Seeders: A Novel

by A. J. Colucci

  She pushed open the drapes, letting in sunlight and illuminating years of dust that swirled and hovered over the furniture. Memories flooded back, yet at the same time the house was a stranger. She didn’t remember the dreary bleakness of the place. The Persian rugs were thick with grime and the furniture smelled moldy from salt and dampness. She recalled her father, always practical, had suggested white wicker but her mother insisted on comfort and luxury.

  Sean was sitting on the parquet floor at the foot of a bookcase that covered an entire wall. He was surrounded by piles of old clothbound books pulled from the shelves, some of George’s favorite authors: Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Dickens. He’d loved poetry and there were collections by Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and beatnik poets who were part of the British revival in the sixties: Roy Fisher and Allen Ginsberg.

  Isabelle sat down beside Sean and rested her chin on his shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and angled her head to read the title of the book in his hands, Captain Courageous. “Oh, that’s a good one.”

  He curled up his legs and rested against Isabelle’s chest like a baby, never taking his eyes off the page. His hand reached back and stroked her cheek. It was how they spent many evenings after the accident when there were so many sleepless nights. She kissed the top of his shaggy hair and made a mental note to give him a trim as soon as they got home.

  Isabelle knew the books would occupy Sean for hours, so she got back on her feet and continued the house tour, moving under the ornately sculpted archway into the great hall near the bottom of a curved staircase. Upstairs were six bedrooms that would have to be explored later. For now, she carried on with the inspection of the ground floor, peeking behind doors. A laundry and maids’ quarters were both empty except for piles of rubbish on the floor. A storage room was stacked high with old furniture, books, and cardboard boxes covered in thick dust. She warily opened the door to her beloved music room, where her father had played his cello and her mother accompanied him on piano, with young Isabelle doing her best to keep up on a small violin. The piano was gone and the empty cello case lay open and grieving. There was nothing else in the room but a broken music stand.

  It was clear from inspection: The house had not been cared for. Everything was coated in water stains and mildew. There were cracks in all the walls and peeling paint on the ceilings. It would take weeks to clean and months to restore, a project she decided would not be attempted on this trip.

  At last Isabelle found herself in front of her father’s laboratory. To Isabelle, this room was George. She took a deep breath, pushed open the doors, and the collapse of her initial excitement was complete. Gone was the sparkling white, high-tech room she remembered. The walls of the lab were sloppily painted in mustard yellow and the counters were bare of any scientific equipment. The metal cabinets were rusted and dull, and an old-fashioned sink hung lopsided and dripping. Pots of wilted plants were stuffed in boxes that filled the room with a warm, fetid smell.

  Beside the back door, an old terrarium contained dirt, but nothing more. Isabelle squinted, imagining a little girl with a thin ponytail peering into the tank, cradling a tiny box with one hand and scooping away dirt with the other, burying her beloved toad behind a Venus flytrap. “It’s also a cemetery,” she said, and a slender man in a white jacket stepped behind her, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. His soothing voice whispered in her ear, “I think that’s lovely. Every terrarium ought to have a graveyard. Are you sure you’d rather not feed him to your carnivorous friend in there?” The girl replied, “Oh no, he needs a proper burial.”

  Isabelle blinked away the memory and found herself standing once again in the bleak laboratory. The voice of her father sounded all too real, and at the same time completely wrong. There was something dreadfully wrong about the whole place, something unsettling about the house and the entire island. Growing up it had seemed crisp and clean, flourishing with life, excitement, and adventure. Now there was an eerie gloominess everywhere, an almost malignant force.

  “This is much better than we found it.”

  Isabelle startled as Bonacelli eased up behind her.

  “I paid a service to clean up the mess. Not the best job, but you should have seen it before.”

  “I can imagine.” She gazed over the rest of the room and her eyes fell on an empty gun rack on the wall. “What happened to the rifle?”

  “It’s in the hall closet. I put it there myself. Of course you’ll want to keep it away from the children and out of Coast Guard view as well. Firearms are illegal if you don’t have a license.”

