Bloom Read online

  He rounded the first corner, dripping out his line of fire, and it still didn’t seem like the flames were doing much. But about halfway along he heard a sound like a giant balloon being burst. Looking back, he saw stalks of black grass igniting, one after another, like rows of giant Roman candles. Flames shot skyward. The smoke was black and yellow. Was that normal? With great huffs and cracks, the fire hurried toward him in a blazing wall, and he picked up speed, the drip torch lighting a trail after him.

  He thought he heard Mr. Antos shouting from across the field, but the dragon roar of flames was now too loud to make out words—and the grass was too high to see across. The sweat on his neck suddenly cooled as the wind hit it. He glanced up at the thick plume of smoke hanging over the field, and saw it flatten like an anvil, then pour down away from him, toward the opposite side of the field—and Mr. Antos.

  Seth rounded the corner to the field’s far side and didn’t see Mr. Antos coming toward him. He should’ve been here by now.

  “Mr. Antos!”

  The smoke was wafting toward him now. He heard Maddox barking. Staggering around the corner came Mr. Antos, holding his sleeve across his face. He stumbled and fell. The smoke thickened and crashed down over him.

  Seth ran blindly into the smoke. He’d never smelled anything like it. His eyes streamed. He squinted and kept going. The wind shifted direction again, and the smoke cleared for a moment. He almost tripped over Mr. Antos, sprawled on the ground and making a terrible sound.

  “Mr. Antos!” he shouted, kneeling.

  Mr. Antos’s breath came in wet gasps. He tried to stand up, but teetered. Seth ducked under Mr. Antos’s left arm, and tried to raise him. He felt like his spine might buckle. But his legs straightened and his back didn’t snap, and he raised Mr. Antos up. Together they hobbled toward the house, until Seth couldn’t manage it anymore and they both collapsed to the ground.

  “Sorry, Mr. Antos.”

  Mr. Antos looked confused. His eyes were unnervingly blue, and Seth realized it was because his pupils had contracted to tiny needle points. Maddox appeared from the smoke and circled anxiously, barking. Seth looked back and saw the molten stack of smoke sliding toward them again. He had to get Mr. Antos farther away.

  Teetering, he tried to heft him up again. Suddenly Mrs. Antos was taking her husband’s other arm. Seth felt a huge weight lifted. Mrs. Antos could lift anything and her husband was no exception. They hurried him toward the house.

  Another thin wash of smoke blew over them. Mrs. Antos was coughing now, too, her eyes streaming. Seth’s eyes were teary, but didn’t even sting. He felt okay. By the time they hauled Mr. Antos onto the porch, he heard sirens.

  “All right, Gregor,” Mrs. Antos was saying to her husband, her own voice hoarse, “you’re all right. Try to stop coughing. Catch your breath….”

  Seth turned to look back at the field, boiling with smoke and flame. He wondered if it might jump across to the nearby fields or trees—or the house.

  A female firefighter appeared on the porch, kneeling down in front of Mr. Antos and asking questions while checking his blood pressure and pulse. Mrs. Antos had to answer the questions because Mr. Antos was still coughing so much. The firefighter put an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

  “What are you burning?” the firefighter asked.

  “The grass,” Seth said. “The black grass.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  The firefighter’s face flinched at the smell of the smoke. “Masks and oxygen!” she shouted at the two firefighters hurrying toward the field. “Smells like an oil burn.” To Seth and Mrs. Antos she said, “The ambulance is on the way. We’re going to get you inside, okay?”

  Seth looked down to see Mr. Antos’s hand on his arm. It gave a weak squeeze, before falling away. And then they were being hurried into the house as the firefighters uncoiled their hoses, and the field burned and burned.

  “HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW,” Anaya’s father told the people crammed into the community center. “Its spread is worldwide. We’ve seen it growing in tundra, in rain forest. There’s even reports of it in the desert. So far, it’s totally herbicide-resistant. We’ve tried them all. It shares characteristics with a bunch of known plants, but right now the thinking is it’s an entirely new species.”

