Seeders: A Novel (12 page)

“Yeah, but a nervous system is what separates intelligent animals from plants.”

“Are you sure? Both organisms have the same functions—eating, drinking, and reproducing—and both go about the task in similar ways. Plants and humans are nothing more than living machines and our actions are merely electrical signals going off at specific times and places in our bodies.”

“You make us sound like robots.”

“In a way, we are. Did you know in the last decade science has proven beyond a doubt that every aspect of consciousness is connected to the physical brain?” Jules leaned forward. “Why, I can actually hook you up to an fMRI that reads your mind by tracking blood flow to various parts of your brain. By matching the neural correlates, I can tell if you’re thinking about a car or a banana, if you are looking at a picture of a house or a photograph of your mother. You see, the brain works just like a supercomputer.”

Luke didn’t look convinced.

Jules put down his drink and picked up a pencil. He drew a crude brain across the back of an envelope. “Brain waves can be seen as loops and jags between the cortex and thalamus, which bind together various regions. Say you’re looking at a girl in a red dress; it binds the color
red
with
girl
and
dress
and thousands of other areas of the brain into a coherent conscious experience. Sort of like a radio transmitter and receiver tuned to the same frequency. There are over a billion neural connections in a square millimeter of brain matter, which allows trillions and trillions of possible combinations. Understand?”

Luke nodded thoughtfully. “So we’re nothing more than electrical signals going off in response to external stimuli.”

“Correct. No different than a plant.”

Luke grimaced. “Physically the two aren’t comparable.”

“But as I said, functionally they are. A plant is made up of living tissue with a messaging system of electrical signals that allow it to communicate with itself and other creatures in the environment.”

“Like when a Venus flytrap closes on an insect?”

“That’s a good example. You see, the Venus flytrap has four sensor hairs that an insect must trip twice, within twenty seconds, in order for the trap to close. This shows the plant has memory, and logic, really. What’s more, plants can make
decisions
. For example, a dodder has no leaves to make its own food, so it has to get nutrients by attacking other plants, using its sense of smell to find its victims. There could be ten different species nearby and it will always smell out the most succulent. Then it reaches across the soil and wraps itself around the plant several times, attaching suckers that penetrate its prey to extract the nutrients.”

“Creepy. But smart creepy.”

“You see, plants have a system of tracking and signaling that’s just as effective as our own. They can use all five senses without the almighty nervous system.”

Luke nodded. “I see what you’re saying. I think it’s really cool.”

“I think so too.”

It seemed the boy was satisfied with the conversation and Jules was relieved. But after a long moment Luke scrunched up his face, hard in thought.

“There’s still one problem with your theory,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I get what you mean about similar electrical signals in plants and animals, but I don’t think a bunch of neural correlates can explain Beethoven. I mean, when a person listens to music, you can track signals to specific areas in the brain to create sound, but what about the
feeling
you get listening to a song? How do you explain the excitement of a roller coaster or being awed by fireworks?”

“That’s very perceptive of you, Luke. You’ve struck on the one question that we’ve not been able to solve. These are sentient experiences called qualia: the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the redness of the color red, all of our emotions. Neurobiologists call it the
hard
problem, and so far it’s been unanswerable.”

“Because it’s part of something greater than we can imagine.”

“Exactly. Our brains haven’t evolved enough to comprehend an answer. Just as we can’t understand gravity or imagine a ninth dimension or know what comes after infinity. It’s the same with plants. We haven’t evolved enough to truly understand our own consciousness, so how can we claim to understand theirs?”

“Or maybe it can only be explained by God.”

Jules chuckled. “Now you sound like your grandfather.” He took another drink from his glass, emptied it, and placed it on the envelope.

“You think we’ll ever figure out how to communicate with plants?”

“We might not have to. Plants have a seven hundred million year advantage over humans. Perhaps they’ll find a way to reach us first.”

“Maybe.” Luke stood up to leave. “Hey, thanks, Dr. Beecher.”

“You are most welcome, Luke. You’re a bright boy. Everyone should be as open to new ideas as you are.”