  She didn’t remember her father ever touching that gun.

  “We should get started,” he said, and led her toward the study. Halfway down the hall was the sound of an unfamiliar voice.

  “Is there someone else here?” Isabelle asked.

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you. Your father named two others in his will.”

  * * *

  Isabelle stopped at the open doorway. Both guests were having tea in the study: an elderly woman rummaging through a desk and an extremely tall, middle-aged man standing by the fireplace. She recognized Jules Beecher right away and was overwhelmed by the sight of him.

  His long arm stretched across the mantel as he leaned down, stoking the flames with an iron poker. Jet-black hair fell slightly over his face and the firelight flickered across a handsome profile. Jules turned to Isabelle as if he sensed her coming through the door, and they stared at one another, surprised and breathless.

  Bonacelli introduced Isabelle as George’s daughter. “This is Professor Jules Beecher, whom you already know, and Miss Ginny Shufflebottom, a friend of your father’s from England.”

  Ginny offered a reluctant smile and went back to ransacking the desk.

  Jules opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He hastily turned back to the fire, tapping the log with the poker, sending sparks up the flue.

  “Have some tea and a bite to eat,” Bonacelli suggested to Isabelle. “We’ll start as soon as I get my papers in order.”

  She walked to a silver tray and poured a steaming cup of tea. There were so many memories of her father in the study; a giant globe he used to teach her geography, a calabash pipe that had belonged to his father, a ladybug paperweight that Isabelle made from a rock when she was five. There was a framed map of Sparrow Island on the wall, which her father had sketched. He was a good artist and the drawing was the first time she’d seen the island in its entirety. It was the first time she realized her world was very small.

  Isabelle looked across the room at Jules, a man who’d spent two years on the island with her family. She had been merely a child and he’d been twenty-two, but she thought he was brilliant and handsome, and she’d had a heart-wrenching crush on him at the time. Standing by the fire, he looked as though he hadn’t changed much. Still tall and attractive in an ill-fitting dark suit, although now he was much broader in stature and seemed more solemn than she remembered. A little gray at the temples. Isabelle couldn’t help feeling a twinge of attraction.

  The elderly woman slammed a drawer, giving Isabelle a start. A friend of her father’s whom she’d met only once, Ginny looked to be in her late sixties, but quite fit and feisty. She was a diminutive woman with a pasty complexion, but her blue eyes sparkled and her even features implied that she was once quite pretty.

  Her frilly lavender dress seemed more suitable for a party.

  Isabelle watched Ginny approach Bonacelli as he opened his briefcase on the desk. She whispered something in his ear with a girlish expression and thrust her lip in a pout. The lawyer shook his head and walked to a cabinet, returning with a bottle of whiskey and discreetly pouring a shot in her teacup. She swayed into him, spilling a drop.

  Isabelle put a hand to her mouth and smiled.

  Luke and Monica came into the study and went straight for the fruit cake as Ginny watched with a scornful eye, gaping at Monica, who was dressed in the usual skimpy leather and
black makeup.

  It seemed as though the elderly woman was about to reproach the girl but instead she teetered toward Isabelle, scrutinizing her from head to toe. “My dear Isabelle, didn’t you turn out to be a pretty little thing? You look nothing like your mother.”

  Isabelle swallowed hard. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “I’m surprised you even remember me, although I have aged quite well, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for an answer but raised a gesturing hand. “Is that your son and … daughter?”

  “That’s my son, Luke. Monica is just a friend.”

  “Well. How lucky for your gene pool.”

  Isabelle took a moment to respond. “I didn’t realize you and my father were close.”

  “Close? Why, we were lovers for thirteen years. George should have told you. Heavens, I hope there won’t be any feuding over the will. You should know George wanted to marry me.”

  Isabelle wished she had the courage to walk away.

