Seeders: A Novel (13 page)

“I see you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“If I don’t, who will? The police don’t care. Oh, if only we had something to go on besides this blasted riddle.” She took the worn paper from her sweater pocket and flattened it with her hand.

Isabelle glanced at the riddle too. “Does anything in the prose remind you of something George might have said? A special place you two shared?”

She waved a dramatic hand. “There’s nothing. I’ve stared at this bloody piece of paper for hours. It’s all rubbish.”

Isabelle felt a pang of guilt. “So let’s keep looking.”

As Isabelle opened the drawers of the coffee table, Ginny picked up the Bible, stuck the riddle inside, and left the room clutching both to her chest.

*   *   *

Sean walked briskly through the woods, dragging a long knobby stick, looking back to make sure no one followed him.

He didn’t like when his mother told him what to do and what not to do. For some reason, he felt more independent on the island than at home. Here, he was different, smarter and older. Like the way he could navigate the woods by himself, watching for red markers and staying to the path.

It was dead quiet and he scanned the trail, noticing trees and plants he only read about in books. There were conifers, of course; pine, spruce, and hemlock just like in New York. But there were some broad-leaf varieties that weren’t in his collection, basswood, chokecherry, and speckled alder. It was odd how those trees didn’t have any leaves and it was already June. Their naked branches reached up to the sky like skeletons begging for spring buds. They seemed ominous, the way they loomed over him like giants trying to make him feel small.

Sean took a biscuit from his pocket and took small bites, thinking about how things were now and the way they were before. He was aware of his handicap and loathed it more than anything. He knew his thoughts were babyish. His mind worked like a five-year-old’s, when he was already twelve and should be thinking, speaking, more like Luke.

For years after the accident, Sean desperately tried to talk, but every attempt felt as if someone had snipped a wire connecting brain to voice. After a while, he stopped trying. He gave up and tried to forget the old Sean, laughing and talking a mile a minute. The new Sean felt like an old man. Transgression, the doctor called it. Sean wasn’t an old man; he was turning back into a baby. He worried that someday he’d need diapers. It was frustrating because no one could explain his lack of speech. One specialist called it conversion disorder. Another called it hysteria. His mother called it temporary. His father called it crazy.

Sean looked up and realized he was lost. Somehow he’d wandered off the trail. There were no markers in sight and right away he started to worry. The wooded landscape was a continuous pallet of earthy browns and greens, a repetitive backdrop of trees, rocks, and vines. Sean didn’t know what to do—go back and find the path, or keep walking. Of course he should go back, but he’d spun around so many times he wasn’t sure which way was back. It never occurred to Sean that he might follow the lines made by the walking stick, so he just stood still. After a long moment, he thought that maybe his mother was right. He couldn’t be trusted on his own. The thought made him angry, and he punched himself.

Several minutes passed and Sean got tired of standing, so he sat down to rest on a fallen tree. The sun had moved west, peeking through the tops of leafless branches. He lay back on the log, staring up at the blue sky with sleepy eyes. The mighty wind was playing a game with the trees, blowing them back and forth. The wind picked up and it became a furious battle, but the trees held strong, their branches sharp like cutting knives. Long bony fingers drumming the clouds. Sean smiled, knowing that the wind always lost that game.

The mightier the wind, the deeper the roots, Isabelle had told him.

Then the trees were spinning around in a circle, a different game, ring-around-the-rosy, and it made Sean dizzy. His arm jerked to one side and he fell off the log. Then his head began to hurt. He tried to kneel, but sitting was all he could manage and even then he felt loopy. Instinctively, he shut his eyes and took deep breaths and gradually the earth came to rest and his headache subsided.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, still scared and worried about being lost. What if he never found his way back? He could die out here, starve or freeze to death, couldn’t he?

Then a small sound blew by his ear, riding on a thin current of air—

Sean
.

He spun around, his heart pounding fast.

Leggo, Sean.

He heard it again, but there was no one around. A small laugh drifted past him and then he heard it calling again—

Leggo.

