The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

she was agile,” a man in a hazmat suit said to the foliage behind him.

Cora pressed her cheek to the bark, both hoping and fearing that that voice belonged to her son.

“She is, but you succeeded in surprising her. Congrats.” Rollie stepped into the small clearing. “Don’t worry,” he called out, “your herons aren’t dead. They’re just sleeping in.”

Even if the pair had killed off the entire population, at this point she wouldn’t care. The twisting of her heart meant Rollie’s companion could be Kristian. A few inches shorter than Rollie, the man’s stature seemed plausible for her son, given she wasn’t particularly tall. And his voice had sounded about the right age.

This past March, Kristian had turned twenty-six. Like every year before, using the goods she’d bartered for with Rollie, she’d readied a cake and present, only to throw them into the strait the day after. Despite begging Ulrich during each of his visits, Cora hadn’t convinced him to reevaluate Kristian’s immune system. Six years ago, when Ulrich had begrudgingly passed leadership of the project to Rollie, she’d begun asking Rollie to let her see her son. All his replies had been vague.

If Rollie had acquiesced, why wouldn’t he have simply brought Kristian with him on one of his routine visits? Gassing the birds seemed far too shifty for a reunion. Although she’d warned him against entering the island’s interior, he should have known she’d make an exception for her son.

The morning after Ulrich’s first heart attack, in 1985, Rollie had promised to end the brutal experimentation and mind games. And he had.

Because Rollie had claimed he was within millimeters of a breakthrough—and he was her only tie to Kristian—she’d agreed to remain involved on a limited basis. Once a month, he delivered supplies she no longer relied on. Concurrently, he retrieved the blood bags she left for him in a shallow hole.

The predictability of their routine had given her a sense of control that still seemed as foreign as Gotham had become to her.

Yet this uncertainty now reminded her of the Ulrich years. She couldn’t let Rollie see that he’d shaken her.

“You’d better hope they wake soon,” she said in an arctic tone, patting her sheath. “Those herons aren’t just protected by state and federal law. In my rules, trespassing is a capital offense.” Even to her own ears, the threat sounded empty, given the stranger might be her son.

“Come down,” Rollie said, “so we can do this the right way.”

It must be Kristian! She covered her mouth to prevent a shriek of joy, and tears blurred her vision.

Even though she’d been preparing for this moment for twenty-four years, she clung to the tree as tightly as the kudzu vines around her. He’d aged at the normal rate, so they would almost look like peers. She wondered how they would convince him of the seemingly impossible.

According to Ulrich, they’d kept the truth from Kristian “for his own good,” even after Petra died. Following Rollie’s second marriage, Ulrich had reveled in telling Cora that Kristian had begun calling yet another woman “Mom.”

Now she could set the record straight. But ever since the forest had grown tall enough, she’d kept to the canopy whenever a Gettler came ashore. Her intuition told her not to descend now, yet motherly instinct argued that she should.

Even though Kristian was a Gettler, he was her son. Staring into her open hand, she thought of that kiss he’d blown her. Despite the passage of so many seasons, her love for him hadn’t lessened. Surely, somewhere deep within, he felt the same way.

She wiped her eyes and lowered herself to the next branch.

“Wow, she listens to you.”

“Absolutely,” Rollie said, pivoting toward Kristian and revealing a gas canister on his back. Cora reflexively held her breath. “We have a mutual respect.”

Still too high to safely drop to the ground, Cora couldn’t bring herself to descend to a lower branch. What if Ulrich had passed his Fascist ideals to their son, who in turn had now influenced Rollie? She decided to stay within her treetop network so she could flee at the first whiff of fresh chloroform.

Instead of that sickening smell, the memory of Kristian’s baby scent, infused with the aroma of dirt from their time outside, filled her nostrils. And the sensation of tiny fingers, flitting across her stomach while he nursed, felt as real as it had the last day she’d held him.

Back then, she’d been more than a lab rat—she’d been a mother. His mother. And now that her child was here, she had to go to him, regardless of the risk.

Slowly, Cora lowered herself to the last branch and dropped to the ground.

Bright light hit her eyes.

“Incredible. A complete lack of cellular senescence. I’d been wanting to see this for myself for so long. Thank you, Dad.”

Squinting against the glare, she could just make out the dark outline of Kristian’s eyes through the mask. She knew his lashes were as thick as hers. Each night, while lulling him to sleep, she’d strained to see whether his eyelids were still parted.

Now it made her nervous that she couldn’t see those windows to his soul. She clutched her satchel, where she kept the knit cap he’d been wearing the first time she’d held him.

“Coraline McSorley,” Rollie gestured from her to Kristian, “I’d like you to meet Kristian Gettler, my son.”

Rollie’s firm tone had contained a warning, so she bit her tongue. “It’s always a pleasure to meet another Gettler.”

“Likewise,” he said, nodding his head in a greeting. “It will be a pleasure to . . . accelerate my family’s progress.”

Unsure how to interpret that comment, she backed toward the tree she’d just descended.

Stepping toward her, he addressed Rollie over his shoulder: “With two of us, it’ll be easier to force her compliance.”

Cora reeled back, and her boot snagged on an exposed tree root. As she hit the loam, a rock gouged the flesh between her shoulder blades, and she rolled to her side. Sickened by how