CHAPTER 11

ISABELLE AGREED TO DEVOTE
the entire afternoon to finding the diamond. She and Ginny rummaged through dozens of boxes in the attic, and then Isabelle headed downstairs to search.

There were six rooms on the ground floor. Isabelle stood at the bottom of the staircase, hands on hips, wondering where to start. She decided on the storage room and got on with it right away, opening boxes of items her mother brought from England, most of which had no business on the island: skis and tennis equipment, formal dresses and gowns, dozens of high-heeled shoes. There were pieces of artwork scattered around the room, a naked mannequin and a few paintings leaning against the walls.

Isabelle picked up one of the paintings and held it to the light with a frown. It was a portrait of her mother, Grace, as a stunning young woman in her early twenties who could have passed for Audrey Hepburn. She was a petite brunette with a heart-shaped face and large brown eyes under perfectly shaped eyebrows. But it was her expression that gave Isabelle a chill. It was stiff, as though she were sitting on something sharp. Perhaps, Isabelle thought, she was already feeling the nonexistent pain of so many false illnesses.

Isabelle stared at the portrait in contemplation. Living on Sparrow Island they had never been close, she and Grace, but when they arrived in New York City everything changed. Isabelle became her confidante, her best friend, and eventually her nurse. Grace seemed to be deathly ill all the time, but never once was admitted to a hospital. Doctors would throw out their hands and tell her to hire a nurse. She never did, insisting Isabelle could easily care for her.

By sixteen, Isabelle had barely seen the light of day, spending long hours cooking and cleaning, researching homeopathic remedies, providing physical therapy. She’d drag her mother’s heavy body from one room to another and back again. Young Isabelle would stare out the bars of her window, dreaming about the jungles of Africa, the pyramids of Egypt, the islands of the Pacific. She wanted to see the whole world. But Grace was constantly bedridden with migraines,
E. coli
, lupus, toxic shock syndrome. She had three types of cancer and a bout with meningitis. How ironic that she died from choking on a cough drop.

Isabelle didn’t realize she was holding her breath until her lungs started to ache. She laid the portrait aside and went to the kitchen. She made a pot of tea, placed it with the matching tea set, and brought it into the library.

The room was full of tall bookshelves stocked with hundreds of books. Almost immediately, and to her surprise, she spotted a Bible. Perhaps it was The Book mentioned in the riddle. It looked old and worn as she pulled it from the shelf. She practically tore it apart, looking for secret pockets, scribbled notes, or circled words.

Isabelle paused. Someone had underlined a passage from the first page of Genesis:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Isabelle’s heart kicked up when she read the word
Eden,
thinking of her father’s green journal. Perhaps
The Eden Project
held a clue to the diamond’s location. She read the passage again. Could there be a tree of knowledge on the island? She tried to remember if there was a specific species associated with the tree.

“Oh damn,” she whispered, and closed the book. It was a Bible, for heaven’s sake. The whole idea of the riddle was starting to seem calculated and melodramatic. What was she doing wasting so much time, instead of enjoying her vacation? She wondered if the children were having any fun. Sean was in the library too, gazing out the window with unfocused eyes, body rigid as a statue. No, he didn’t look any happier here than at home.

Without warning, he banged his palms against the glass, grunting at something in the distance.

Isabelle followed his gaze to the woods, but saw nothing.

“Ung!” Sean pointed a finger to himself, and then the window.

“You can’t go out right now. We’ll go for a walk later.”

He banged his chest.

“No, you can’t go alone.”

His brow furrowed and he hissed.

“What’s gotten into you? Why are you so upset?”

Sean pressed his open palms high on the windowpane and bumped his forehead against the glass, whimpering.

“Why don’t you check out the garden in back of the house? There are wildflowers just starting to blossom. You can pick them for the dinner table.”

He left with a scowl, and Isabelle listened until the kitchen door slammed and the house was quiet once again.

