There were three virtues every farmer had to obey.

Strength.

Cora lifted a sack stuffed with soil and threw it onto a wagon. Her back and legs ached from the strain of lifting ten sacks in total, but she wasn’t done yet. She huffed and began pushing the wagon forward, each step sending a bead of sweat running down her face, occasionally forcing her to stop and wipe the stinging sensation away in her eyes with the back of her hand.

Determination.

She wouldn’t give up. Despite her body wanting to stop, she knew she could push further without harming herself. It was simply her mind that refused to cooperate with her body. The wagon rolled over a small rock, jostling the top sack, about to slip off when she pulled the wagon to a stop and quickly pushed the sack back on top.

Intelligence.

Instead of continuing the grueling job of moving the sacks towards the hole she had dug a few days earlier, she ran ahead and kicked aside any rocks large enough to interrupt her progress. She made it all the way to the hole, still intact despite the mound of sandy soil next to it, and dug a shallow crevice opposite the sand so she could tilt the wagon forward and deposit the sacks in a heap mimicking the sandy soil.

The rest of the trip was much more uneventful. She deposited the sacks where she intended to and stood, stretching out her back, joints cracking as she released the pent-up stress. In the early afternoon, the sun was at its highest, blistering hot and unrelenting in its punishment for humanity poisoning it's home.

Even a hundred years later, the many greenhouse gases that had accumulated in the atmosphere hadn’t disappeared. The equatorial regions, she’d heard from her late great-grandfather, were incinerated, although he hadn’t said if the radical climate change caused it. The equator was thousands of miles away from where Lazarus was positioned, at the tip of a peninsula bordered by an ocean long dead, so she’d just nodded and moved on with her day.

Like she did now. Like she always did. Farmer Owens had promised a lemonade beverage once she’d finished. His farm wasn’t too far off, so the walk there was bearable, but by the time she passed the old tree where her father had built her a swing, her shirt was glued to her skin, sweat making it uncomfortable every time she shifted her body.

Once at his doorstep, she knocked, wiping away as much sweat as she could to make herself presentable. Owens opened the door, sporting a greasy coverall, and waved her inside.

“The lemonade’s ready,” he said. “You can wash up over there and use all the soap you’d like. Take a seat and read some books. It’s on me. You won’t have to help me bury the suaviberry tree today.”

She paused. “I don’t have to?”

She wanted it to be true. The blister had begun to heal, but made it difficult to apply any type of pressure where it was without sharp pain in return. The wound wasn’t infected, simply raw from her apprenticeship, which couldn’t let it heal faster.

He nodded, scratching the base of his neck. “There’s somebody else who decided to help. Somebody I didn’t expect, but he told me he used Brown’s and your friend Anna’s steam engine prototype and incorporated it into some type of mechanical device that can harvest and plant trees. It’s technology that came from before the Great War.”

“And you’re sure that machine will help?”

“Yes, yes. The demonstration was impressive. You should come see it work.”

While she wasn’t a good liar herself, she could pick apart a lie, and Owens sounded genuine. The coil of dread that had burrowed into her stomach all morning unraveled into relief. “Who created the machine?”

Immediately, she knew who it must’ve been. The same man who powered the light on every night at dusk and shined it into the grey waters. The same man who was more myth than reality. The same man whom Cora had been curious about since her father first mentioned working with him.

“Well, he’s a very reserved gentleman, real shy, so I’ll respect his wishes and not reveal his name. However, I don’t think I have to elaborate for you to guess who it is.”

“The man in the lighthouse.”

“Is that what you call him? Well, I suppose one could call him anything. Hermit. Recluse. Antisocial. I hear everything, but that’s the first time I’ve heard somebody call him by his literal situation.”

“When will I get to meet him?” Her fingers rapped on the door frame of the bathroom. She must’ve sounded desperate, because he raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms.

“Soon enough, once you pass the Rake. I think you’ll like him a lot. He’s eccentric, yes, but his personality reminds me a lot like yours.”

She huffed. “So you think I’m eccentric?”

“Somewhat.” He chuckled when she glared at him. “I’m being honest that he’s a lot like you. Older, about my age, sure, but personality transcends time.”

The last phrase of his sentence threw her back to yesterday, with a smug Damien after he’d told her about the possibility of switching and outcompeting Cora. She was tempted to tell Owens everything about what Damien had said. She knew Owens was well-known by the community, but he held the farming tradition higher than anything or anybody else, so she doubted he’d do a favor to accept Damien.

