A. Colucci - Seeders

“Of course. I’d be grateful if you found anything.” She picked up an ivy leaf off the counter and twirled it in her fingers. It was the one Sean found on the cliffs that morning. “Did you save this for a reason?”

Jules nodded. “I’ve never seen a fungus like this and I’m intrigued. From the texture and color, I’d say it’s a rare species, and yet it reminds me of something.”

She examined the leaf closer and noticed a purple smear on her fingertip.

“Unfortunately, all the microscopes are locked in that cabinet and there doesn’t seem to be a key.” He pointed to a six-foot display case made of mahogany and etched glass that didn’t match the blandness of the laboratory. Microscopes and other scientific equipment were visible behind glass doors.

Isabelle dropped the leaf on the counter and raised a brow. “You mean you’d rather look at fungus than figure out why George was talking to trees?”

He smiled back. “You’re right. It’s just a fungus.”

ISABELLE WAS ABOUT TO SUGGEST to Jules they make some lunch when Luke and Monica came into the laboratory with gloomy expressions.

“This place sucks,” Monica declared. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re not leaving,” Isabelle replied. “We’re here for two weeks until the boat arrives, so make the best of it.”

Luke told his mother about Ginny’s reward and explained how they searched for the diamond all over the office and living room with no luck. “Can we look in the lab?”

“No, Dr. Beecher is working here,” Isabelle said. “Besides, you’ve done enough searching for today. Go do something fun.”

“ Fun? ” Monica barked out a laugh. She complained that the island was cold and windy, with a creepy forest, an ugly beach, and absolutely nothing to do. “I’m going to die from boredom.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Isabelle said.

“But there’s no television .”

Jules squinted at the girl as if she were a diseased plant.

“Read a book, like Sean,” Isabelle suggested, opening the lower cabinets, one after another. “My father kept an enormous library.”

Luke shrugged. “If you like botany .”

“There’s plenty of fiction. And if we’re lucky…” She swung open the last door. “Here we go. Zenith circa 1980.” She revealed a small television set and put it on the counter.

“It’s an old one, all right,” Luke said. “Even if it still works, there’s no reception.”

Isabelle pointed to a stack of videotapes and a VCR inside the cabinet.

Luke slid a couple of tapes off the shelf and showed them to Monica. “These must have been my grandfather’s.”

“Oh yeah? What movies he got?”

“ What movies he got? ” Jules repeated. “Did you hear that sentence?”

Luke read from the labels. “ Time-Lapse Study of Plant Signaling. Behavior in the Northeastern Poplar. Signaling Response Nexus of a Root. ” He dropped them on the counter. “More botany crap.”

“Watch your language, please,” Isabelle said.

“We should see if these old machines even work.” Luke pushed the television and VCR closer to an outlet, plugged them in, and fiddled with their dials.

“What’s this?” Monica held up a tape. “ Plant Telepathy. ”

“May I see that?” Jules took the cassette and turned it over. “Cleve Backster.”

“Ah, yes,” Isabelle said. “Cleve Backster started a movement back in the sixties, remember, Jules? His experiments were supposed to show that plants have feelings, that they could think and read people’s minds. He had everyone talking to their plants.”

“That’s stupid,” Monica huffed.

“Surprisingly, I agree with you,” Jules said. “His experiments were hokum.”

“What kind of experiments?”

Isabelle explained that Backster was originally an interrogation agent with the CIA, specializing in lie detection. “One day, on a whim, he decided to attach his polygraph to the leaf of a Dracaena plant and see how long it took for water to reach the leaf.”

Monica faked a yawn. “Gee, that’s exciting.”

“Actually his polygraph test showed that plants react to external stimulation just like humans. When exposed to pain or pleasure, they exhibited the same excitement reaction. Then something really strange happened. He decided to burn a plant and went into another room to get matches. When he returned, the polygraph readings were off the charts. Just the thought of burning a leaf was enough to send the plant into full-blown panic.”

“Yeah, right,” Monica said. “It’s some kind of trick.”

“That’s what the skeptics thought, but his results caused quite a sensation at the time. Everyone was talking about it. He was on television and radio shows.”

Jules shook his head. “Backster reduced the science of plant biology to the level of spoon bending. For scientists, it was an embarrassment. But George was keen to discover the truth. He brought all the research into a real laboratory and set up experiments with proper equipment, control groups, and careful analysis.”

“And he proved Backster was a fraud?” Luke asked.

“Well, not exactly.” Jules exchanged a look with Isabelle. “Some of his trials with the polygraph revealed similar results. But George came up with an entirely different theory. He believed that plants had memory and could learn. His studies were based on pure science, not telepathy or magic.”

Isabelle nodded. “My father’s results caused a sensation of their own. The entire scientific world was amazed.”

“So he was famous?” Luke asked.

“For a while. He went on a transatlantic media tour, and was featured in a lot of American newspapers and magazines. Life magazine did an article on him.”

“That is so cool,” Luke said.

Jules read the back label on another tape. “This appears to be an early recording of George conducting a polygraph experiment.”

“Can we watch it?” Luke asked Isabelle as he turned on the TV and a snowy screen came to life.

“Might be fun,” she replied. “Sean, do you want to watch TV?”

Across the room, the boy scowled and turned the page of the botany book.

Luke blew dust off the tape and slipped it into the machine. He pressed the play button and an image emerged on the television.

Isabelle was struck by her father in living color, smiling and animated just as she remembered. He was talking to five young men in a classroom, most likely his students. There was no sound, but he seemed to be instructing them.

“I can’t get the volume to work,” Luke said. He pointed to one of the men. “Is that you, Dr. Beecher?”

Jules nodded. “Yes, the tall skinny lad. It was my first year at Oxford when I met George. We did quite a few of these experiments.”

“You weren’t bad looking,” Monica said. “Like a million years ago.”

Luke tried the volume again. “Forget it. There’s no sound.”

“I can tell you what’s happening.” Jules explained that George had gathered five of his botany students together for an experiment. They were all young men with longish hair and sideburns. They wore turtlenecks and plaid trousers.

“You were going for groovy, huh?” Monica said.

They watched the five students take turns pulling slips of paper from a gray fedora.

“We chose from the hat which of us would play the role of murderer. You see, we’re about to enter a room with two plants. The first is to be the victim and the second, a witness.”

The room on-screen was featureless except for a long table that held two identical dwarf palms, about four feet tall, in heavy pots. Attached to one of the trees was a polygraph. The first student entered the room, staring at the plants. Then he started speaking to them. Awkwardly at first, and then more casually, as if they were old friends.