Blood Test

As I turned the pages, Garland Swope’s fascination with the grotesque, the stillborn, and the deadly evolved before my eyes. It started as theoretical notations about mutations, and rambling hypotheses about their ecological value. Midway through the eleventh volume was the chilling answer Swope found to those questions: “The sublimely repugnant mutations of otherwise mundane species must be evidence of the Creator’s essential hatefulness.”

The notes grew progressively less coherent even as they increased in complexity. At times Swope’s handwriting was so cramped as to be illegible, but I was able to make out most of it — tests of poison content on mice, pigeons, and sparrows; careful selection of deformed fruit for genetic culture; culling of the normal, nurturance of the defective. All part of a patient, methodical search for the ultimate horticultural horror.

Then there was yet another turn in the convoluted journey through Swope’s mind: in the first chapter of Volume XII it appeared he’d dropped his morbid obsessions and gone back to working with annonaceae, concentrating on a species Maimon hadn’t mentioned: a. zingiber. He’d conducted a series of pollinization experiments, carefully listing the date and time of each. Soon, however, the new studies were interrupted by accounts of work with deadly toadstools, foxglove, and dieffenbachia. There was a gleeful emphasis upon the neurotoxic qualities of the last exemplified by a footnote attributing the plant’s common name, dumb cane, to its ability to paralyze the vocal chords.

This pattern of shifting between his pet mutations and the new annona became established by the middle of the thirteenth volume and continued through the fifteenth.

In Volume XVI, the notes took on an optimistic tone as Swope exulted in the creation of “a new cultivar.” Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, a. zingiber was discarded and dismissed as “showing robust breeder potential but lacking any further utility.” I put my strained eyes through another hundred pages of madness and set the binders aside.

The library contained several books on rare fruit, many of them exquisite editions published in Asia. I looked through all of them but could find no reference to annona zingiber. Puzzled, I searched the shelves for suitable reference material and pulled out a thick dog-eared volume titled Botanical Taxonomy.

The answer was at the end of the book. It took a while to comprehend the full meaning of what I’d just read. An unspeakable conclusion but agonizingly logical.

As the insights hit I was seized with acute claustrophobia and grew rigid with tension. Sweat ran down my back. My heart pounded and my breathing quickened. The room was an evil place and I had to get out.

Frantically I gathered up several of the blue cloth binders and placed them in a cardboard box. I carried it and my tools down the ladder, bolted the bedroom, and rushed to the landing. Teetering with vertigo, I ran recklessly down the stairs and crossed the frigid living room with four long strides.

After fumbling with the latch I managed to throw open the front door. I stood on the rotting porch until I caught my breath.

Silence greeted me. I’d never felt so alone.

Without looking back I made my escape.

22

Along with everyone else, I’d dismissed Raoul’s conviction that Woody Swope had been abducted by the Touch. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I’d seen no aberrant crops growing in the gardens of the Retreat, which meant Matthias had lied about buying seeds from the Swopes. On the surface it seemed a petty falsehood, serving no purpose. But habitual liars often lace their stories with demitruths for the sake of realism. Had the guru fabricated a casual connection between his group and the Swopes in order to obscure a deeper relationship?

The lie stuck in my craw. Along with the memory of my first visit to the Retreat, which, in retrospect, seemed suspiciously well orchestrated. Matthias had been too gracious about my intrusion, too pliant and cooperative. For a group that had been described as reclusive, the Touch had been strangely willing to endure scrutiny by a total stranger.

Had the generous welcome meant they had nothing to hide? Or that they had hidden their secret so well that discovery was out of the question.

I thought of Woody and allowed myself the luxury of hope: the boy might still be alive. But for how long? His body was a biochemical minefield ready to explode at any moment.

If Matthias and his cultists had stashed the boy somewhere on their grounds, a more spontaneous inspection was in order.