Thomas Carpenter's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

I have chased a stolen relic across three counties, and now I own nothing but the reins in my hands and a dream of wheat. My name is Thomas Carpenter. Once I lived in a valley town kept safe by an old brass compass that guards more than roads. Three weeks ago it vanished, and I rode out after the thief. I never found him. What I found instead was open country and a hunger I could not ride away from. I want a wheat farm. The finest one this land has ever grown, with a bakery beside it that smells of morning bread. The carriage wheels groaned under our few boxes. Petunia sat beside me, her flower basket wedged between her boots, berries rolling loose with every rut. She reached over and squeezed my wrist. "You've gone quiet again," she said. "You always go quiet when you're counting coin we don't have." She was right. I had eleven coins left. Eleven coins would not buy a fence post, let alone a field. "Papa, stop!" Orchid pointed past my shoulder. My youngest was half out of her seat, boots kicking. I pulled the reins. Below us stretched a wide plot of land. Tall grass ran to a line of trees. A creek cut through the middle, bright in the sun. No house. No fence. No farmer. Lilac climbed down before the carriage fully stopped. She knelt and pressed her hand into the soil, then held it up to me. Dark and damp, the kind that holds seed. "It's good dirt, Papa," she said. "I can tell. You taught me how." My chest tightened. I had taught her that on the road, to keep her mind off the hunger. We walked the edge of it together. Petunia named the berries growing wild along the creek. Orchid chased a frog into the shallows and came back soaked and laughing. For the first time in three weeks, no one spoke of the compass. But the land was not mine. Land like this belonged to someone, and someone would come for rent or worse. I had no deed. I had no claim. Eleven coins bought no ground under my family's feet. Still, the light was going. My daughters were tired. I made a choice I could not take back. "We camp here," I said. "Tonight." Petunia looked at me. She knew what camping meant when a man has nowhere else to go. "And tomorrow?" "Tomorrow I find who owns this and I ask to work it." I did not know if such a man would laugh in my face or set dogs on us. I only knew we would sleep on good dirt. We unloaded the boxes into the grass. Orchid gathered sticks for a fire. Lilac drove a stick into the soil to mark where the wheat would go, sure as anything. I stood in a field I did not own, on land I could not afford, and let myself believe it could be ours.