“Of course. The answer to the riddle is the sun.”
They both stared at the next line. Isabelle rolled it around in her head. “How is the sun protector of all who think?”
“Maybe they can only get in your head at night.”
“I don’t know. We’ve had plenty of trouble in daylight.”
They thought in silence for a moment.
Luke shrugged. “Why did George bother to write a riddle? Why didn’t he just explain what he meant?”
“Because he couldn’t. George had lost control of his mind, so he told us in the only way possible. The same way Jules told me to make a bonfire.”
“Huh?”
“Jules wanted me to signal for help, but he was too far gone to say the words. He told me about the bonfire in a sort of code, like a riddle.” She listened to the sound of silence. “The rain is letting up. We should leave now.”
“I’m not going with Sean.”
“You don’t have to.” Isabelle was looking desperately out the window, and her voice cracked. “We’ve lost him.”
CHAPTER 36
THE BEACH WAS LITTERED with seaweed and driftwood that had washed up during the storm. Luke squinted at a gray sky, where the sun was trying to seep through the haze. He carried a small bag of supplies, while Isabelle shouldered the rifle.
They walked down the gangway to the Acadia, rocking in the swells. They approached the boat cautiously and stopped, listening for movement on board. Isabelle opened the latch to the swing door. She let out a gasp of horror.
Captain Flannigan’s body was pushed under a bench, his shirt pulled over his white belly. He’d been filleted down the middle by a knife, with two horizontal cuts that exposed a pink pile of loosely packed intestines that spilled from the cavity onto the deck in an enormous puddle of blood.
Isabelle pushed Luke back a few paces and turned her head from the ghastly sight. A sound came from her throat, and Luke held her steady for a moment.
“I’m okay,” she said. “We need to move him.”
Isabelle and Luke each took a leg and dragged the body onto the dock, the entrails starting to unravel. They boarded the boat, stepping over the blood pool. On deck they found stacks of wooden pallets and lobster traps that contained hundreds of plant specimens.
Isabelle turned around and scanned the line of trees down the beach. “We have to hurry. They’ll probably be back soon.” She gave the rifle to Luke and told him to untie the dock lines and stand guard while she started the engine. Then she climbed the ladder and peeked over the bridge, relieved to see it was empty. The boat rolled slightly on a wave as she moved forward to the captain’s chair.
The key was in the ignition. It hadn’t even occurred to Isabelle that she’d need a key but now she gave a silent prayer of thanks. A slight turn started the motor. It sputtered loudly for a moment, and then purred while the gauge needles spun around. She flipped on the radio, surfing the channels. There was only static, but she tuned in channel sixteen.
“Hello? This is the Acadia. Can anyone hear me?”
* * *
Luke put the rifle down and squatted on the dock next to the captain’s body, hastily unwinding the first line from its cleat. A flash of movement shifted his eyes to the woods.
Jules emerged from the trees holding a heavy pallet. He took one look at the boat and stopped short on the sand, dropped the plants, and raced down the beach.
Luke saw him and jumped on board, shouting to the bridge, “Mom, go!”
Isabelle hit full throttle and the boat lurched, but it was still tied up at the bow.
“Hold on!” Luke vaulted over the rail and struggled with the second rope. The sound of heavy boots pounding down the gangway made him fumble, but he finally freed the line. As the boat drifted from its berth, he jumped aboard again, holding tight to the rail for balance. He turned to see Jules storming toward the rifle.
“Damn,” he whispered, looking for cover, but Jules didn’t stop to pick up the gun. He was going full speed and Luke scurried backward as the engine revved and the boat pulled out of the mooring.
Jules leapt eight feet over the water and landed on deck, into the captain’s blood. He slid across the floor and smashed against the pallets.
Luke heard the crack of bones and wood.
Jules moaned and rolled on his side. There was still half an arrow sticking out of his back. He rose to his feet, standing up straight and expanding his huge bare chest. A strip of cloth was wrapped around the gunshot wound in his shoulder and another where Luke had stabbed him in the leg. His nose had doubled in size and his eyes were badly bruised. Cuts and patches of black had invaded most of his face and a shard of glass stuck out of his neck.
How can he be alive? Luke thought, gaping.
Jules charged at the boy, tackling him to the floor. They slammed into the pallets, sending the plants overboard. Jules kicked Luke in the gut and watched him curl in pain. He pulled his leg back again, but the boat lurched and Luke grabbed his foot before the next blow hit. He tugged and twisted, sending Jules backward into the stack of pallets.
Another tray of plants went sailing overboard, plunging the specimens into the depths. Jules rushed to the side, watching the green leaves vanish. He turned, growling like an animal and running after the boy.