  Then Ginny looked terribly sad and pulled a tissue from the sleeve of her dress, dabbing her dry eyes. “You probably don’t know this, but I gave that man everything I had. I financed his work and paid to keep this entire island running.” The expression of sorrow turned into an angry grin. “Bloody fool, I was. Now I’m practically destitute and my only hope is to recoup my losses from this estate.”

  “It was nice of you to be there for him.”

  “Well, his entire family left him. What else could I do?”

  Isabelle watched Ginny teeter off, baffled by how George could have loved such a woman. Then she remembered her own mother, a far cry from courteous.

  “Don’t mind her,” a voice spoke from behind.

  “Oh, Dr. Beecher.”

  “Jules. It’s nice to see you again, Isabelle.” He realized the circumstances and cleared his throat. “I mean…”

  “Yes, I know. Do you have any idea…?”

  Jules shook his head and gazed out the window. Isabelle was struck by the beauty of his face in the light, his soothing voice.

  “It’s an awfully lonely island for one person,” he said.

  “Did you visit at all?”

  “No. You?”

  She shook her head.

  His chin gestured to Ginny. “She’s a pip, that one. Going on about her finances, how she funded George. I can tell you she pursued him like a starving cat after a defenseless mouse.” His teeth clenched in anger. “George was very good to her, far better than she deserved.”

  Isabelle was puzzled by his ire and wondered if it was part jealousy. After her divorce, Isabelle’s mother made some scathing allegations about George and Dr. Beecher, although such rumors were hard to believe.

  “Would you like some more tea?” Jules said, raising his empty cup.

  “No, thank you.”

  He excused himself and Isabelle watched him walk to the tea cart, thinking about the flurry of rumors that surrounded George and how they conflicted with the man she’d known and loved. To her best recollection, her father had radiated integrity and warmth. He had never been without a smile and almost everything he said was funny. Still, she couldn’t deny the frightening moments she witnessed in later years, his tendency to sink into bouts of depression and fits of rage. A drug habit that made him see things that weren’t there—dangerous, scary things that caused him to scream out at night. How could a ten-year-old possibly understand such behavior? It occurred to Isabelle that perhaps she’d never really known her father at all.

  * * *

  “This is gross.” Monica picked out tiny cubes of bright-colored fruit from her cake.

  Luke sat beside her, sipping tea and playing Tetris on his smartphone.

  “Hey, can you call Canada for takeout?” she asked him. “I’d kill for an egg roll.”

  “There’s no connection from here.”

  “What games you got?” She grabbed the phone, pressing all the buttons. “Probably a lot of brainy crap. Yep. I was right.”

  Luke took the phone back, eavesdropping on a conversation between Jules and Bonacelli. He shook his head slowly. “I should have been British. They sound so—civilized.”

  “You mean wimpy. Sure, you’d fit in.”

  Ginny flounced by, swirling the hem of her dress and falling into a chair beside the couch. She smiled at Luke through sleepy lids. Then her gaze found Monica and she scowled.

  “I think Mary Poppins just gave me the evil eye,” Monica whispered.

  “Don’t start,” Luke replied.

  Ginny turned up a penciled brow. “In my day, a girl was more appealing when she showed less, not more.”

  Monica’s lips curled slightly. “You know, I bet I could learn a lot from you. My friend here was just saying, you’re a total fox in that dress.”

  Luke closed his eyes, trying to disappear.

  Ginny nodded and a grin stretched across her face. “I used to attract the local boys like horseflies. All it takes is the tiniest gesture; a slight lift of the skirt, a glimpse of the knee.”

  “Think I’m gonna hurl,” Monica muttered.

  Luke shushed her.

  “You’re George’s grandson?” Ginny asked him with an alluring smile.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I see the resemblance. You have his lovely blue eyes and a quiet intelligence about you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Monica muttered softly, “She’s totally into you.”

  “Have you started college?”

  “No, ma’am. Not for three more years.”

  “You have some aptitude for science?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I enjoy science a lot.”