  Anaya was relieved that Dad managed to use “it” when talking about the black grass today. She wasn’t sure anyone wanted to hear it referred to as “dude” or “fascinating” right now, especially after what had happened at the Antos farm.

  Every chair in the community center was filled, and people jostled along the sides and crunched together at the back. Even with all the windows open, the smell was pretty ripe. Salt Spring was earthy. There were lots of people who didn’t believe in things like deodorant, or soap, or even socks. They believed in composting and damp wool. And meetings. Most of them seemed to love meetings.

  From the sidelines, Anaya watched her father. He was right up front with the island trustees and governing council, sitting behind a long table with flex microphones. Sergeant Sumner, Petra’s mom, was up there, too, representing the RCMP. Scanning the crowd, Anaya caught sight of Seth near the back in his usual hoodie, standing beside Mrs. Antos, who looked pale and weary.

  “Anaya, how are you?” someone asked, and she felt a soft touch on her arm. It was Mr. Sumner and Petra.

  “Oh, hi,” she said. She always felt awkward and sad when she ran into them. Mr. and Mrs. Sumner were always polite to her, and sometimes seemed a bit wistful, like they didn’t understand why she and Petra weren’t friends anymore. Like they didn’t know their own daughter was a disloyal backstabber who’d chucked her aside when she got ugly.

  She lifted her hand at Petra. “Hey.”

  Petra stretched her mouth into a grudging smile.

  “How’s Mr. Antos?” Anaya asked. She figured Mr. Sumner would know since he worked at the hospital.

  “He’s okay. He was very lucky, really. He inhaled a lot of smoke, and it really damaged his lungs. Seth probably saved his life.”

  Anaya glanced back at Seth. Everyone had heard how he’d dragged Mr. Antos clear.

  “We have some stuff we wanted to show your father,” Mr. Sumner said to her. “Some plants Petra found—it might be useful.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Anaya said, and felt relieved when they moved on through the crowd.

  From the front of the hall, her father was saying, “Under no circumstances should you try to burn it—”

  “How come no one told us it was toxic?”

  Anaya looked around, trying to find the person who’d shouted out the question. It was Thom Gutman, who had a farm near Wicked Point. Normally, at meetings people lined up at the mic and patiently waited their turn.

  “We should have known!” someone else shouted.

  Anaya shifted awkwardly—they were almost making it sound like Dad was to blame for what had happened!

  “We didn’t know yet,” he replied.

  Sergeant Sumner leaned into her mic. “We’re imposing a fire ban, effective immediately. We can’t have any more of that stuff set alight.”

  “So, where d’we put it all?” someone else asked. “I’m running out of space!”

  “And it starts rooting again, even after you cut it down!” another person called out. “We need it off our land!”

  “We’re finding a site where you can haul it,” Sergeant Sumner said. “We’ll have that location for you by the end of tomorrow.”

  “What’re we supposed to do about our crops?”

  That was Thom Gutman again.

  “I know this is very hard,” Dad said, “but for now tilling is your only option….” And he started outlining possible ways to save crops.

  Someone tapped her shoulder, and Anaya looked over to see Tereza and Fleetwood.
>
  “I thought you didn’t believe in town meetings,” she whispered to her friend.

  “Fleetwood wanted to come,” Tereza said in her weary drawl. “He has theories.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Fleetwood said.

  Tereza looked at Anaya closely, smiled, and whispered into her ear, “Your face!”

  Anaya flushed with pleasure. The last couple of mornings, when she’d peeked warily at herself in the mirror, her acne looked a bit calmer. There were definitely fewer pimples, and they looked less angry. Also, the skin around her eyes wasn’t nearly so puffy, so you could actually see her eyes.

  Anaya couldn’t help smiling, even though it seemed completely frivolous to be thinking about her complexion right now.

  “We might lose our entire growing season,” a woman in the hall said loudly. “Is the government going to compensate us?”