He started to panic, turning in circles and looking for a small person, but there were only trees. He wondered if the voice was inside or outside his head, or perhaps it had something to do with the accident. It was a new, terrible thing to think about.

Sean
.

This time the voice was behind him, chillingly close, and Sean spun on his heels.

All he saw was a hemlock.

For a moment, he stood silently staring at the small tree, and he had the feeling it was looking right back at him. He stepped closer. The tree was so comforting and familiar, Sean wasn’t afraid anymore. He reached out to pinch a branch and slid it between his fingers, watching the needles spring back into shape. For some reason, it bothered him to see the underside of the pine needles speckled with the same black spots as the ivy on the cliff. It left purple dust on his fingertips. Dr. Beecher had called it a fungus.

Moving closer, he saw there was more fungus on the tree trunk, blotchy like a rash. It traveled along the bark to the ground, where it was growing like moss, and across a fat root sticking out of the dirt. It crept over a straggly berry bush and some pinecones. It climbed up the trunks of cedars and covered the leafy vines that hugged their trunks. The fungus seemed to be everywhere.

Why hadn’t he noticed it before? He squinted at the woods. The black spots weren’t visible if you weren’t looking for them. Blotches fell into patterns of bark and inside crevices as if it were camouflaging itself. Even against the white birch it seemed like nothing more than cracks and shadows. Sean continued his examination and found there wasn’t a single plant not infected. He wondered if it was contagious, like when Luke got the flu and passed it to everyone in the family.

He moved through the woods, snapping off leaves and branches, stuffing them into his pockets. Before long, he reached the path, without realizing he was ever lost. Sean headed back to the house. He forgot all about the voice in the wind.

CHAPTER 12

JULES WAS IN THE LAB
, engrossed in research, and didn’t hear the glass doors slide open or the squeak of muddy sneakers behind him.

He’d already pieced together that V-waves were a force of nature constantly present in plants but never before detected, standing waves that could travel at the speed of up to 64 centimeters per second through live plants and up to 1.24 meters per second through air; too slow to be electromagnetic waves. The jagged lines on the strip chart showed that the force of impact on the tree was immediate, severe, and semipermanent.

But Jules was baffled by George’s claim that the plants were able to change their frequency and communicate with humans on a cognitive level. He looked at the books piled up in front of him. He picked up
Achieving Brain Entrainment Through Isochronic Tones
and flipped through the text, much of it highlighted in yellow marker.

He knew that brain entrainment, also called brain synchronization, was supposed to be a way to achieve various states of consciousness. The idea was to create a “frequency following” response, changing the oscillations of the brain by playing various sounds. This was possible because the human brain has a tendency to follow the frequency of the most dominant external stimulus. It had become popular in the sixties as a form of meditation and there were even claims that it enhanced the power of ESP or telepathy.

“
Christ,
” Jules muttered, shaking his head.

He sat back and raked his fingers through his hair. None of this mattered to him. It was like picking though a garbage heap trying to find a small diamond that might have been dropped. It was all ridiculous science, but not surprising. When George wasn’t working on a serious project, he was getting high on drugs, meditating, or involved in things like channeling spirits. So for Jules it was frustrating, but not particularly odd to learn of George’s attempts to entangle the thoughts of plants and humans.

Damn fool
.

He couldn’t stand the idea of his mentor ending his brilliant career as a bad joke, a charlatan, a drug addict. He pictured his friend in a hazy stupor walking through the woods, yelling at the trees and firing his rifle at passing boats. The thought made him nauseous. This was a man he had worshipped, and he had hoped to someday fill his shoes. If only there was some truth to the claims George made, even the smallest contribution to science would give him a semblance of legacy.

“Ung!” Sean tugged on his sleeve.

Jules snapped the textbook closed. “Sean, you startled me.”

The boy handed him a pine needle branch.

Jules held it in his fingers, noticing the fungus. “Where did you get this?”

Sean sunk his hands in his pockets.

“Where did you get this?” Jules repeated, more insistent.

