Seeders: A Novel (21 page)

She should have been worried about Sean, but instead she felt a sense of hope.
We all take chances and learn from our mistakes
. As he reached for each branch, she was rooting for him.
You can do it, go as high as you want, my baby boy. You’ll be stronger than me and I’ll never have to worry about you.

Then she realized that she was stuck, and it was because of Sean and Luke that she could never leave her husband. She looked down at her hands and they were tied at the wrists with thorny vines, growing out of the park bench. Then her father appeared in front of her, wearing a white lab coat and holding a pair of hedge clippers.

“Shall I cut them?” he said, holding up the shears. He blocked Isabelle’s view of the tree. She tried to look around him, but her father snapped the blades of the clippers. “Hold out your hands.” The vines were tight around her wrists and she held them up to George.

Then there was a thud and the piercing cry of a child that stopped Isabelle’s heart.

Sean was sprawled on the ground, blood pooling at his head. She wanted to run to her son but the vines held fast.

George stood over Sean, shaking his head. He looked at Isabelle and smiled. “All better.”

Sean slowly rose to his feet, blood dripping down his face. “You wanted me to die.” His voice was small and childlike. “You were hoping I’d fall!”

Isabelle couldn’t speak. She stared in mute horror.

Sean was gone but somewhere he was singing. “
Went to bed, cracked my head, couldn’t get up in the morning…”

George was still smiling, waving. “There you go. Bye-bye.”

Isabelle awoke with a start, soaked in sweat and barely able to catch her breath. She held a hand to her heart and inhaled slowly, trying to calm herself. In the quiet, a door clicked open in the hallway and footsteps padded down the stairs. Isabelle kicked off the covers.

She gazed over the railing at the first floor. All was still and she checked both ends of the hall. Sean’s door was open. Jules had the next room and his door was open too. She started down the stairs, gaining strength in her legs, and proceeded to the kitchen. From the window she could see the bobbing flashlight being carried down the path. Isabelle threw on her coat.

Outside, the air was blustery cold. It sharpened her senses but the wind burned her cheeks. There was just enough moonlight to make out the path and she stepped hastily across the pebbly ground, hoping she wouldn’t fall.

“Sean, wait!” The wind howled over her cries, and she had no idea if the figure was even her son. But the flashlight moved slowly and in no time she caught up to him. It was Sean and she heaved a sigh of relief. She reached out and grabbed his arm.

“Sean, come back to the house.”

He pulled free from her grip. Isabelle leapt quickly to block his path.

His eyes were vacant, a masked expression. He didn’t look at her, but straight ahead, over her shoulder, as if he couldn’t see her at all.

“Come back to the house,” she insisted louder. When she tugged his arm, Sean fell into a fit, fighting and squirming until they both fell on the ground. He bit her shoulder, but her coat was thick. Still, it hurt when his teeth clamped down.

“Ow! Stop it, Sean. Wake up!” she cried and shook him hard.

At once, Sean snapped to attention. He stared at his mother and then looked around, dazed. He started to whimper and Isabelle helped him to his feet. She rushed him back to the house, into the kitchen where it was warm.

She sat him down, still feeling the effects of the dream, her son’s tantrum, and the teeth marks on her skin.

“I’ve had enough of this island.” She flipped on the radio.

There was only static.

CHAPTER 21

ISABELLE STOOD BY THE KITCHEN
window sipping a steaming cup of coffee and watching the night sky turn into an orange sunrise. She’d barely slept all night. There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked unkempt, pale with no makeup and her hair pulled back in a loose bun, wearing a navy sweater too large for her small frame.

At dawn, she’d gone to Jules’s empty bedroom and found his suitcase missing and his belongings gone. Her first thought was that a boat had arrived and it buoyed her spirits. She had hurried downstairs, but her heart fell when she saw Jules from the window, pushing a wheelbarrow full of lab equipment, blankets, and his suitcase down the path to the woods. He was moving out, but where? Perhaps he was making the campsite his new home.

It’s for the best,
she thought, but felt a pang of loss. The house felt a little emptier.

