The Chardon Chronicles: Season Two --- The Winter
Page 65
Chapter Four
Telia and Louis bought a beater minivan and took the family to Boulder. Telia felt a sense of liberation as they left the Brotherhood behind. She left a thank-you note for Seth and Francis, but included no indication of where they were going or what they were doing.
When they got to Boulder, Louis took the wheel and seemingly made a series of random turns as he homed in on Daniel Jackson. Telia was fascinated, because she almost felt she could do it as well. She asked, “How are you actually finding him?”
He said, “Daniel makes a big impression on those he interacts with, and since he travels slowly, mostly on foot, he persists.” He sniffed the air like a dog. “I smell him!” He laughed and then pulled into a tree farm on the outskirts of town. At the back corner of the lot, there were a group of sheds and workers quarters. They recognized Samantha’s face on a mural painted on the side of the shed.
They climbed out of the minivan and Telia walked into a spartan, one floor building that had a row of cots, and a rough milled plank floor. Louis followed her.
Daniel Jackson was sitting on his bed, sketching while Peachey scribbled in a notebook. When Daniel saw Louis, his jaw dropped. He said, “How? I mean, who? I mean, are you him?” He held up his sketchpad and flipped back a few pages to an image of Matt on a glowing cross.
Louis’ brows furrowed together and he said, “Daniel, those sketches are starting to get a little Jesus-like for my taste!”
Peachey said, “You’re... here. Why? How?”
Telia said, “I’m Telia Wells, this is Matt’s body, but Matt’s not here right now, this is Louis. He’s the male version of Samantha.”
Both of the men were stunned. Finally Daniel said, “Man, we’ve really been caught up in the fictional version of the story, it’s started to become more real than the reality.” He stood up and hugged the two of them.
“Fictional version?” Telia asked.
“Yeah, we’ve been doing a comic book/novel version of the saga.” Daniel said. “We do it in our own funky way. We circulate a handful of ‘originals’, handmade copies, then just make a whole bunch of super cheaply made copied and stapled versions. All free. All for fun. Other people copy them, there’s a handful of us running around the country doing this.”
Peachey was still a bit awestruck but was starting to follow Daniel’s lead in shaking it off and gave them both a hug. “We’ve been living with you as a character for a long time, forgetting there are real people involved. Just people. The characters get larger than life really quickly.”
Louis shrugged, “It’s almost unavoidable. This cycle, these stories are so thoroughly ingrained in all beings on Earth that any person can forget they are, indeed, equal participants in making them happen. Matt is an extraordinary man, but just a man. All these circumstances have happened before, by the way. You’re the latest in a long line. The troubadours were one of your predecessors.”
Daniel smacked Peachey’s shoulder, “Hey, we’re troubadours. Who knew?”
Louis said, “We’re going to Ohio, right now. We want you to go with us.”
Daniel shouldered a bag and said, “We’re already packed. I had a dream we’d go, but barely believed it was true!”