  “Or feed my goats?” someone else called out. “There’s no grazing for them. They can’t eat that black grass, it’s too spiky.”

  While one of the trustees stuttered out a reply, Anaya noticed Ralph Jenkins step out into the aisle and make his way toward the mic. He was one of the oldest residents of the island, and generally considered a weirdo. He’d built his very own druidic standing stones and rented out his land as a spiritual retreat.

  He tapped the mic, sending a metallic shrill through the hall.

  “My name is Ralph Jenkins,” he said slowly and clearly.

  “Here we go,” murmured Anaya.

  “We know who you are, Ralph!” someone called out, to a few chuckles.

  “There is something you are not telling us,” Ralph Jenkins said, his amplified voice cutting through the chatter. “There is something you’re not telling us and we have a right to know.”

  “I love this guy,” said Tereza, who looked interested for the first time.

  Anaya noticed that Fleetwood was nodding intently.

  “Our government is not telling us where this weed comes from.”

  “Very good point,” said Fleetwood.

  “Because it sure seems to me,” said Ralph Jenkins, “that this weed could only be bioterrorism.”

  There were shouts of agreement, and scattered applause.

  “We want the truth!” someone called out. “This stuff didn’t just come from nowhere!”

  Ralph Jenkins said, “I hear the news like everyone else. The US blames China, and China blames them right back. And then everyone blames North Korea, because they’re so secretive. You’ve got the Middle East blaming people…”

  “Nobody’s blamed Canada yet,” Tereza said wryly. “We’re too nice.”

  “Please, Mr. Riggs,” said Ralph Jenkins, “tell us what you know. Is this something that escaped from your farm, or some other experimental facility?”

  Anaya looked back to her father. He’d been an islander most of his life, and everyone knew and mostly liked him (the guy at the Esso station had a weird hatred of him for some reason). But Dad was also an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture, which was the federal government, and so that meant Dad knew things and kept secrets. Which was ridiculous.

  “Ralph, I can honestly tell you, this plant did not escape from my farm—or any facility in our country. And I know there’s been a lot of finger-pointing in the media, but every country on the planet has been equally hard-hit.”

  “That could just be part of their plan!” Fleetwood whispered.

  “Oh, Fleetwood,” said Tereza.

  “No, seriously,” he said, turning his intense gaze from Tereza to Anaya. “Don’t you think?”

  She smiled back awkwardly, feeling herself blush. Fleetwood hardly ever looked at her.

  “Well, it seems to me,” said Ralph Jenkins, “that unless we can get rid of this stuff, the planet’s not going to be producing much food this year.”

  Anaya chewed on her upper lip. Ralph Jenkins wasn’t sounding so crazy right now. According to Dad, and the news, all across the northern hemisphere farmers were having trouble planting their crops.

  “We’re working on it, Ralph. Not just Canada but every country in the world. We’ll get this stuff under control.”

  “Seriously,” Fleetwood was whispering, “if you wanted to take over the world, you’d make it look like you were infested with black grass, too. So no one suspected you. Right? But you’d actually have the antidote! And when everyone else ran out of food and started to starve, then you’d sell the antidote for a trillion dollars.”

  “That’s a pretty good plan,” Anaya admitted.

  “For a James Bond movie,” Tereza added, then, “Oh my gosh, he’s still talking!”

  “And I can’t be the only person here,” Ralph Jenkins rambled on, “who noticed that all this stuff started growing right after that big rain we had.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Jenkins,” said Dad, “you’re saying the rain—”

  “Very next day, up it comes! Is that a coincidence? I think not. I did predict this, of course, in my podcast last year….”

  People started telling him to sit down. Eventually Ralph threw up his hands in disgust and stalked off.

  “I think Mr. Jenkins might be right,” said a voice near the front, and with astonishment Anaya realized it was Petra. There she was, walking up to the mic with perfect poise.

  That took guts, Anaya thought grudgingly. Then again, Petra had always loved being the center of attention. When they were little, they were both bossy, but Petra usually managed to end up with the best crayons, the best action figure, the best part in the basement plays they’d put on. She loved being in front of people—but what on earth was she doing right now?

