11
'I‘m not an expert on mushrooms,” said Max Tutwiler. “But I might recognize a toxic variety if I saw one.”
Claire took the mushroom out of the Ziploc bag and handed it to him. “Can you tell us what this is?”
He slipped on his spectacles, and by the light of a kerosene lamp, studied the specimen. He turned it over, examining every detail of the delicate stalk, the blue-green cap.
Sleet tick-ticked against the cottage windows and wind moaned in the chimney.
The power had gone out an hour before, and Max’s cottage was getting colder by the minute. The rising storm seemed to make Lincoln restless. Claire could hear him moving around the room, fussing with the cold woodstove, tightening the window latches. The ingrained habits of a man who has known hard winters. He lit newspapers and kindling in the stove and threw in a log, but the wood was green, and produced more smoke than heat.
Max did not look well. He sat clutching a blanket, a box of Kleenex by his chair. A shivering testament to the miseries of a winter flu and a cottage without heat.
At last he looked up with rheumy eyes. “Where did you find this mushroom?”
“Upstream from the Boulders.”
“Which boulders?”
“That’s the name for the place-the Boulders. It’s a hangout for the local kids.
They found dozens of those mushrooms this summer. It’s the first year they’ve noticed them. But then, it’s been a strange year.”
“How so?” asked Max.
“We had all those floods last spring. And then the hottest summer on record.”
Max nodded soberly. “Global warming. The signs are everywhere.”
Lincoln glanced at the window, where needles of sleet tapped at the glass, and laughed. “Not tonight.”
“You have to look at the big picture,” said Max. “Weather patterns changing all over the world. Catastrophic droughts in Africa. Floods in the Midwest. Unusual growing conditions lead to unusual things growing.”
“Like blue mushrooms,” said Claire.
“Or eight-legged amphibians.” He pointed to the bookshelf, where his specimen jars were displayed. There were eight jars now, each containing a freak of nature.
Lincoln picked up one of the jars and stared at a two-headed salamander. “Jesus.
You found this in our lake?”
“In one of the vernal ponds.”
“And you think this is because of global warming?”
“I don’t know what’s causing it. Or which species will be affected next.” Max refocused his bleary eyes on the mushroom. “It’s not surprising that plant life would be affected.” He turned the mushroom over and gave it a sniff. “This damn cold has blocked up my nose. But I think I can smell it.”
“What?”
“The scent of anise.” He held it out to her.
“I smell it too. What does it mean?”
He rose and pulled down An illustrated Textbook of Mycology from the bookshelf.
“This species grows in both hardwood and coniferous forests, from midsummer through fall.” He opened the book to a color plate. “Clitocybe odora. The anise funnel cap. It contains a small amount of muscarine, that’s all.”
“Is that our toxin, then?” asked Lincoln.
Claire sank back in her chair and gave a sigh of disappointment. “No, it’s not.
Muscarine causes mostly gastrointestinal or cardiac symptoms. Not violent behavior.”
Max returned the mushroom to the Ziploc bag. “Sometimes,” he said, “there is no explanation for violence. And that’s the frightening thing about it. How unexpected it can be. How often it happens without rhyme or reason.”
Wind rattled the door. Outside, the sleet had turned to snow, and it tumbled past the window in a thick whirl of white. The wood stove gave off only the barest suggestion of heat. Lincoln crouched down to check the fire.
It had gone out.
“Lincoln and I saw something tonight. On the lake,” said Claire. “It was almost like an hallucination.”
She and Max sat facing the hearth in Claire’s parlor, their backs turned against the shadows. She had coaxed him out of his unheated cottage, had offered him a bed in her guest room, and now that dinner was over, they sat before the fire and took turns pouring from a bottle of brandy. Flames hissed brightly around a log, but for all that light, all that combustion, precious little heat seemed to penetrate the room’s chill. Outside, snowflakes skittered against the window and stray branches of forsythia, bone bare, clawed at the glass.
“What did you see in the lake?” he asked.
“It was floating on the surface of the water, near the Boulders. This swirl of green light, just drifting by. Not solid, but liquid. Changing shape, like a slick of oil.” She took a sip of brandy and stared at the fire. “Then the sleet began to fall, churning the water. And the green light, it just disintegrated.”
She looked at him. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“It could be a chemical spill. Fluorescent paint in the lake, for instance. Or it could be a biological phenomenon.”
“Biological?”
He pressed his hand to his forehead, as though to ease a headache beginning to build there. “There are bioluminescent strains of algae. And certain bacteria glow in the dark. There’s one species that forms a symbiotic relationship with luminescent squid. The squid attracts mates by flashing a light organ powered by glowing bacteria.”
Bacteria, she thought. A floating mass of them.
“Scotty Braxton’s pillow was stained with a luminescent substance,” she said.
“At first I thought he’d been using some sort of hobby paint. Now I wonder if it was bacterial.”
“Have you cultured it?”
“I cultured his nasal discharge. I asked the lab to identify every organism that grows out, so it will take time to get the results. What have you found in the lake water?”
“None of the cultures are back yet, but maybe I should take a few more samples before I pack up and leave.”
“When are you leaving?”
“I rented the cottage through the end of this month. But with the weather turning so cold, I might as well cut it short and go back to Boston. To central heating. I have enough data already. Samples from a dozen different Maine lakes.” He looked at the window, at the snow falling outside, thick as a curtain. “I leave this place to hardier souls like you.”
The flames were dying. She stood up, took a birch log from the pile, and threw it onto the fire. The papery bark caught instantly, snapping and sparkling. She watched it for a moment, savoring the heat, feeling it flush her cheeks. “I’m not such a hardy soul,” she said softly. “I’m not sure I belong here, either.”
He poured more brandy into his glass. “There’s a lot about this place that takes getting used to. The isolation. The people. They’re not easy to get to know. In the month I’ve been here, you’re the only one who’s invited me to dinner.”
She sat down and regarded him with a new measure of sympathy. She recalled her own introduction to Tranquility. After eight months, how many people here did she really know? She’d been warned it would be this way, that the locals were wary of outsiders. People from away drift to Maine like loose bits of fluff, linger for a season or two, and then scatter to the four winds. They have no roots here, no memories. No permanence. Mainers know this, and they greet each new resident with suspicion.