Which was why she kept her mouth shut. She trusted Owens. And she trusted the fact Damien was an idiot who didn’t know what he was talking about a hundred percent of the time.

“So, the lemonade,” she said, trying to distract herself from the unpleasant memories of Damien’s lack of respect.

“I’ll serve you as much as you want. Get yourself cleaned up first. I don’t mean to offend you, but you stink.”

“So do you,” she shot back, smiling again.

He left. She closed the bathroom door, studying herself in the mirror. Dirt seemed to get everywhere even when she’d made sure not to touch her face after handling the dirt sacks and removing her gloves. She didn’t bother to remove the bandage again--that could come later. She stripped off her shirt and washed the grime off her skin with water from the faucet and a bar of soap. She dried herself off with a towel and opened the cabinet, wearing a shirt she’d left there for the next time she came and cleaned herself up here. She could’ve walked to her temporary home and cleaned up there, but that was on the other side of town, a good forty minutes away she didn’t feel like walking in the blistering heat.

Using one of Owens’s old hair bands, she tied her hair into a ponytail, then stuffed her wet shirt in a plastic bag. She washed her face last, drying it quickly, leaving the bathroom feeling refreshed. Sure enough, a pitcher of lemonade waited at the dining room table for her to drink, coupled with two glass cups and even some cookies laid out on a plate.

Owens lay on his reclining chair, having changed out to a shirt and shorts, listening to a scratchy record playing on a record player that was probably older than Lazarus itself. The sound came out garbled and crackling with static, but she picked up faint traces of music among the noise, even some words sung by some artist long-dead and forgotten.

She hadn’t realized she’d begun to hum until Owens joined her, their tunes combining to create a melody consistent with what the record might’ve once produced easily. They lasted over a minute, humming until their breaths ran out, when the record stopped playing with an abrupt absence of music.

“I wish I had one,” she said, breathless. He smiled and carefully removed the vinyl record, slipping it into a worn sleeve cover and returning it to a bookshelf filled with other records. She’d listened to several others in the past, some clearer, some more garbled than she thought possible, and she’d loved all of them. This was the first record that she’d heard words being spoken. It felt strange that somebody, someplace far away in a distant past, once said those words, transmitting them across time and space for her to listen.

“This song was called Hero of War. At least, that’s what my grandmother told me when she passed her collection down to me. I know you can’t hear much now, but before, I remember playing this all the time whenever my grandmother wasn’t home. That’s probably the reason why it doesn’t play as clearly anymore.” His face dropped into a mournful expression, but he camouflaged it with a shake of his head, instead settling on a wistful look. “I played it because it reminded me of my grandfather, may he rest in peace. He’d fought in the Great War, you know.”

Now this was new. Cora found herself leaning on the edge of her seat, gazing into the eyes of a man who suddenly seemed more tired, as if he bore the weight of humanity on his shoulders. In a way, farmers did. She would, too. Was this how she would look like when the mantle of responsibility passed down onto her?

“My great-grandfather did as well."

“My grandfather knew him, actually. They were part of a squadron that defected in the early stages of the war. And your father, though I didn't know him well, had that same spark in his eyes that your great-grandfather did. That I remember my grandfather carried. In the end, though, when I witnessed your father being lowered into the ground, I realized that life keeps on taking from you without mercy. It doesn't care who you are. It took Robert. It took Liam. It comes for you all the same.”

Cora knitted her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“My grandfather and your father’s grandfather were enlisted in the same squadron. My grandfather had told me about their exploits taking to the skies, in these gigantic incomprehensible metal machines that could fly. They rained destruction from above, annihilating entire cities much bigger than Lazarus, destroying enemy machines, carrying out every last order faithfully.”

Her own great-grandfather had never told her any of these things. Her concentration wavered and narrowed, focused on the few memories she’d made growing up with her great-grandpa, only to scour at nothing about being in a squadron. All of his stories had been after the Great War, with the rare acknowledgement that he had served himself.

“I can’t imagine destruction on that level.”

His face darkened. “Let’s hope we never have to again. There are some restricted archives in the town hall you can see once you graduate to become a farmer. Everybody can if they pass their career exams. You’ll be able to understand what I’m talking about better if you see them.”

“I will, no worries.” Her mind couldn’t comprehend an entire city being leveled. There were the usual stories that cities had once existed hosting populations in the millions, a statistic inconceivable to her.

