Gamer1234556
Farmer
Chapter 25
Lewis found me before I could hide.I was standing near the edge of the field, trying to decide whether the soreness in my legs meant I should stop for the day or simply complain while continuing anyway, when I heard footsteps on the path.
Slow ones.
Careful ones.
I looked up.
Mayor Lewis was approaching from the direction of town, one hand raised in greeting, his expression already folded into concern.
Great.
Another witness to my public humiliation.
“Eric,” he called. “There you are.”
“I didn’t do it,” I said automatically.
He blinked.
“Do what?”
“Whatever you’re about to ask me about.”
Lewis stopped at the edge of the farm and gave me a tired look.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Yeah, fair.”
He stepped closer, eyes scanning me the same way Clint’s had earlier. Face, shoulders, posture, whether I was standing like a person or like a scarecrow pretending to be alive.
“Eric,” he said gently, “you’re sure you’re alright?”
I sighed.
“That’s the fourth time someone has asked me that today.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m alright.”
Lewis’s brow furrowed.
“Are you actually alright, or are you saying that because you’re twenty-something and therefore convinced your body is a temporary inconvenience?”
I stared at him.
“That was oddly specific.”
“I’ve been mayor a long time.”
“I just stayed in the mines too long,” I said. “That’s all.”
Lewis’s expression tightened.
“That’s never all.”
The words landed heavier than I expected.
I shifted uncomfortably.
“I made it home.”
“You collapsed in your yard.”
“After making it home.”
“That is not the distinction you think it is.”
I looked away.
The field stretched beside us, damp patches of watered soil dark against the lighter earth. The parsnips were gone now, harvested and packed away. The furnace Clint had given me sat near the farmhouse, still warm from the last copper bar. Dudley watched from the porch like a small judge with whiskers.
Everything around me looked like progress.
I hated that Lewis was making it feel like evidence.
He exhaled slowly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to lecture.”
“You kind of do.”
“I suppose I do.”
At least he admitted it.
Lewis rubbed the bridge of his nose, suddenly looking older than he had a moment ago.
“It’s just…” He hesitated. “Your grandfather did the same thing.”
I went still.
“What?”
Lewis looked toward the farmhouse.
Not at me.
At the house.
At the fields.
At something older than either.
“Overworking himself,” he said quietly. “Pushing until his body forced him to stop. Collapsing. Pretending it was nothing afterward. Peter had a talent for making other people worry while insisting there was no reason to.”
A strange pressure gathered in my chest.
Grandpa.
Every time someone said something about him, it felt like being handed a puzzle piece from a picture I had never seen. Some pieces were warm. Some were sharp. None of them fit the version I carried in my head cleanly.
“He collapsed?” I asked.
Lewis nodded, but reluctantly.
“More than once.”
I stared at him.
The image felt wrong.
Grandpa had always seemed solid in my memories. Tired near the end, yes. Sick. Fragile in the way dying people became fragile.
But before that?
He had been the center of rooms. The man everyone turned toward. The one who knew what to do when something broke.
I had never imagined him failing under the weight of his own body.
“What was he doing?” I asked.
Lewis’s mouth tightened.
“Usually too much.”
I sighed.
“Another safe answer...”
Lewis looked at me then.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The breeze moved through the field. The furnace clicked softly as it cooled. Dudley’s tail flicked against the porch.
Lewis’s face softened, but it did not open.
That was the frustrating thing about him.
He could look kind and guarded at the same time.
“I was worried you might’ve inherited the habit,” he said.
I blinked.
A generational issue?
Great.
Apparently my family legacy included mysterious letters, emotional repression, and collapsing outdoors.
“I barely knew that side of him,” I said.
Lewis’s eyes lowered.
“I know.”
That bothered me more than it should have.
Not because he was wrong.
Because he sounded sad about it.
“How much did you know him?” I asked.
Lewis drew a breath.
Then let it out.
“Enough.”
Again.
Safe.
Always safe.
I felt something tighten in me.
Before I could press further, Lewis straightened, as if physically stepping away from the subject.
“But anyway,” he said too quickly, “there was something I wanted to show you.”