The silence was broken by sounds of heavy lifting down the staircase. Ginny carried a large box into the library and dropped it on the sofa, creating a frenzy of dust. “This is everything I could find upstairs that might have the slightest value.” She removed a gaudy necklace of bright wooden beads, a chrome-plated picture frame, an ancient calculator, and a fur hat.

Isabelle blinked.

“I know what you’re thinking, dear. The estate belongs to you. Therefore, all these trinkets are yours.”

“No, it’s just—”

“That’s exactly why I brought them downstairs, instead of pocketing them like a common thief. You can decide what you want, and I’ll take the rest. We can appraise their value together. I believe I saw some china and silver items in the pantry. Of course some of these books in the library are first editions and will bring in a pretty penny. Now, don’t look at me like that, dear. Your father would want us to put these things to use and sell the rest. He was quite practical.”

“You can take whatever you want, Ginny.”

“Truly? You don’t mind?”

With a heavy sigh, Isabelle picked up the Bible.

“You found the book!”

“I’m not sure,” she said and opened the cover. “There is a section that’s been underlined.”

Ginny rushed to her side and read the passage, squinting. “No mention of the diamond at all. Perhaps it has to do with a garden. There were quite a few gardens around the house years ago. We should have a search.”

“There’s a notebook in my father’s lab, marked ‘Eden something-or-other.’”

Ginny brightened. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know. Scientific research, but I’ll have a look.”

They both stared at the passage in the Bible again.

“This is far too complicated,” Ginny said.

Isabelle blew a stray hair from her face. “Why don’t you hire a detective or something? There are people who find things. They can do a computer search of my father’s past activities. If he held any bank accounts or maybe sold it on eBay. The diamond could be in a safe-deposit box at some bank in London.”

“No, it’s here. I’m sure of it. I can’t leave this island knowing it’s unprotected.” She was getting upset. “That boat is coming in two weeks, and what if we haven’t found it? I’ll be stuck here myself, searching all alone.”

“I do think it likely George sold it long ago.”

“Nonsense. He wouldn’t leave me something precious in the will, and then sell it. He knew how low my savings had dwindled. I don’t expect you to understand, married to a policeman, with a family and all. You have no idea what it’s like being alone. Not knowing one day to the next, if you’ll be put on the street or shut up in a home.”

Isabelle felt bad for the woman. She poured herself a cup of black tea and filled one for Ginny. “How about we sit for a moment? Put our heads together.”

Ginny brightened at the sight of the Royal Albert tea set. She took the cup and saucer, sniffing the steamy aroma, and said, “It’s good to know we can salvage a bit of civility on this barbaric island.”

Isabelle watched her inspect the bottom of the plate, and then run a finger across the matching tray. “You can have the tea set too.”

“Well, thank you, dear.”

“You know, rather than search all over the house perhaps we could try talking it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, where did George put his valuables? I mean, did he have a safe? Did he ever mention where the diamond was kept? Did you ever see it?”

“No, no, and no. The only time I saw it was around your grandmother’s neck, in a photograph taken years ago. Of course, I asked where he kept it, but he’d only say, ‘In a safe place, my love. I’ll let you know when I’m dead.’”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“He was odd. But then, you see why I assumed it would be left to me in the will.” Her eyes shifted suspiciously. “Strange, don’t you think? Mr. Bonacelli is the only person with access to the will all these years. George mysteriously dies just when the lawyer comes to the island, and suddenly the diamond is gone.”

“Seems a stretch of your imagination.”

“Is it? Why was George shooting at the lawyer’s boat? Obviously he was trying to chase him away. He might have known the man was after my diamond.”

“Oh really, Ginny. You think a man like Mr. Bonacelli would do such a thing? I can tell he liked my father very much.”

“Money makes people do evil things. Take that Irish boat captain. I’m sure he lives on a pittance, and he saw George on a regular basis. Perhaps one day he came with a delivery and George, so desperate for company, showed him the priceless gem and unwittingly put the idea in his head. How hard would it be to push an elderly man off a cliff? He’s such a big Irish rogue and no one’s around to witness the act.”