The house smells like damp wood and failure, but I don’t let myself breathe it in too deeply. I splash cold water from the cracked sink onto my face and look over at Lily, asleep on the thin mattress, her one-eared rabbit tucked beneath her chin like it’s standing guard.
I lean close and whisper a promise I’m not yet sure how to keep.
“Today we begin,” I tell the darkness.
I grab the rusted hoe and slip my notebook into my pocket, then step outside. The ten acres stretch in every direction like something abandoned after a war. Weeds tower high enough to hide snakes. The old tobacco rows are nothing but faint scars in the earth.
But when I kneel and scoop up a handful of soil, I feel it—life.
Too compacted near the house. Sandy toward the hill. Dark and rich near the creek. It’s a map waiting to be read.
Step one: secure water.
The creek behind the property glints in the early light, but hope doesn’t irrigate crops. I find an old pipe half-buried in mud and dig around it until my fingernails crack and my palms burn. Beneath layers of dirt, I uncover a rusted valve connected to a line that once fed something larger.
I don’t know if it still works.