his son about the municipality’s shutdown and promises to find a job near his chosen school, UC Berkeley. Brenda says goodbye to the Lowes before moving to Wyoming. Lucas’s heart breaks when Wanda asks the woman if they’ll ever see each other again, knowing they won’t.

Wanda continues going to Phyllis’s house in the summer of her own volition. One day, they see Brie and Corey with their father, and Wanda tells Phyllis about what happened that day at the Edge. This is the first time she’s shared that with anyone, and Phyllis holds her as she cries. Wanda tries to convince Kirby to let her stay in Rudder because she doesn’t want to leave her friend or “the land Phyllis has taught her to see and love and tend” (203). Kirby hugs his daughter and explains that, unlike the survivalist, they are not prepared for the changes reshaping their home.

Kirby struggles with the Lowe family’s upcoming move because leaving his home feels like leaving Flip and Frida. Kirby drives to the lineman crew’s abandoned work yard out of habit and discovers a black kitten in a nearby field. There’s no sign of its mother, so Kirby brings the kitten to Phyllis’s home. Phyllis warns Wanda that the kitten might not survive, but the girl insists, “It will live. I’ll feed it [...]. I’ll keep it safe” (210). Kirby purchases kitten milk formula from a boarded-up grocery store with just one open checkout lane. Back home, Lucas and Wanda dote on the kitten. In the middle of the night, the tiny creature’s desperate mews awaken Kirby. He feeds it some formula, pleading for it to survive.

At the start of August, Lucas packs his car for his journey to California. The watchful gazes of Wanda and her kitten, Blackbeard, fill him with guilt, but Kirby’s assurance that he accepted a job offer in Northern California eases his conscience. Kirby tells his son that they’ll soon be together again, and Lucas believes him.

Kirby plans to move to Mendocino, California, with Wanda, and Phyllis wishes them the best. The next day, Wanda wants to go see her friend, but Kirby doesn’t want to be alone, so he takes her to a movie theater and an arcade an hour away from their home instead. While they’re heading home, the truck becomes stuck on a branch, and Kirby gets out of the vehicle to investigate. Lake Okeechobee breaks through a dam weakened by Hurricane Braylen. The floodwaters sweep Kirby off his feet, and he hits his head and dies. Inside the truck cab, Wanda sees the familiar flicker of lights and hears the whispering voice “she used to think was trying to help her” (219).