A. Colucci - Seeders

For a brief moment she missed Colin. What would he think of her now? He would say she was in over her head. She wasn’t strong or brave enough to save her children. She couldn’t even keep a child from falling out of a tree, let alone protect him from a psychopath.

Something was happening to everyone on the island. They were all suffering from delusions. There was no way she had seen her father and Sean on the cliffs. There had to be a logical explanation. It was something about that fungus—if it was a fungus—or maybe Jules was right about the plants reading their thoughts. Either way, she was going to find an answer. Somewhere in the lab among George’s work, there had to be an explanation, and maybe her education in botany was enough to figure out what was happening. There was no time to waste. By Wednesday, they might all be under this spell of the island.

She dropped the planks of wood and a box of nails on the floor. There was enough lumber behind the shed to barricade most of the doors and windows. As for Sean, what could she do? Perhaps with Luke and Monica, she could attack the campsite, but would anyone be hurt or killed? Maybe she should go alone, sneak up on Jules and shoot him. Would Sean even agree to go with her? Just thinking about it made her tremble. Her only hope was that Jules was more interested in putting Sean to work than hurting him. Her son would return to the house at nightfall, like always. For now, she had to figure out the plants or find a way off the island.

Isabelle hurried to the lab. There was no sign of the green notebook. Her eyes darted from counters of plants and microscopes, shelves of books, file cabinets, and piles of paper on the desk. Where to start? She inhaled deeply and hurried to the desk, opening folders that were filled with pages of scientific babble and strip charts.

Her gaze fell on the note Jules had scrawled the previous morning.

Kumbaya .

She focused intently on the word, biting her lip. What could it mean? Was it just nonsense like George’s riddle? She tried to recall their conversation. Jules was scared and warned her to go home, but how could she leave the island? He wrote Kumbaya and Try it.

A thin smile formed across her mouth.

Jules was telling her to make a bonfire. Of course; she should have thought of it days ago. She went to the window and stared at the rocky coastline where her family built fires on cold nights and sang songs. It was directly across from Nova Scotia. Too far to see any blaze, but maybe not for passing boats headed for Halifax. Certainly, it was worth a try. Then it occurred to her: If Jules had wanted her to build a bonfire, why didn’t he just tell her to do it? Perhaps he was so convinced the plants were controlling his mind that he had to write in code in order to fool them. The idea was so outlandish she wondered if maybe her own mind was slipping.

Absurd or not, building a bonfire was worth a shot. There was lumber in back of the shed, but she needed all of it to secure the house. The lab was filled with books and papers that would burn, but not enough to make a roaring blaze. Gathering timber from the woods was out of the question, but there were plenty of fallen sticks behind the house. That would be a good start. She felt heartened already, and took it as a positive sign when she spotted a cigarette lighter on the desk.

The back of the house faced the sea. Isabelle dashed across the lawn to the edge of the island where there was a scattering of trees and a seawall that abruptly dropped ten feet to the full wrath of the ocean. The waves and breakers formed a tempest where boats didn’t dare approach. It was fifty miles to land and on a clear day, the faint outline of Nova Scotia was visible. By sunset, the shining beam from the Liscomb Island lighthouse would blink on and off like a cat’s eye, and on rare nights the city lights of Halifax could be seen. But it would have to be a raging bonfire indeed for anyone to notice flames on Sparrow Island.

Isabelle gathered an armful of dry twigs and driftwood, dropping them in a pile by the sea wall. She slid the lighter from her back pocket and lit the whole pile in a blaze. For a moment she was mesmerized by the smell of smoke and crackle of flames and the memory of fires long ago, when she’d curl up between her father and Jules with the heat on her face and a cold wind at her back.

The fire was already shriveling. There were not enough branches on the ground, so she went back inside the house to fetch other things to burn. In the library, she grabbed whatever looked bulky and flammable: two fat throw pillows and a wooden end table. She dragged them outside and set them on the cinders. The pillows exploded into flames, igniting the edges of the table.

By the time Isabelle lugged a small Oriental rug and a silk wall hanging outside, there was a decent blaze going. The wind was changing direction and dragging the smoke over the island toward the house. She threw the rug on the fire, which seemed to smother the flames for a moment, but then suddenly it was all ablaze and black smoke poured over the house and fields of ryegrass. Isabelle coughed as it engulfed her. She threw the silk art onto the heap and then ran to the sea wall, eyes burning from the toxic cloud.

There was not much fire, but a terrifying amount of smoke and the black plume could probably be seen quite far. Unfortunately there wasn’t a boat in sight, and as the wind changed direction, the smoke fell east over the island instead of west toward Canada. It occurred to Isabelle that Jules might see the smoke rising and return to the house. The rifle was resting on the ground and she picked it up.

She watched the sea for a long time, imagining a boat, willing it to appear. Finally, a speck flickered on the horizon. It was tiny, and too far out to tell for certain, but what else could it be? The smoke died down and the wind pushed it to sea. Isabelle rushed to the house, grabbing more cushions and a few fat books. The fire was a smoldering pile of chemicals but no flame, and she threw the items into the ashes. She coughed deep from her lungs and looked out to sea. The speck was getting smaller.

“Come back,” she whispered.

Help me, George.

Standing at the island’s edge, engulfed in the smoke, she felt trapped and realized it was a feeling that was far too familiar. Trapped on an island. Trapped in her mother’s house. Trapped in a marriage. It was a pattern that had cost her dearly and one she was determined never to repeat. As soon as she got off this damn island there would be changes, big changes, and she was never going to walk helplessly into a trap again.

Isabelle squared her shoulders. Getting her children to safety was all that mattered and she would succeed or die trying.

She looked out to sea. The speck was gone.

JULES DUG UP BEACH GRASS, carefully loosening the soil with a boning knife and tugging gently on the roots so they wouldn’t break. The wind kicked up and the spray of the sea was cold on his naked back. There was not much time and many species to collect, more than half of the 128 mentioned in the green notebook. He might have to make do with what he and Sean had already gathered.

The chatter had been loud all day, irritating, so Jules didn’t notice the sound of the boat until it had breached the inlet. He rose from his squatting position, roots dangling from his hands. He grumbled angrily, expecting to see the Coast Guard boat three days too early. Instead, it was the Acadia scuttling up to the dock. Jules dropped the plants into a bag and pulled up the leg of his trousers. He stuck the knife back into its sheath that was tied to his ankle and picked up a spear from the sand.

Captain Flannigan was alone on the vessel. He climbed down from the bridge to throw out a couple of docking lines as the boat drifted into the berth, rocking on small swells. He smiled through his russet beard as Jules approached, but then his sparkling blue eyes narrowed and his grin turned upside down. This was not the clean-cut gentleman he’d dropped off a week ago, but a poor rendition of prehistoric man. He was shirtless and filthy, with a stoic expression on a bearded face.