Seeders: A Novel (35 page)

The rifle was within reach, there were bullets in her pocket, but Isabelle didn’t move. She didn’t even look at Sean as he stepped over his brother’s body. She turned her head to the sea, and waited to die.

EPILOGUE

THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
boat hydroplaned across the sea, on a deep blue surface with waves that were round and gentle. A flag proclaiming
H Division
flapped at the bow as it sped toward Sparrow Island.

Isabelle stood at the helm, wondering if she would finally feel some twinge of emotion. A policeman was watching from the corner of his eye. It had been almost a year, but she was sure he was waiting for her to break down in tears. She turned her face toward the sea, holding tight to the railing, the strap of an overnight bag slung across her shoulder.

The island grew larger but Isabelle still felt nothing. She rarely did anymore.

A year ago, the ocean had been a tempest full of wrath and fury. But now it was calm, like a fierce tiger that had eaten enough meat and lolled quietly under the sun. The boat entered the inlet and Isabelle gazed over the island. It was spring again. The trees were still mostly bare, the beach was black, and the waves washed over the jetty toward the cliff, where they smashed steadily, ferociously against the rocks. Nothing had changed. Yet everything had.

The boat headed for the dock, where Isabelle imagined the color red; a pool of blood from Captain Flannigan’s body.

Instead there was a woman on the dock, waving.

The boat scuttled into the mooring. The policeman helped Isabelle off the boat. She turned to thank him, and he tipped his cap, jumped back on deck.

Isabelle faced the woman, who smiled with gleaming white teeth. She was young, in her early twenties, with strawberry-blond hair that fell to her shoulders and a fresh farm-girl look about her. She introduced herself as Laurie Spelling. Her specialty was mycology.

“The study of fungi,” Isabelle said.

“That’s right.” Laurie was beaming. “Gosh, you picked a beautiful day to come out.”

Her buoyancy was off-putting and Isabelle wondered if the woman knew how many bodies had been lying dead on the island just a year ago. They walked up the gangway. Although her femur bone had healed quite well, Isabelle still had a slight limp.

Laurie bobbed along with a spring in her step. “It’s just the two of us working here, Dr. Jacobs and myself. I’m more of an assistant.”

“Only two of you?” Isabelle asked with an edge in her voice. “Shouldn’t there be more? Police, FBI, or something?”

“There were dozens of people at first, detectives and scientists. But the investigation was over months ago,” Laurie said. “Oh, I forgot. There’s Oscar, who helps out with the heavy work since the police finished up. They sort of left a mess.” She turned up a lip. “Jeez, they left soda cans and garbage in the woods as if the place were condemned. Like, hello? There’s still people working here.”

For a moment, she reminded Isabelle of Monica.

They came to the entrance of the woods and Isabelle slowed. It was a stark reminder of that last ghastly day on the island, but there didn’t seem to be any fungus on the trees, so she took a quick breath and followed Laurie into the shadows of canopies.

The path was wide and clear. Much of the foliage had been taken down or trampled by vehicles with heavy wheels. They stepped quietly past signs of an abandoned police investigation. Faded yellow tape was draped across bushes and muddy puddles on the ground.

Overhead, branches were starting to bud. Isabelle nervously shifted the bag to her other shoulder. “Is it safe to breathe the air?” she asked.

Laurie nodded heartily. “Oh yeah. For weeks there was a crop duster saturating everything with antifungal agents. Dr. Jacobs finally made them leave. He was worried it was toxic to us.”

“As long as it’s toxic to fungi.”

“They tested the air twice a day for weeks. They put these giant solar-powered gas chromatographers everywhere. Really high-tech stuff from the NSA, like this was some kind of terrorist attack or something. Dr. Jacobs made them leave too. There was no sign of airborne contamination.”

“So it really was a fungus making us sick.”

“There were high levels of ergotamine in the spores.”

“Ergot,” Isabelle whispered.

“You’ve studied it?”

“Not really.”

Laurie beamed with a broad smile. “Oh, let me tell you, ergot is
fascinating
.”

Isabelle stared with a deeply furrowed brow. What was wrong with this woman? Was she stupid or insensitive?

