Seeders: A Novel (30 page)

Jules appeared, looking pale and slightly bent over. He stared at the boy while the rain drenched them both. “We have a boat now. It’s time.”

CHAPTER 32

BY NIGHTFALL THE STORM
was in full force. Across the island, mudslides swept away less hardy trees, rivers poured into the sea, and waves pounded the rocky shores. The rising tide devoured the beach until it was part of the ocean floor.

The library was quiet except for the muffled sound of thunder. It was dimly lit by a single lamp and the fireplace, where wet shoes and clothing were laid to dry. An occasional flash of lightning illuminated the windows with reflections of rain pouring down the glass.

Isabelle finished bandaging the wounds on Luke’s head. “Let me know if you start to feel dizzy or nauseous. You might have a concussion,” she told Luke in quiet seriousness. She had barely spoken to her son or Monica since they returned from the beach with injuries and stories of being attacked. She had warned them several times and Isabelle felt certain if she kept talking, she’d start shouting. She handed Luke a sweatshirt and applied more ice to the red welt around Monica’s neck that was beginning to bruise.

Luke slid the towel off his bare shoulders and pulled the sweatshirt over his head, shivering. The house was freezing, but the coldness from his mother was more than he could bear. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have gone out there.” He glanced at Monica sitting on the couch wrapped in blankets, silently staring into an empty cup of soup. “We’re both sorry.”

Isabelle didn’t answer right away. She put the empty dishes on the tray. “I want you both to go up to your rooms and lock your doors. Don’t come out until morning, no matter what you hear.”

Monica rose quickly. With a quiet good night, she nearly tripped on the blanket as she scuttled to the hallway and up the stairs.

“We’ll keep all the lights on,” Isabelle said.

Luke looked at the rifle propped by her side. Whenever she moved more than a few feet, she’d reflexively pick it up and drop it in easy reach.

“Mom, Sean is with Dr. Beecher,” Luke said.

Isabelle swayed into the bookshelf to hold steady. Her fingers found her lips and held in a sigh of relief. She had not asked about Sean, afraid of the answer, but now at least she knew he was alive.

“Where?” she asked. “Where is he?”

“In the woods. He won’t come back on his own.”

“Sean,” she whispered.

“He spoke to us.”

“What?”

“Sean—he said
no
. He said it twice.”

Her lips formed a slight smile, although there was no reason to be cheerful. Life couldn’t have been more daunting than at that very moment, but Sean speaking was like a tiny light at the end of a very dark tunnel. She turned her head to a flash of lightning and wiped the smile away with the back of her hand. “Your brother’s out there, in the storm.”

“He’ll be okay. I shot Beecher pretty good with that arrow. He might be dead.”

Isabelle felt an equal mix of horror and relief.

“Either way, Sean won’t stay out in the rain for long.”

She nodded.

“There’s something else too. We saw a boat at the dock. The
Acadia
.”

Her face brightened. “Did you see Captain Flannigan?”

Luke looked at his feet and shook his head.

“We’ll take the boat, first thing in the morning. After the storm passes,” she said with resolve. “Tell Monica to be ready at dawn and only bring what you absolutely need.”

“You can drive a boat?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” She picked up the rifle by the chair. “At the very least we can use the radio. Now go to bed.”

Luke stood up to leave, but hesitated. “I said some things before.”

“It’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean them.”

“I know.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Now go to bed.”

“Are you coming up?”

“No. I’m sleeping down here.” She sat down in the chair with the gun in her lap.

“Mom, you haven’t slept in two days. Let me stand guard.”

“No, Luke.”

“We can sleep in shifts. Dad took me shooting too. I can do it.”

“All right. I’ll take the first four hours and then come get you.”

He nodded, on his way to the stairs.

Then all at once, the lamp in the library made a small click and died, the hallway went black, and there was a phantom sound of power draining from the house. They were left with only a dim flicker of the fireplace.

“Mom?” Luke was near the steps and couldn’t see her.