Sean lifted his fists over his head and made a shower of grass, leaves, and pinecones.

Jules was quick to capture whatever he could. He looked down at the specimens, all speckled with the black growth, and he turned to Sean with dark eyes.

“Show me,” he said.

They walked briskly from the house to the yard, and Sean pointed everywhere.

Jules swept through the ryegrass that reached his waist and grabbed a fistful of stalks, examining them close. Specks of black covered the grain. He trudged quickly across the field with Sean, backhanding the grass and finding every blade infected. He stopped for a closer look. Most of the fungus was soft and fluid, but there were tiny shoots of a purplish growth protruding from the floral structure like minigrains of rice.

Some of the fruiting bodies beneath his fingertip dropped to the ground, where he saw other tiny pods. He looked at his fingers, brushed with purple spores, and it reminded him of something. The rye … the rye …

Ergot,
he thought and pressed the grass to his chest.
This is ergot.

For a moment he was speechless and unable to move, but then suddenly he took off toward the woods with Sean trying to keep up. As he reached the path, Jules stepped up to a large maple. He ran his hand over the fungus-covered bark and his palm streaked purple.

“It can’t be,” he whispered.

He walked farther down the path, his eyes shifting over the endless infestation of the trees. It was on ferns and bushes, vines and weeds. He looked back at the house with widened eyes and said, “Impossible.”

*   *   *

It was late afternoon and Luke followed Monica down the beach, trying to keep up with her manic pace. She did a cartwheel that barely broke her stride as she ran toward the ocean, kicking up black sand. She was in high spirits for a change.

Luke felt tired and irritable, like a dog that chased its tail too long before realizing its efforts had all been futile.

“Shouldn’t we look for the diamond?” he asked with little enthusiasm.

“Fuck off,” she yelled back and threw off her jacket. She sat on the sand, pulling off her suede boots and socks and rolling her stretch pants to her knees. She got up and ran into the water and stopped as a wave hit her calves. She squealed and ran back to the shore.

Luke smirked. “Cold, huh?”

“No it’s not.”

He turned his head to a soft breeze. The wind was blowing from the west, mostly blocked by trees, making the beach the warmest place on the island. It was probably close to seventy degrees, which was at least something to smile about. The bright sun hit his face and felt good.

Monica’s hands wrapped around her waist and she pulled off her shirt, revealing a stringy black bra.

Luke froze.

When she pulled down her leggings he spun around, checking for anyone watching.

Monica faced the water in a black bra and panties, and before he could take in the length of her body she ran into the ocean and dove headfirst into a wave. She came up with an enormous gasp, laughing and shouting in French. “
Cette eau est gelée! Je ne sens plus mes doigts de pieds.
”

“What?” he yelled.

“Come in! The water’s warm.”

Luke sat down and took off his socks and sneakers, rolled up his cuffs.

“Hurry up,” she said, jumping on her toes to keep warm.

He walked sluggishly to the shoreline and dipped in his foot. The water was ice cold and he sucked air through his teeth. “Forget it. I’m not going.”

“Fine. You’ll miss all the fun.” She sank to her neck and took off her bra and panties, twirling them in the air like a wet towel. She pressed them into a tight ball and threw a wild pitch.

They landed by Luke’s feet with a splat.

He tried to act cool but adrenaline was surging through his veins at an incredible speed. He was sweating and taking irregular breaths. “Okay … I’m coming.” He went in up to his knees, shaking the jitters from his hands and dodging small waves.

“You have to take off your clothes!”

He stared helplessly.

“Come on,” Monica said, riding up and down on the swells. “Someone has to keep me warm.”

Luke went back to the shore and took off his heavy sweatshirt. He started to loosen his belt, and then turned his back to the sea. He let his pants drop, and headed to the water.

“No, all of it,” she yelled, her teeth chattering.

He worried she might get out of the water. Her lips were turning blue.

“Okay, I’ll be right there.” He turned his back again, pulled down his briefs. He was standing at full attention, so he covered both hands over his groin and started back.