“My grandfather and your great-grandfather couldn’t take it. Those bombings chipped away pieces of their hearts. They'd seen what happened to people who lost their humanity. They feared becoming the monsters they swore they'd never be. One day, after one of their daily runs, their entire squadron defected. They abandoned their fleet and flew to a distant land far away from all the fighting. That was before the cities began to evaporate, of course. They found this little isolated town nestled at the base of a cliff with a singular lighthouse and-”

“They called it Lazarus.”

Years of stories sang in her blood, sharpened her thoughts, narrowed her sight to a single lens through which she viewed the impossible scenery her great-grandfather described so thoroughly. Tales of dragons and castles and magical powers and complete mastery over the land. Tales of epic quests and forgotten treasure and defeating whatever monster he came up with.

Her heart ached, because those times were long gone. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She had her own responsibilities now, which would only grow once she became a farmer.

“Anyways, even though they survived, my grandfather suffered from an illness for decades. The others did as well. Your great-grandfather outlasted everybody in that squadron by a long time, but I believe he also died from a illness that had lasted years, correct?"

“Yes." She dug her nails into her palms. "I remember.”

“They lived, but life kept on leaching from them. All of the original squadron members died from those types of illnesses. Your father died suddenly without a single warning given by life. Everybody here has their lives leached every waking moment they live, because none of us will go back to the times when songs like these-” He gestured to the records. “-were made, when we could focus on other things besides surviving. Do you understand what I mean?”

His breathing was ragged, his teeth clenched, and she realized that he had harbored this despair for a while. Perhaps a long time. Perhaps his whole life. And could she blame him? Humanity couldn’t expand anymore as the radiation would kill them. The oceans were less radioactive, but much more turbulent, with waves reaching dozens of feet tall.

The shooting star had convinced her that this couldn’t be where she would spend the rest of her life. Lazarus was cramped. She wanted to explore the forests, the mountains, whatever lay beyond the mountains, traverse lands changed by humans, nature, and time. She wanted to see whatever sights her great-grandfather had seen, perched in his machine far above the land.

But there were duties that had to be completed at home. The farms had to be run. Crops had to be tended. Livestock had to be treated and cared for. The last remnant of civilization had to survive in the hopes of one day settling old lands once more.

Sighing, she gripped the bandage and pressed until she could feel the pain that grounded her to reality. “The ice is melting.”

He looked surprised that there was lemonade and cookies at the table despite having been the one to prepare them. “Yes, of course. Remember, feel free to stay over if you want. I have some books beneath the records, or you could ask me to play some more, if you’d like-”

“That’d be nice.” She wanted to listen to Hero of War and find what in it had made Owens open up as much as he did. The melody was hauntingly beautiful where it could be made out. She wondered how powerful the accompanying lyrics were. “When will the man in the lighthouse bring his machine to plant the tree? I’d like to see it.”

Some of the tension melted away. Owens poured both of them a glass of lemonade and moved the cookies so they were between them. “An hour before sunset. You can’t miss the sight of the machine for miles.”

“Does it work by itself or does somebody have to operate it?”

“He’s operating it, so you’ll get to see him at the wheel. He’s the one who built it, after all, but I’m positive he’ll train several people on how to use it.”

That would be fun, learning how to drive such a machine. She hadn’t even seen it yet, although if it was anything like other machines during the Great War, shown in textbooks and recounted through her great-grandfather’s memories, it was likely impressive.

“Thank you for this,” she said between eating one cookie and reaching out for the next. Her stomach grumbled for more. “For everything, really. I feel so ready for the Rake.”

“You’ll have the highest score Lazarus has ever seen,” he said, biting into his own cookie. “You’re the best apprentice anybody could ask for. You’ve taken after your father, that’s for sure.”

That meant everything to her. Her eyes teared up. That’s how she knew their bond was deeper than anything Damien could ever hope to break.

***

The rumbling of machinery came shortly before the sight of a magnificent rusted vehicle, past its prime but slugging forward with the relentless determination that could only be matched by farmers like Owens. Its wheels left tread marks in the earth, the steam engine churning furiously within the titanic shell that encompassed all the different mechanical parts that contributed to a greater being.

Just like the cells in Cora's body, followed by the tissues, then organs, then organ systems that created her. Beside her, Anna gasped when the machine rumbled to a halt. They made out the slim figure of a man working the controls within the operating compartment. The tree held tightly in the machine’s metallic clasps gently lowered into the hole she had excavated. Pride flooded her when the tree fit perfectly, allowing for enough space around it to be filled with the sacks of dirt she’d lugged there.