“It’s okay, Luke.” In an instant there was a spark and flame. Isabelle’s face lit up from the silver cigarette lighter. “There are candles in the drawer.” She held the lighter in front of her and walked to a mahogany table. She rummaged through the drawer, finding a box of six tapered candles and a couple of short pillars. “We can put one in each room.”

She gave Luke four candles that fit in his sweatshirt pocket.

They both walked to the foyer closet, Isabelle carrying the rifle. She felt along the bottom shelf and took out a flashlight for her son.

He looked at her, worried. “Why do you suppose the lights went out?”

“The storm, I guess.”

He shook his head. “It’s not like a power line could be down. The wires to the shed are underground. I think someone turned off the generator.”

“Maybe it ran out of fuel.”

“Doubt it.”

“I could turn it back on.”

“No way. You can’t go out there now.”

“No. Of course not. Go put a candle in each room upstairs.”

“Luke!” a voice shrieked from the upstairs landing, where Monica peered out from the railing. “The lights went out.”

“It’s all right,” he told her. “I’ll be right up.”

“Take these.” Isabelle gave him matches for the candles. “Remember we’re leaving at dawn.”

He turned on the flashlight. “You’re waking me up in four hours, right?”

She nodded.

“What if the storm doesn’t pass? It might rain for days.”

“Let’s think positive.”

Luke reached down and hugged his mother. “Be careful, okay?”

She watched him climb the stairs looking like the man he was becoming, brave and confident. He had a sturdy gait, lithe and graceful. No doubt he would be tall and muscular like his father, but kind. In the shadows Isabelle saw the girl wrap her arms around his neck, and Luke reached down to hold her. For once, she was glad for Monica.

*   *   *

All the candles had been lit so that the downstairs of the house glowed orange, barely visible from the outside. Isabelle carried leftover sandwiches into the kitchen.

The flashlight made a blinding burst on the steel refrigerator, just as the back door handle jiggled loudly.

Isabelle dropped the plate with a crash.

A hand banged on the door.

She swung the flashlight beam to the glass panes. There was only a circle of reflected light so she moved closer, angling the beam.

It lit up a face, pressed against the glass.

Sean
.

Isabelle opened the door and pulled her son out of the storm. He shivered from the cold, his blue lips trembling. His hair was plastered like black paint to his head and he seemed bloated with rain. It was a challenge taking off his wet jacket and shirt, which had merged with his body like glue. She checked him for injuries, pausing at his forehead. The black bumps had spread down his temple. It wasn’t something she was ready to face at the moment.

“You have to get into a hot shower,” she told him. “Okay?”

He glared at her.

“Luke told me you spoke today. I’m glad, Sean.” She hugged him, but he was as cuddly as a plastic doll. In the candlelight, his stare was angry and accusing.

Sean pushed past her, and she noticed the cutting shears in his back pocket.

“What’s this?” she asked, lifting them out.

He snatched them back.

“Give them to me.”

“No,” he said firmly.

She backed away in surprise. It should have been a moment of bliss, tears of joy and prayers of thanks, but there was something so cold in his voice, something hateful in his eyes that terrified Isabelle.

“Give them to me, Sean,” she said.

He grabbed his wet jacket off the counter and turned for the door, but Isabelle was quick. She took hold of the jacket and wouldn’t release it, until Sean backhanded her in the face.

With a cry, she held her cheek. Before the room finished spinning, Sean was gone. Half dressed, he ran into the rain. Isabelle didn’t move for a long time. She felt her stomach lurch.

She was thinking,
This boy is not my son
.

CHAPTER 33

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING STRUCK
together in a brilliant burst. Ginny cowered under the brush that barely protected her from the freezing rain. She hadn’t found the pond, or the way home, and now evening had arrived and she was under cover again, quickly sinking into cold mud. First her boots and then her legs, which were folded to her chest, and finally her rear. It had grown dark and indeed the weather was worsening.

She tried to extract her knees but that made her sink deeper, and when she braced her arms using the shovel for leverage, the mud devoured them up to her elbows and she couldn’t free the shovel. Water flowed over her body like a river and she let out a yelp of fright. It felt like the island was sinking into the ocean and she would be buried under the muddy bottom.