  “I think the seeds were inside the rain,” Petra said.

  The crowd was very quiet suddenly.

  “Whoa,” Tereza mouthed to Anaya. “Hot gossip.”

  “What makes you say that, Petra?” Anaya heard Dad ask.

  “I collected some of it, the rain, because, well, for some reason I’m not allergic to it.”

  Anaya rolled her eyes as a murmur of sympathy burbled up from the audience. Did the entire island know about Petra’s tragic water allergy?

  “Anyway, this morning there were little plants growing inside the bottles. They were all different, but I’m pretty sure one was the black grass.”

  Anaya saw Dad nodding patiently. “I’d like to look at those plants if you still have them,” he said. “But I think it’s more likely the seeds got blown into the water, or fell from overhanging vegetation.”

  “It came with the rain!” hollered Ralph Jenkins from his seat.

  “How do you explain the rest of the world, then?” someone shouted back.

  “It rained all over the world!” Fleetwood boomed out, and Anaya looked at him in surprise. Tereza actually held her hand over her face in embarrassment.

  “It was on the—on the news, remember?” Fleetwood said, stammering a bit now. “They had satellite pictures, and it was all cloud, and it rained pretty much everywhere on the planet over a three-day period, so…”

  He trailed off, but he was right. Anaya remembered watching the news with her parents, and the weather guy had mentioned it. How unusual it was.

  She watched her father’s face. She could tell he was thinking hard. It looked like he was going to speak, but one of the councilors bent over her mic and said, “I think we can discuss these very interesting theories after the meeting, but we have some other important business to address. We need volunteer crews to keep the grass under control….”

  “I can’t believe you,” Tereza whispered to Fleetwood, her face still flushed. “You actually think someone made it rain all over the world?”

  “Hey, I’m not the only one. On the internet—”

  “Fleetwood, we’ve talked about this. Ev-er-y-thing is on the internet.”

  �
�We can control the weather now!”

  “Oh boy.” Tereza looked at Anaya, shaking her head.

  Anaya smiled back weakly, but she couldn’t dismiss it. Dad didn’t—she could tell by the serious look on his face.

  “The Chinese have this whole government department in charge of the weather,” Fleetwood was saying. “They can make it rain.”

  “So you think it was the Chinese,” Tereza said.

  “I just said it’s maybe possible, theoretically, to make it rain all over the planet at once.”

  “Okay,” said Tereza, “so how did they deliver all the seeds? A million airplanes?”

  Fleetwood looked deflated. “Yeah, I guess we would’ve seen the planes on our radars and stuff.”

  “Cloaking technology,” said Tereza, slipping her hand into Fleetwood’s.

  Fleetwood grinned, and winked at Anaya. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Anaya laughed, feeling some of the anxiety leave her shoulders. It did sound pretty far-fetched.

  Tereza kissed Fleetwood on the cheek. “Maybe it’s not even a country doing this. Maybe it’s a secret organization called SLORK or something—”

  “And an evil dude with scary glasses,” said Anaya. “Biding his time in his underground lair with his supermodels and personal chef.”

  “And pet Komodo dragon,” Fleetwood added, then sneezed.

  Tereza sneezed, too, and laughed. Then she sneezed again, and kept sneezing.

  Anaya was suddenly aware of all the other people sneezing, from every part of the hall. It sounded like some kind of malfunctioning engine. People held their elbows and tissues to their mouths. There was something scary about it, like everyone had suddenly lost control of their bodies. She looked at her father up front, and saw him sneezing, too.

  Inside, the light had changed somehow. Anaya tilted her face up to the open windows. The air glittered with dust or something. She was pushed along with the tide of people heading for the doors.

  Outside, all around the sides of the parking lot, grew black grass. The very tallest stalks looked different, and it only took Anaya a second to understand why. Just yesterday, the flowers on the tall central stems were still tight black buds.