After a brief exchange inside, Hutch found himself out in the lab with Casimir, staring down at the pieces of the amulet he'd given him for safe keeping. The golden ring, was now in two halves, revealing it to be hollow on the inside, and beside it, in a petri dish, was a handful of small round beads, that at first glance, appeared to be made of wood.
"What the… I really thought I had been careful with it. What happened?" Hutched questioned, looking down at the pieces.
"You can relax. After I examined it more closely, I discovered the rings were designed to come apart," Casmir remarked, giving no credence to his concern. "The reason I bought you out here is because of these." Picking up one of the beads, he handed it to Hutch. "They are seeds, Hutch. They were hidden inside this amulet the entire time."
"Okay, but seeds to what?"
Casimir's grin grew wider. "On Illimev, they were called the Naz'xiowa."
"The big trees in the Kushbahu?"
"Precisely. A single tree, growing its own forest. The smaller trees that surround the Naz'xiowa are extensions of their roots, not a different species of tree as the Sajomei have always assumed. Myrrget is literally the hardened sap that leeches from younger, more supple parts of the root system once they are exposed to the air. As they age, the bark becomes too thick and the wood to dense. Great for building material, but not much else. And as they aren't true trees, they will never grow to the same size as the Naz'xiowa. In all my years on that planet, I'd never found a living, viable seed. But I had found and had been given hundreds of fossilized ones. The oldest stories on that planet tell of how the silver forest used to stretch across the entire continent, and to this day, smaller, similar forests can still be found in remote regions. But all of them are the same, no seeds, and no one could explain it, because they had no reference. They'd never seen anything like it before."
"But you have?"
"Yes, I have. And here, on Earth. The Quaking Aspen. The most famous one is called Pando."
"Pando?" Hutch repeated, finding it a rather odd name.
"You heard correctly. Pando," Julian remarked as he walked over to them, carrying a file folder, "is a single-tree-forest; every tree being genetically identical to every other tree of the same type, and they are all connected by a singular root system. It is one of the largest living organisms on earth, and possibly the oldest." Pulling a picture from the file folder, he held it up for Hutch to see. "Look familiar?"
Hutch could hardly believe what he was looking at, his eyes scanning over detail of the picture as he took it and pulled it closer. "This is… it's just like Kushbahu. How is this possible?"
"I don't know, but I have plenty of theories," Casimir replied, as Julian took the picture back from Hutch. "For now, I thought this was important to share with you, so that you know, we are trying. I'm going to be arranging for a flight to Utah in the new year, so I can collect a sample from Pando myself, for comparison. If its sequence is even remotely similar, to the myrrget sample you provided, there is chance that we can figure out how to germinate one of these seeds."
"And there isn't one of these Aspen closer?"
"There are, but Pando has been studied, and the genetics confirmed," Julian explained to him. "Going to Pando, means we get to skip a step, or two, that would otherwise take up weeks or even months."
"Oh, right," Hutch replied, setting the seed he'd been holding back into the petri dish. "But won't it take years for one of these to grow?"
"Yes, but think of this as a sort of safety net. We start this now, and even if we exhaust all other possibilities, there will still be this tree waiting for us," Casimir explained, enthusiastically. "If everything else ends in failure, this tree could be that one final shot we need."
"But," Julian cut in, "we still need to figure out how to germinate it. And that alone is a monumental hurdle considering that we have a limited number of seeds, and we have no idea how to tell if any of them are still viable. There are a few other potential organisms we can also test, but Pando does seem the most reasonable choice given the visual similarities. As I'm certain you've realized by now… well, at least I hope you have, there are some striking resemblances between Earth and Illimev. Even more if you take evolutionary divergence into consideration. And the fact that the amulet moved both you and father between these two worlds speaks to a strong connection between them. As to what any of that means, I have no idea. I've only ever had father's notes to go off, and until recently, I thought they were a matter of his nonsensical fantasies."
"In other words, the foundation is here, but we've only really just gotten started," Casimir clarified.
"I don't even know what to say," Hutch remarked, as he turned and looked back down at the amulet. "I mean, this is huge, right?"
"Yes, Hutch, this is huge. This is a real reason to hold out hope of sending you back to Illimev, and fixing our aging problem."
The sincere tone in Casimir's voice, and the weight of his hand on his arm, managed to strike at Hutch's heart, bringing a tear to his eye.
"As touching as this is, do try to keep a reasonable expectation towards our success," Julian stated as he began to walk away. "This isn't going to happen overnight."
"Yes, Jay, thanks for that. Unfortunately, he's right," Casimir agreed with his son, even as he continued to smile brighter at Hutch, "We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves just yet. There is still a long way to go, but this is a promising first step."
"I'm going to have to take your word for that, because it's all just bit beyond me."
"I know, but you'll get there. We're all in this together, Hutch. Now why don't you go back inside and continue doing whatever it was you were doing when I interrupted you."
Hutch nodded. "Yeah, but so you know, this was worth it. If you hadn't pulled me out when you did, Celina and Clara might have started asking my opinion on their dresses and shoes. And that, yeah, that is terrifying."
Casimir chuckled and stiffly pat at Hutch's back. "I'm going to take that as; you owe me one."
"I didn't say that."
"Didn't you? Because it really sounded like you did."
"I… umm… I have to go," Hutch stated, before abruptly turning and walking away, yelling, "Dinner will be ready by six!" as he ran out the door.
Hutch was still unable to fully grasp the magnitude of the discovery Casimir had shared with him. And while he wanted to share in the enthusiasm, to him, the pieces of the puzzle had yet to form a picture he could recognize.
Hutch remained lost in thought as he finished making dinner, and although he managed to focus as he served up the roast chicken, potatoes, and pan-seared lemon-pepper asparagus, his mind would occasionally drift off while they ate and conversed about the excitement of the day.
He watched as they shared their amusements, and cleaned their plates, and he took their compliments with a touch of pride. Pleased that he had accomplished what he'd set out to do; treating them to something amazing, that he had prepared.
When dinner finished, he put away the leftovers, finished the last load of laundry and washed the dishes, before making his way upstairs to his room, where he made up his bed, storing the extra bedding in the closet, on the shelf, next to the pillows. As he turned back and looked around the room, his eyes settled on his duffle bag, which was still sitting on the floor next to the dresser, still packed with the clothes he'd brought from the trailer.
In a strange way, he had been hoping that his mother would have gone to the lengths to find him and bring him home, but the longer he looked at the bag, the more he resigned himself to the fact that if she did, it wouldn't be any time soon.
"Time to stop living out of a bag," he confirmed to himself, as he picked up his duffle bag, and set it on the bed.
It didn't take him long to organize his meager belongings and stow them away between the dresser and the closet, and once he was finished, content in his decision, he turned off the light in his room, and made his way over to the window to look outside.
Through the falling snow, illuminated by the lights on the front porch, and the pole lamp in the center of the front lawn, he could see where the driveway disappeared into the darkness, that followed the fence line of the pastures, and the completely still silhouettes of the trees just beyond his view. It was peaceful, calm, and quiet. Everything he had come to despise since his return to Earth. And yet, in that moment, for the first time in months, he didn't feel the need to go out for a run and exhaust himself so that he would sleep. He was already worn out, and there was still a couple more hours, left to his day.
"You coming down for the movie?" Clara asked, as she lightly tapped on the door and pushed it further open.
Glancing at her over his shoulder, he replied, "Absolutely." Taking a final look outside, he turned around and joined her. "I wouldn't miss this for the world."