Then she was hit with a crash of water, a flowing channel that loosened the earth’s grip on her body. Soon she was swimming in the dark, floating down a torrential river. For the first time in her life, she was terrified. The flashlight shoved down her bra banged painfully against her breastbone. Twigs and branches scraped her hands and tore her knees as she cascaded down an incline along the rocky ground.

The current dumped her into a body of water that was ice cold and thrust her deep into its depths. She screamed out bubbles, panicked at one horrid thought.

I’ve been swept into the sea.

Her foot touched the bottom and she pushed to the surface. She felt herself going under again and grasped a vine floating on the water. She pulled it with all her might, but the water was freezing and her body was turning numb. She could barely kick or keep her grip any longer. Her heart beat painfully against her chest.

I’m having a heart attack
.
I’m going to die in the dark, lonely sea
.

“Damn you, George,” she barely managed to sputter, but she wanted those to be her last words. This was all his fault, after all. She clutched the vine and gradually pulled herself to shore. Rain poured down, but not so hard anymore and her body pressed firmly against the ground. The ocean must have receded, replaced by wet grass and leaves. Her strength was returning, while anger and adrenaline warmed her blood. She pulled herself to higher ground and felt the hard roll of a flashlight under her hip. With a smirk, she reached inside her raincoat, took it in hand, and flipped it on quick, almost daring it not to work.

Light burst upon a chaos of broken branches and dripping leaves, and she realized she had not fallen into the sea, but a small pond of water. Indeed, her mouth tasted dirt, not salt. Ginny paused and a smile crept over her face. She spun the flashlight once more, so the beam fell in front of her. She was barely three meters from a rock inscribed with a cross. It was more than a miracle; she was lying by her own empty grave.

“Bless you, George,” she whispered.

*   *   *

Without heat, the house became cold enough to see her breath as Isabelle sat upright in the most uncomfortable straight-back chair.

Soon her eyes began to close. She shook herself awake and adjusted the rifle in her lap.
Keep moving,
she told herself and picked up a candle, carried it to the window, and listened to the rain. She tried not to think about Sean and Ginny out in the storm. At least it seemed to be letting up. She shivered and wondered how long they could all last with no heat or lights, certainly not until Wednesday, and she played with the idea of running out to the shed. If Jules had switched off the generator, it would be easy to turn it back on.

The candles were burning down and morning was still another six hours away. She imagined Jules storming the front door, ambushing the house in total darkness. She turned on the flashlight and swept it over the room. Chairs and tables cast long shadows that seemed to move with life. Would she be able to shoot Jules if he broke into the house? Surely an ax could shatter a window and then she’d be fighting him in the dark.

Ridiculous,
she told herself. Luke had shot Jules in the back with an arrow. He was probably floating dead in the ocean. Still, she couldn’t know for sure. Jules might have turned off the lights and was planning an attack. In that case, she was a sitting duck. Was she going to stand there in the dark and wait to die, let him kill her children? No, she had promised herself that she’d never be trapped again. Even if they were still alive by morning, walking to the boat could be a suicide mission, and there were still three more days until Colin arrived.

That’s when Isabelle decided to go out to the shed and turn the lights back on. If Jules happened to be in the shed, so be it. She would have to shoot him. Get it over with. Hell, it’s what Colin would have done, probably days ago. It was the right thing to do.

Without thinking too long about it, Isabelle found herself putting on her father’s yellow slicker and matching hat and boots before she could muster the good sense to change her mind. She grabbed the rifle and a flashlight and headed out.

The front door opened to a steady blast of rain. Isabelle stepped onto the patio and felt an icy wind on her face. She hurried across the patio to the back of the house, and then up a wide trail of gravel. The beam from her flashlight picked up rain and little else, as she followed the blurry path to the shed.

The stone building seemed waterlogged. Leaves of ivy on the roof trembled from assaulting raindrops. With the rifle pointed steady, she slid the door open. It glided easily across the wet track.