  She looked pleased. “Good. There’s nothing that attracts a woman more than an intelligent brain.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Monica sputtered.

  “Quality women,” Ginny clarified. She narrowed her eyes at the girl. “Does your mother know you dress like that?”

  Monica reddened. “My mom spent, like, twenty years as a designer in Paris. This happens to be the latest in French fashion.”

  Ginny’s eyes grew wide and she smiled. “So you’re of French lineage?” She nodded knowingly. “Now I understand. It’s that French-American mix that’s so … tawdry.”

  Monica looked puzzled.

  Ginny spoke to Luke. “You really should think about continuing your education at a proper university in England, like your grandfather.”

  “Yeah, that would be super expensive.”

  “You can’t put a price on knowledge. George spent every penny he had on scientific discovery. Most women would be appalled, but I find that kind of dedication and curiosity to be very attractive in a man.” She looked at him sideways and pursed her lips.

  “Yeah, she wants you,” Monica whispered. “I say you hit that thing.”

  Luke lowered his forehead to his fist.

  Bonacelli asked everyone to be seated for the reading of the will.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE LAWYER PEERED DOWN at the desk through small reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, and then looked up at the faces before him. “George’s will is dated the third of March, six years ago. I can assure you he was of sound mind at the time. Since he had renounced his British citizenship, the document has been prepared according to Canadian law.”

  “Oh, get to it,” Ginny said, scowling.

  Bonacelli gave her a sharp look. He cleared his throat and began reading in a formal manner. “‘This is the last will and testament of me, George Elliot Brookes, a resident of Halifax, in the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada. I hereby revoke all former wills, codicils, and other testamentary dispositions made by me. I nominate, constitute, and appoint my daughter, Isabelle Lydia Maguire, to be the Estate Trustee of this, my will.’”

  The lawyer’s tone softened. “‘Before bequeathing my property, I wish to thank everyone for coming to Sparrow Island when I’m sure you would have rather not. However, I know that in retrospect you’ll all agree that the isl
and holds a special place in your hearts and sharing the experience together one last time can only be a good thing. I want you each to remember me, especially Isabelle, during fonder days when all we had was this island, and each other.’”

  Ginny gave an impatient sigh, loud enough to make the lawyer take pause. He found his place and continued. “‘To my daughter, Isabelle Brookes Maguire, I give, devise, and bequeath all of my possessions of every nature and kind, including the property known as Sparrow Island, but excluding any and all properties listed hereafter.’

  “‘To my friend and associate, Jules Beecher, I leave all of my research, textbooks, and equipment that comprise my laboratory, in hopes he will continue the work to which I’ve devoted most of my life.’

  “‘To my dear friend, Ginny Shufflebottom, for all her financial support, I leave my undying gratitude—’”

  “Gratitude?” Ginny squealed. “Bloody hell.”

  “If you please, I’m not finished. ‘For her uncompromising faith in my work, I leave to Ginny my most valuable possession, a red diamond known as the Crimson Star.’”

  Right away, Ginny perked up and pulled back her shoulders. “Well … that’s more like it.” She sniffed into a tissue. “Poor, dear George. Please go on, Mr. Bonacelli.”

  “That’s it. The entire will.”

  Ginny seemed to sober up quite suddenly, her eyes focused and alert. “Well, then, I’d like to see the diamond immediately.”

  Bonacelli leaned back in his chair with a deep breath and slow blink of his eyes, as if there were bad news coming. “There’s a slight problem,” he said.

  “What do you mean problem?”

  He took off his glasses and folded them neatly. “For the past five years, George had been going on about an important discovery he made; one which he claimed would change the world.”

  Jules was instantly alert. “Did he say what kind of discovery?”

  “I have no idea what it was.”

  “He must have mentioned something.”

  “You might find some of his research in the laboratory. I do know he was very excited and said he’d found what he’d been searching for his whole life. However, two years ago, when I came for a visit, he was showing signs of mental illness; rage and confusion. He refused to leave the island.