“Usually ergot grows on grasses and has to be ingested for a long time to cause ergotism. But this species could grow on any plant. It produced this highly potent alkaloid that works real quickly on the nervous system. Oh yeah, and it was airborne, which is really unusual.”

Isabelle felt her stomach lurch, but continued down the path.

“The symptoms are pretty diverse. Nervous dysfunction, dizziness, headaches, hallucinations.” She was counting on her fingers. “Twisting, contorting, massive pain, crawling sensations, psychosis, delirium. It can even cause gangrene. Patients can lose arms and legs.”

Isabelle wished there was a way to make Laurie stop talking.

“Sometimes victims cut off their own extremities. The handyman—what was his name? Hedges?”

“Hodges.”

“That’s right. He had a severed foot.”

As Laurie continued babbling about ergotism, Isabelle tuned her out and walked faster. She was feeling claustrophobic in the woods, scrutinizing trees and bushes, flinching at the sight of dark grooves in the bark.

Laurie had no trouble keeping pace. “Ergot’s been linked to plagues all over Europe since the Middle Ages. Killed millions of people. Victims would be screaming of visions, dancing in the streets, speaking in tongues. It took hundreds of years to trace the problem back to infected rye bread.”

The woods opened to wide fields and sky, acres of blackened ryegrass burned to the ground and a mansion in the distance. They both paused to look at the house and then continued up the path. Laurie was suddenly quiet and Isabelle felt grateful. But it didn’t last long.

“Did you know that ergotism was the cause of the Salem witch trials?”

Isabelle answered, staring straight ahead, “I read something about that.”

“There was a late spring and a wet harvest that year, and the rye was contaminated.” She sounded a bit winded as they reached the top of the path. “That’s what they like, cold and wet. This island is the perfect climate for an outbreak.”

They reached the patio and Isabelle noted the grounds were spotless. The smashed window had been replaced. Everything looked fresh and clean. Even the house seemed to be in better shape, repaired and newly painted.

The sliding glass doors were already open and Isabelle peeked inside.

Memories flashed in her mind and she didn’t want to enter the house, but Laurie was already walking into the library. She followed her across the shampooed rug and the air smelled fresh. The books were all gone, the shelves bare and dusted. In the hallway, they passed the staircase and Isabelle strained to keep from looking up to the room where Monica was killed. She felt another wave of nausea as they approached the laboratory.

Laurie turned, looking directly at Isabelle, and for the first time her smile was gone, replaced with a stern expression. “To be honest, we weren’t exactly sure why you came back.”

Isabelle was struck by the bluntness of her statement, the feeling of not being welcome. And what did she mean,
we
? She pictured the other scientists and the detectives on the case, sitting around scratching their heads, asking why the crazy woman would come back to an island where her husband and son were murdered.

Laurie didn’t wait for a response. She opened the door to the lab.

It was clean and painted white with shiny high-tech equipment everywhere. Equipment her father probably never dreamed of owning. One of the walls had not been painted and it was splattered with large brown letters.

SEEDERS
.

The two stared at it for a moment. Isabelle asked, “Is it blood?”

Laurie nodded. “The boat captain.”

Isabelle was disturbed that they hadn’t painted over the word. Did the police want it left for further analysis or had it become some kind of joke to the scientists? Laurie was staring at Isabelle and she started to feel uncomfortable.

“So where is Dr. Jacobs?” she asked and put her bag down.

“He’ll be here soon. Can I get you water or coffee or something?”

“No. I’m fine, thank you.”

The young woman picked up a folder on the desk. “He thought you might want to read some of the reports.”

Isabelle didn’t. “Thank you, not right now.”

Laurie put on a pair of glasses and seemed older, not the impetuous girl who met her at the boat. Her tone had changed. She flipped through the folder and shook her head slowly in disbelief, clicking her tongue. “Eight innocent lives. I think your son’s death bothers me most. Luke showed such promise.”

Isabelle let out an audible breath. She was about to ask the woman for a glass of water just to make her go away.

“What about your younger son, Sean?”

The mention of his name made Isabelle flinch.

Laurie scanned the page. “The police think he jumped off the cliffs like his grandfather.”