She remembered the biscuits and went to the freezer, but they were gone. She sighed and walked back to the window, taking small sips of coffee. Jules was coming back up the path and she put the mug down. He was unshaven, disheveled, and seemed just plain dirty. Isabelle smoothed back a wisp of hair and felt an overwhelming urge to take a shower.

When he came through the door, he looked genuinely panicked, bug-eyed and rubbing a nervous hand over his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I made contact again. The trees in the woods.”

Isabelle exhaled, disgusted. At the same time she felt a twinge of fear. She considered telling him about the biscuits, that they were probably drugged, but reconsidered. Maybe it was better to humor him, until whatever drug was in his system wore off. “You had a bad dream. I’ve been having nightmares myself.”

“It wasn’t a dream.” His eye twitched. “They’re trying to send us a warning.”

She feigned an expression of interest. “I see. Warning about what?”

“Do you know what’s happening to trees all over the world? They’re
dying
.” Jules spewed on about climate change and deforestation, conversion and subsistence farming, logging and urbanization. His eyelids blinked rapidly, as though trying to keep up with his streaming thoughts.

“The trees told you all this?” Isabelle asked warily.

“No, they…” He bit his fingernail, his voice a whisper. “Words are useless things. I’ve
seen
the future, Isabelle. Brown and white with lots of blue. But no green. No life.”

“Jules, did you sleep last night?”

“We screwed up!” he shouted, frightening her. “The contract has been violated!”

Isabelle had a flashback of her father, when he
came down with something
. That’s what her mother would say. Strung out and hallucinating. This time she couldn’t hide in her room with a pillow over her head. It was best to play along.

“They’ve been reduced to nothing more than food for consumption, kindling for fires, lumber for houses. They’ve been cultivated and enslaved on millions of acres for the sole purpose of slaughter.” He spun around, pointing a menacing finger. “What if it were your children? Imagine a place where human bones are used to build shelter, flesh and blood to nourish offspring.”

Isabelle thought his behavior was becoming ridiculous; at the same time, deadly serious. She couldn’t run out the door. Her gaze shifted to a knife resting on the sink behind him.

“Jules, sit down.”

He didn’t move.

She forced eye contact. “Listen to me. I think you’re being drugged.”

“What?”

“Those biscuits you’ve been eating. I think they’re laced with some kind of drug.”

“That’s preposterous. I know what I heard. It’s a
war
.”

“Jules, please calm down.”

His voice softened. “The harmony is gone. Mutualism. Gone.”

“Jules?”

“Now we are the hunted.”

Isabelle looked at the knife again. If she could just get past him. As she eased by the stove, Jules stepped in her way. She panicked and grabbed the kettle, trying to sound casual. “I can make you some tea. You must be hungry.”

He leaned in to whisper. “I’ve discovered things about them. Sometimes they don’t know our thoughts from reality.” His eyes scanned the room, as if someone were watching, and he focused on her face again, keeping his voice low. “This morning I was looking at a wilted leaf under a microscope and I thought about watering it. At that precise moment, the leaf opened its stomata as though the image in my mind was real. So then I thought about harming the plant, to see how it would react.” He gestured surprise. “It cut me.”

The mood in the room grew dark.

Jules lifted his sleeve to show a bandage around his wrist. “It made me use a scissor.”

Isabelle gasped. “You cut yourself.”

“See what I’m trying to tell you?”

She carried the kettle toward the sink, but his hand reached out and clutched her arm. “Aren’t you interested in knowing what they want?”

“No. All I want is to get off this island.” She looked at the knife.

Jules followed her gaze. He went to the sink and picked up the knife. “Is this what you want?” he yelled and threw it across the floor.

Isabelle didn’t move until he stormed out of the room. She put her hand over her mouth and shut her eyes tight.

CHAPTER 22

JULES ANGRILY PACED THE LABORATORY
, hands clasped behind his back. He lurched forward and swept the papers off the desk. The chatter had started again, but Jules was tired of all the noise.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted.

