The Chardon Chronicles: Season Two --- The Winter
Page 69
Chapter Eight
Since Francis moved back to Valparaiso, he started a hydroponic greenhouse business. He grew lettuce and tomatoes for local restaurants. His mom and dad helped out and occasionally he hired some temporary help, usually high school kids. He avoided watching the news, reading news online, or getting involved in life outside the small sphere of his day to day activities and he was actually quite happy. Most mornings, he started his day with a walk down his block to a homey coffee shop. In the summer, he sat out on the sidewalk tables, but now in the cold, bleak, and windy weather he sat at a bar style table along a big picture window.
He sipped coffee and picked at a fresh baked blueberry scone. He noticed a black and white dog eared homemade looking comic book under a pile of newspapers. He dragged it over. The title was “Songs of Samantha”. All the hair on his arms stood on end and he breathlessly flipped through the book. The story was about Samantha, the Samantha he knew. There were illustrations of her sitting on a beach urging a salamander looking creature to crawl up a hill in a primeval jungle setting.
He finished the scone and took his coffee and shoved the book under his arm and headed toward his greenhouse. The business was ringed with a tall cedar fence. The inner courtyard was serene. There were light gray and dark stones that were tiled in a chessboard pattern. In the summer, it was an idyllic setting that bloomed with color. Now in winter it was the brown of wood, grey of stone, and the green of evergreens, and the main building was like a fluffy cloud of white. He sat at the computer in the main office and searched on the “Songs of Samantha”.
A group of people had been collecting the mysterious books. Scanned versions of the originals were available online for free. He downloaded the entire series. He spent the rest of the day reading through the stories. He gasped, “Holy shit!” his part was described in the books, except he was called Frank Marmot and he had red hair.
The wider historical context was explained in more detail and filled in gaps he didn’t know about. The books were like grease for gears in his mind that had been suppressed and frozen since he fled from the Lodge. He hadn’t thought about Samantha, Matt, Telia, Owen or the Brotherhood. He’d been completely focused on his business and the simple daily alchemy of growing things, living intentionally, living simply and trying to help others do the same. Now, though, his mind began churning.
“Dammit.” He cursed as a fully formed strategy sprung into his mind. He spun around in the chair and let his arms dangle as he stared up at the ceiling. The cherry wood made him think about how deliberate he’d been over these past few years, surrounding himself with living, or once living things and natural materials.
He sighed heavily and dialed Seth’s private number. A secretary answered and asked him a for his password. He imagined his was totally out of date, so he just said, “Tell him it’s Francis Mouseler. I don’t know the password anymore.”
He was on hold for a few minutes, then his cell phone rang. It was Seth.
“Francis! I knew you’d call eventually.” Seth said.
Francis asked, “Is this line secure?”
“Yeah, good enough.” Seth said flatly, “What’s on your mind?”
Francis sighed and said, “Our strategy was completely wrong. We tried divide and conquer, right? We should do the opposite thing. This thing it wants to eat everything, to centralize, but in doing that it becomes completely irrelevant to people--split it off from the people. All the men in the brotherhood, they’re basically selected for that purpose--they’re hierarchical. Turn the Brotherhood into the Forbidden City, Byzantium, make it eat itself up into bureaucratic irrelevance.”
There was a long pause as Seth digested the idea. Finally he said, “I think that could work. Does this mean you’re back in?”
Francis groaned. He said, “The life I’ve been living has been really good. I hate to leave it.”
Seth paused a minute. “I think you already left it, right? I mean, why else would you call me?”
Francis replied, “I mean, I could just do without all the trappings associated with the Brotherhood. It’s like a pair of pants that’s just too tight--once you get out of them, you don’t want back in.”
Seth laughed, “That’s a good one! Well, think about it for a while, and shoot me an email with a proposal. Encrypt it and use the password ‘buttercup’.” He hung up.
Francis printed out all the “Songs of Samantha” and stapled them together. The wad of papers was about a phonebook thick by the time he was done. He picked up the pile and walked out through the greenhouse. His mom and dad were there tending to the plants. He announced, “Mom, Dad, I have a long story to tell you. I’ve never told you about what I did for work, but someone else wrote about it.” He waved the wad of papers. “It will be a lot easier to explain with these!”