Isabelle pursed her lips. The story was a lie. If it were true, they would have found Sean’s body, just like they found George. The FBI had combed the island for days with police dogs and trained rescue teams. They insisted the boy was gone, but Isabelle didn’t believe them. Even when Sean’s tennis shoe washed up on the beach two weeks later, she thought there was another explanation. It was all Isabelle thought about in the last few months. That, and the fact that Sean had let her live. As she lay helpless on the cliff that day, her son had cried out in anguish. He couldn’t kill her. A piece of Sean was still inside, a scared boy wanting his mother, tormented by the act of killing his brother. Was he distraught enough to jump off a cliff?

No. She looked through the window of the back door, willing him to appear. For a second she saw a figure and her breath caught. But it was a stout, muscular man loading pallets onto a tractor. It wasn’t Dr. Jacobs. Laurie had mentioned another man. Oscar.

Laurie gazed over the reports. “It must have been awful for you, but like I said, the alkaloids in the fungus are very powerful. They would have to be, to make a boy shoot his own brother in the head. Cut up that poor girl.”

Isabelle’s face drained of color. “What did you say?”

Laurie looked up quick, but didn’t answer. She blinked hard.

“I never said Sean hurt anyone.”

“It was in the police report.”

“No. I said Dr. Beecher acted alone.”

“Guess I misspoke.” It wasn’t even a good lie. Laurie got up to leave. “I’ll see what’s taking Dr. Jacobs so long.”

Isabelle was becoming hot all over. Her body was trembling. “Do you know where my son is? Have you spoken to Sean?”

“Don’t get hysterical, Mrs. Maguire.” She moved slowly toward the front door.

“What do you mean? I’m perfectly calm.” But she was shouting. Isabelle ran to the back door and looked out through the glass. The man in the tractor was headed toward the shed. Isabelle threw open the door and ran outside, trying to catch up to him. She was feeling out of control, didn’t know what she was doing, but kept on going as fast as she could, even when her leg began to ache.

The man had just pushed open the heavy wooden door. When she approached him out of breath, he slid the door shut with a bang.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.

There were pallets stacked outside the shed, full of plants. All of them were infected with the fungus. Isabelle lightly touched the leaves and smeared purple on her fingertips.

Laurie came up behind her. “Mrs. Maguire, you need to come back to the house.”

“What is he doing? You said the fungus was dead. It’s not dead. He’s growing the damn things.”

“You really need to calm down, Mrs. Maguire.”

“No! No, I won’t.”

“We can’t have you getting hysterical. We’ll have to call someone. The police told me you have no family or friends. Is that right?”

“I want to know what’s going on! I want my son.”

Laurie’s face muscles hardened. “Come inside and stop making a scene.”

Isabelle didn’t move.

“I can arrange for you to have a sedative. Would you like that?”

Isabelle felt as though she’d been slapped. Something was wrong and she had to watch herself. Her heart raced as she followed the woman back to the house.

*   *   *

Dr. Jacobs was waiting in the lab, sitting on a counter with his legs crossed, reading the open files. He was a tall, thin man with youthful brown eyes and a gray beard. He wore pressed khakis and a white shirt with a Greenpeace logo, but his boots and pant legs were covered in mud.

“Dr. Jacobs, this is Isabelle,” Laurie said. Her lips were tight, and her demeanor had changed dramatically.

“Well, of course,” he replied.

“She was trying to get in the shed.”

“That’s fine,” he said in a gentle voice and smiled at Isabelle. “You came here to find answers, isn’t that right?”

Isabelle nodded.

“If you’re willing to stay calm, I can explain a few things.”

Isabelle hugged her arms to keep from shaking.

“Can I trust you?”

She nodded.

“It seems thirty years ago your father began engineering the DNA of fungi to create a more potent form of ergotamine for LSD synthesis. He used a process called protoplast fusion to create a new genetic hybrid with powerful psychoactive alkaloids. He then transferred in genes of certain
Aspergillus,
so it could grow on virtually any plant. Eventually, the fungi and all the plants on the island formed a symbiotic relationship against a common enemy.”

Isabelle swallowed hard. “You don’t mean people?”

“The fungi release their spores at night, with one exception. When any person approaches, they release a mass of nearly invisible spores. We repeated the experiment fifty times with several individuals, always with the same result. Other animals elicited no response, only humans.”