The sound stopped and Jules stood perfectly still for a few moments, thinking about Isabelle and her claims that he was drugged. It was true, his personality was changing. Some of the things he said sounded like nonsense one minute and the next, perfectly rational. On the other hand, there was no denying the facts. The plants on the island were sending him messages. Yet, only he could hear them.

Why was I chosen?

It occurred to Jules that perhaps it was no coincidence that both he and George received the message. The true believers were always the first to know. He started to relax and once again felt strong and vibrant. He dropped to one knee and began picking up the papers.

“Dr. Beecher?”

He looked up to see Luke in the doorway. “Yes, what is it?”

“Well, um…”

“I’m quite busy.”

“Could I talk to you about something?”

He hesitated, but then waved the boy over. It seemed they were going to have another little chat. Jules sat down and dropped the papers on the desk, pulled up a chair beside him. He was calm, like his old self.

Luke slumped down in the seat. “I was wondering if you noticed the plants on the island doing anything … strange.”

“What do you mean
strange
?”

“My mom said you’re studying them. That you think the plants are, um, different … I mean…”

“Get to the point, please.”

“Do the plants in the woods make you see things?”

“You mean like the body you found?”

“No. That was real.”

Jules looked more interested. “Did something in the woods frighten you?”

He nodded.

Jules leaned in. “Yes, Luke. I think they can make you see things. But I don’t believe they want to scare you, or hurt you. They’re simply trying to communicate.”

“That’s scientifically impossible.”

“I would have agreed with you last week. But it seems your grandfather has found a way to merge the thoughts of plants and humans, synchronizing the two frequencies. It has something to do with a fungus.”

Luke narrowed his eyes. “You mean that black fungus in the woods?”

“Yes. I think it helps them read our thoughts. Get into our heads.”

Luke looked skeptical.

“I’ve experienced it myself.”

“You have?

He nodded.

“Is it dangerous?”

“I don’t think so, unless you freak out and do something stupid.”

“Like jump off a cliff?”

Jules didn’t say anything.

“What do they want?”

“I believe they’ve been trying to connect with us, trying to send us a message.”

“What kind of message?”

“I don’t know, but I hope it’s something useful. Perhaps they want to warn us that we’re destroying the planet.”

Luke chuckled. “What I saw in the woods was not a message about climate change.”

“What was it?”

He shrugged, not keen to answer. “Can they see the future?”

“Possibly. There have been studies that show plants are prophetic, anticipating both negative and positive events.”

“So maybe they were trying to warn me about something that’s going to happen. So I can stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“I don’t know. Someone getting murdered.”

“Who’s getting murdered?”

“I don’t know.”

He snorted impatience. “Plants don’t care about anything but survival. Instinct is driving them the same way it drives animals.”

“Driving them to do what? Plants are supposed to
like
people. We grow them in fields and give them fertilizer and water.”

“Hogwash.” Jules snorted. “Our selfish endeavors have thrust plants into a massive artificial environment designed to satisfy our own needs. Humans grow what they want, where they want, when they want it. If we aren’t cutting plants into pieces, trampling them underfoot, we’re completely ignoring them without an ounce of respect. Why, you might be sitting on the carcass of a two-hundred-year-old elder.”

Luke shifted in his chair.

“Do you know what is happening to trees all over the world, how they’re disappearing?”

“You mean like sequoias?”

“I’m talking about half the pines in the Rockies disappearing. Ninety percent of West African forests have been wiped out, ninety-eight in Ethiopia. Rainforests are being flattened to grow palm oil for products, while the Amazon and ancient woods are being turned into grass for grazing animals, thanks to America’s obsession with hamburgers. In a hundred years, there won’t be a virgin forest on earth.” He slumped in his chair. “How could you understand? We’re causing climate change on a massive scale that will kill every living thing within the next two centuries. I know. I’ve seen it.”

Luke blinked helplessly. “So … what can we do?”

Jules rested his head back on the chair and looked down his nose at the boy, considering his potential. He was intelligent, no doubt, but could he be trusted with privileged information and was he worthy of inclusion? It appeared he had connected with the plants, after all, and he seemed open to progressive ideas. After a moment he thought,
Why not? He might be useful
.