“The steam engine is beautiful,” Anna gushed, clasping her hands together in front of her. “The schematics, the trials, each component that has to work with each other so that we can harness the energy of steam-”

“Enough, enough,” Cora said, laughing. She gently shoved Anna, who proceeded to stick her tongue out at her and cross her arms.

“That’s what I say to myself every time you get hurt!”

“It’s a part of life.” Her mind flashed to Owens’s story. “Whether we want it to happen or not. Still, you’re right. I should be more careful.”

“That’s an understatement.”

The machine released the tree, a hiss escaping from its arms, before they retracted back to the main body and the man inside quickly rotated something that turned the machine’s tires around, allowing him to pave a new path back towards the lighthouse and the garage he must’ve built behind it, out of public sight.

For a split moment, the light of a street lamp illuminated an aquiline nose, a set mouth, black hair that fell over his brows. Well-defined arms leaned against the panel where the controls must’ve been located. That wasn’t the look of a man her father’s age. He looked her age. And a perfect model at that.

Once the rumble of the machine left the area, Cora turned towards Anna. “Did you see him?”

“I can’t believe we actually got to see him,” she said. “He looks way better than I thought.”

“I didn’t expect him to look that young.” He’d been there in the lighthouse since Cora’s earliest memories. That put him a good number of years ahead of her at least. Whatever life he ran inside the lighthouse, it had done wonders for his looks.

“Right? Imagine getting to meet him in person. Master Brown told me he usually only talks to the Council and farmers, but that our work made it possible for me to see him once I pass the Pick.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I know! I’d heard that he has some interesting mysteries he doesn’t want to talk about. Master Brown told me when she visited his house to explain the steam engine to him, he'd had the pieces of a cell phone scattered on his desk. A cell phone! They’re so old. What can you even do with one these days?”

“I don’t know,” she said, not wanting to admit she didn't know what a cell phone was.

“Anyways, I told my mom I’d come home early for dinner. I know you’ll be busy tomorrow, so meet you at the park Friday?”

“That sounds awesome. Meet you there.” She hugged Anna. “That steam engine saved me from having to carry that tree two miles with several other farmers.”

“Really? That’s crazy. I’m glad I helped you even if I didn’t realize it.”

By the time the first stirrings of cold air blew over Lazarus, Anna was gone, leaving Cora to study the whole town. The odd patchwork of lights gave it a messy feel, but organic in a way, the remains of life that refused to die after the catastrophic effects of the Great War. From her spot, the Shakes dominated the coastline where it curved ahead of the cliff Lazarus sat behind before curving back out of sight.

She flexed her fingers. So much to uncover. So much to explore. So much to create. She turned towards the mountains, expecting another shooting star to shoot by, but none came tonight. That didn’t matter. The first one was enough.

Leaves crunched beneath somebody’s foot. She startled out of her reverie, surprised to see a short figure approaching her. Then she grimaced. It was the child from yesterday, the one who’d tried climbing up the dead electric fence, but something was wrong. There were bags beneath his eyes, and he swayed on his feet, as if in a drunken stupor. The child raised a wavering finger at her and pointed.

“You’re just like the monster in the woods,” he said, yawning loudly enough for her to approach him slowly. “I saw you standing here without feeling bad about what you did to our ball. You got angry over some plants. Why didn’t you throw the ball back? Now me and Roy don’t have anything to play with.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Like I said, I was looking for you. I want my ball back. A new one. Please. There’s nothing else to do.” He yawned again, lasting longer, hand balled into a fist over his mouth. “Please. If you do, I take back everything I said yesterday. I just want a new ball.”

“Okay…” Her thoughts raced. What was she supposed to do with a kid who was clearly sleep-deprived and who might’ve been far away from home? “Where do you live? I’ll take you home.”

“Over there, after the tomato garden. I can walk there myself. I just want to know if you’ll give me a new ball.”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

She pressed her hand over her heart. “I swear on it.”

“Thank you. I take back everything… I said…” He began to slump over, but she caught him in time and carried him in her arms. He was either surprisingly light, or she had grown even stronger after the recent exercises Owens put her through.

“You’re not so bad. Not like the monster,” he said before dozing off.

After she left him at his parents’ house, she felt the residual traces of guilt dissipate. She’d amend what she did yesterday. Everything would turn out okay.

The one thing that bugged her on her return home was the monster the kid kept referring to. What did it mean?

After several seconds of deliberation, she shrugged. She guessed she’d never find out. Without a second thought spared, she continued her march home.