A. Colucci - Seeders

Luke felt himself slipping away.

“Just a little longer… there you go, Luke… good boy… that’s it.”

Isabelle got to her feet, shaken and pained. The boat was being swept along in the riptide, headed full speed to the jetty. She grabbed the wheel but it was futile. They were caught in the churning waters. She broke for the ladder.

On deck, Jules was at the bow, leaning over something and pressing down hard. Isabelle felt her blood pressure surge as she made her way aft, and saw he was hunched over a fishing net, with Luke’s unmoving legs under Jules’s weight.

Isabelle jumped on Jules’s back and her leg felt the stab of a broken arrow through her pants. Jules threw back his shoulders and stood up, spinning around, but Isabelle hung on. He flipped her over and she slammed backward onto a bench, knocking the wind out of her lungs with a cry of pain.

Jules stood over her, steaming with rage. He lifted a fist ready to pound her when the boat lurched, hitting the full wrath of the ocean and casting the boat nearly on its side. Jules lost his balance and grabbed the rail.

Isabelle hung on too, afraid of being pitched into the roiling sea.

There was a loud gasp of air knocked from Jules’s lungs and then she saw Luke tackle him, pushing him overboard.

Jules clung to the rail, feet dangling in the water.

Luke was still woozy, coughing and tripping over his feet side to side. The boat was closing in fast on the jetty and Jules was struggling to get on deck, one foot already secure, when Isabelle grabbed Luke from behind.

“Jump!” she yelled over the roar of waves, and they both went overboard with a splash.

With a sudden turn of current, the Acadia drifted away from the jetty. It looped around the rocks and got caught up in the surge of breakers headed toward the cliffs.

Isabelle and Luke exploded to the surface, coughing and treading water, trying to stay afloat. It was frigidly cold and Isabelle swam to her son, feeling her arm muscles growing stiff and weak.

Luke pulled off his jacket, hooked an arm around his mother, and swam hard. They went under and then over the waves, making slow progress toward the jetty. His mind flashed to Monica saving his life and for a moment he thought of giving up.

Isabelle was able to swim the last few feet on her own. Panting and exhausted, they clung to a slippery black rock, half in, half out of the water as the surf tried to pull them back. At last they lifted themselves on shaky legs. Luke took loud breaths, coughing and wheezing. They could see the Acadia approach the rocky shoreline beneath the cliffs. They watched the boat crash into pieces.

TWO DAYS LATER, Isabelle sat in the library drunk with fatigue, rifle in hand, staring out the shattered window to the patio. Tentacles of white mist floated into the room, remnants of a thick fog that blanketed the island.

Her mind drifted in and out, between moments of haze and clarity. Sometimes the world was a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes as if she’d never seen it clearly before, and Isabelle would experience inner peace of great magnitude, followed by severe headaches that felt as if something were suctioning out her brain, and she would wake up on the floor of the laboratory covered in sweat and pine needles. There were times when she was lucid, acutely aware of what had happened over the last week, the waxen faces of Monica and Ginny etched in her mind, and those were the worst times of all, although they came less often.

Luke ambled across the floor in a semi-stupor. He announced in a hollow voice that it was time to gather the plants. “The boat is coming today.”

Isabelle sat up straight in the chair. The boat. Was it already Wednesday? She had lost track of time. Colin would be arriving with the Coast Guard, and that was good, wasn’t it?

She felt a sudden urge to look for Sean, to find out if Jules was dead, finish him off with her last bit of strength and wait for the boat back to Halifax. But, as always, her thoughts turned to vapor. Each time she tried to formulate a plan of escape, the ideas slipped out of reach like a passing breeze. After the Acadia crashed, she and Luke had searched the woods for Sean, but gradually, the longing for her son eased.

She leaned back in the chair and wiped moisture from her forehead. The fog had arrived with a warm front, and for once she wasn’t cold. Isabelle still wore the same mud-drenched clothes she fell asleep in two nights ago and now they crackled with hardened clay. It looked like she’d been marooned for months, instead of days. She could feel the tug of muddy knots in her hair and smell the fetid odor of her body.

Luke blinked with vacant eyes. “Mom, if you let go, it feels better.”

Don’t let go, Luke, she wanted to tell him, never stop fighting . But the words wouldn’t come.

“I think we should gather the plants now,” he repeated, because it felt good. “The boat will be coming soon. We’ll need the boat.”

You’ve got to keep your wits about you, she tried to say, but instead she uttered the only words that felt right. “Let’s find your brother and help with the reaping.”

They walked through the woods to the campsite in silence. From behind a cloak of evergreens they could see Sean and Jules placing specimens onto a tarp. For some reason, Isabelle wasn’t surprised to see Jules or her son, and their actions made perfect sense. After the boat sank, they’d had to start the harvest all over. Fungus-infected saplings, ferns, flowering plants, and creeping vines had been carefully dug from their roots, wrapped in plastic, and placed on the canvas ready for transport, along with bags of seed.

Isabelle quietly watched Jules work. She raised the rifle and wondered why she didn’t just shoot him. It would be so easy. She lowered the gun; the thought was already gone.

Jules was no longer covered in filth. He looked more presentable in a clean pair of jeans and his skin scrubbed raw. He had put on a new shirt so the bullet wound was hidden, and the arrow was missing from his back. Perhaps because he had no mirror, Jules did nothing about his ghastly face. The black bumps covered its entirety, as well as most of his neck. They were elongated and had a glossy sheen.

Jules walked with a limp, but seemed fit and lively.

Sean too had cleaned up, but like Jules the velutinous bumps had spread quickly down his left cheek. It gave Isabelle a chill, but she didn’t react.

Luke tugged his mother’s sleeve and whispered, “Shall we help them?”

A motor sounded in the distance, turning everyone’s attention toward the beach.

Jules and Sean put down their tools and set off for the inlet.

“We should follow them,” Luke said.

Isabelle nodded, fighting the urge to pick up a tray of plants.

The swells from the storm had passed, and the water was smooth as glass. The fog was blowing out to sea and a vivid blue sky stretched over the inlet.

A small Coast Guard boat headed toward the beach, flying the flag of Canada. Even from a distance Isabelle could tell it was Colin at the bow. He was tall and wide-shouldered, standing firm against a gust of wind.

She watched Jules, crouched in position from his hiding place in the woods, spying on the boat and signaling Sean to move out. Sean stepped out of the tree cover and walked up the beach as the boat pulled into the slip.

Colin waved to his son and jumped onto the dock. The Coast Guard officer handed him a rope to tie up the boat. The sun was shining warm on the beach, so Colin secured the boat and then took off his jacket. Isabelle noticed he was wearing a holstered gun and felt a twinge of calm. He spoke to the Coast Guard, who pointed to a path in the woods, seeming to offer directions to the house. Then he handed Colin a travel bag, which he threw over his shoulder.