Luke fumbled down the starboard side of the boat, knocking stacks of lobster traps onto the floor behind him, trying to slow Jules down. He had nearly reached the stern when his feet caught on something and he fell onto a soft mound. It was a knee-high pile of fishing net and he kicked his feet out of the holes and got back up. Jules was scrambling over obstacles with fury in his face, and there was nowhere for Luke to run. He looked around for something else to throw, but there was nothing. He grabbed the fishing net with both hands and tried to pick it up but it was a tangled mess. The ropes were brittle, covered in algae and hooks. He managed to haul a clump of it over his head. But it was too late.
Jules lunged at him, and they both fell backward on the deck, the heavy net covering Luke’s body. The boy squirmed to get free but his hands and knees got more tangled in the holes. Jules had all his weight on the boy, straddling his legs and pinning his arms down. Luke tried to kick but he could barely move; he was caught like a fish.
Jules tore the bandage off his own shoulder and pressed the bloody cloth over the boy’s mouth and nose. Luke tried to scream but the thick cloth cut off his air. The enormous hand covered half his face. Luke looked up and saw the face of Jules leaning closer to him, just inches from his cheek. His voice was raspy but calm.
“It’s okay, son. Just let it happen.”
There was something in the man’s eyes and his voice that frightened Luke even more than not being able to breathe.
“You can’t fight it. Better you let it happen.”
Over Jules’s shoulder, Luke saw the boat was spinning like crazy—or was he just dizzy? He needed air badly, just one breath. He was in full-blown panic and began to struggle wildly. It was worse than drowning.
Jules sounded pleased. “Come on now. We’re almost there.”
There was a whirring in Luke’s ears as he was plunging into blackness. He struggled to kick and Jules pressed harder on the bandage.
“Almost there … here we go.”
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.
CHAPTER 37
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.
Isabelle and Luke both moved in closer, staying low behind the cover of brush. Both of them stared at Colin in anticipation of something about to happen.
Luke whispered, “Who’s gonna kill him?”
Isabelle looked at him shocked, and lowered the rifle.
“We need the boat.” He crawled closer to the edge of the woods.
Isabelle followed and nearly tripped over a leg. Captain Flannigan was lying on his side in the dirt. He was half covered with dried leaves and flies buzzed over the gaping black hole under his rib cage.
Luke took hold of the spear and tugged, letting out a small grunt. The barbed end came out with a squishing sound.
Isabelle looked wide-eyed at her son.
“I may need it,” he said matter-of-factly.
She turned her attention to Colin on the dock. He was investigating the pallets of plants stacked up to his waist when Sean approached the boat. His father greeted him with an awkward hug and pointed to the pallets, but Sean shrugged as if he’d never seen
them before.
Isabelle felt her heart quicken when Colin grabbed Sean by the sleeve and inspected the side of his face. He must have been complaining about the fungus, thinking it was dirt. Then he noticed a knife in Sean’s belt and tried to take it away.
Sean dodged his grip and jumped onto the beach, casually sat down and threw sand in the water. Colin shook his head and set off down the trail toward the house.
Isabelle saw Jules slip from his hiding place and follow her husband. “You wait here,” she told Luke and set off to trail both men.
Colin trudged through the woods, disgusted with the snarled path, dodging fallen logs and swiping at low-hanging branches as though they were mosquitoes. The cumbersome shoulder bag kept snagging on vines and he had to continually switch sides. When he reached the fork he stopped, looking right and left, and then continuing along the red trail.
That’s when Jules broke away, heading into a thicket of brush and leaving Isabelle wondering what he was up to.
She stayed far enough behind Colin so he couldn’t hear her footfalls. It was strange; the emotions she expected upon seeing her husband never came. She trailed him with indifference and a driving curiosity as to what would happen to him, and the nauseating feeling that she would somehow be involved.
The woods ended and Colin faced a blue unbroken sky, fields of golden grass, and a house much grander than expected. He settled his hands firmly on his hips, smiling and nodding his head in astonishment, seeming pleased with the estate. Then he started up the path with a livelier spring in his step.
Isabelle could feel her mind wandering toward someplace dark and she fought to stay in control as her husband reached the patio. Something was prodding her to relax, and she gave in to the pressure for just a moment, shocked at a sudden urge to kill her husband.
Just shoot him with the rifle. She raised the crosshair to one eye. Then swiftly threw the weapon to the ground. Colin reached the house and stood in front of the gaping hole where the window to the library had shattered, scratching the back of his head. He turned around, looking suspiciously in every direction.
Seeders: A Novel Page 26