I stared at him.
“That was not smooth.”
“No,” he admitted. “It wasn’t.”
“Lewis.”
“It’s important.”
“So was what we were just talking about.”
“I know.” His voice softened. “And I’m not trying to avoid it forever.”
“Just right now?”
His silence answered for him.
I should have pushed.
Instead, I was tired.
Too tired to turn every conversation into a fight.
So I let him lead me back toward town.
We walked mostly in silence. The path from the farm to Pelican Town felt shorter now that I had taken it so many times, but today every step tugged at the bruises in my legs. Lewis noticed. Of course he noticed. He slowed without saying anything, which somehow irritated me more than if he had pointed it out.
The town square was quiet when we arrived. A few birds pecked near the fountain. The playground sat empty behind the clinic, swings moving slightly in the breeze though no one was using them.
Beyond it stood a building I had passed more than once without really seeing.
That seemed impossible now.
It was large, old, and half-rotted, tucked behind the playground like the town had tried to hide it without having the courage to tear it down. Vines crawled up the walls. Boards sagged near the windows. The roofline dipped in places where it should have held firm. One of the doors hung slightly crooked, as if the building had grown too tired to stand straight.
Lewis stopped in front of it.
“The Community Center,” he announced.
Then, with a weary groan:
“What’s left of it.”
I stared.
The name felt too grand for what stood in front of me.
Community Center.
It sounded like warmth. Gatherings. Events. Children running through halls. People arguing over decorations. Someone cooking too much food. Someone else complaining there wasn’t enough.
This looked like a place everyone had agreed not to remember.
“What happened to it?” I asked.
Lewis did not answer immediately.
Instead, he stepped forward and pushed open the door.
The hinges complained.
Inside, the air was worse.
Dust hit me first. Dry, thick, old enough to taste. Under it was mold, damp wood, and the faint green smell of plants growing where plants had no business growing. Light filtered through cracked windows in pale, slanted beams, catching motes in the air like ash.
The floorboards creaked under our feet.
Vines curled through broken gaps in the walls.
Paint peeled in long strips.
The main hall opened ahead of us, large enough that I could imagine it full of people if I tried hard enough. Tables along the walls. Food laid out. Kids running between adults. Music maybe. Laughter. Old arguments softened by familiarity.
But the imagination did not hold.
The building in front of me kept intruding.
Rot.
Dust.
Silence.
A skeleton of what used to be a community heart.
Lewis stood near the center of the room, hat held in both hands.
For the first time since I had met him, he looked less like a mayor and more like a man visiting a grave.
“It was our pride once,” he murmured.
His voice sounded smaller in here.
“Always bustling. Potlucks, dances when the weather was bad, meetings that ran too long because everyone had too much to say. Children used to run through this hall so loudly you could hear them from the river.”
He smiled faintly.
“Your grandfather hated the noise.”
I looked at him.
“He did?”
“Oh, he complained constantly.” Lewis’s smile warmed, then faded. “But he came anyway. Every time. Usually early, usually carrying something he claimed nobody asked him to bring.”
“What did he bring?”
“Whatever was needed.”
Safe again.
But softer this time.
Lewis walked toward one of the side rooms, then stopped before entering. His hand rested on the doorframe, thumb brushing over the cracked wood.
“After a while, people stopped coming as much,” he said. “Not all at once. That would have been easier to fight. It happened slowly. Someone got a television. Someone else started shopping at Joja because it was cheaper. Families got busier. Children grew up and left. People stopped volunteering because they assumed someone else would do it.”
He gave a humorless little laugh.
“And eventually there was no someone else.”
I looked around.
“This goes beyond neglect.”
Lewis’s hand tightened on the doorframe.
The words had slipped out before I could soften them, but I didn’t take them back.
Because it was true.
Dust was neglect.
Broken boards were neglect.
But this felt different.
Like something had hollowed the place out before time finished the job.
Lewis turned toward me slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I looked up at the rafters, at the dark corners, at the vines creeping over old walls. “That’s the problem. I keep not knowing.”
His eyes flickered.
I kept going.
“Joja keeps pushing you to sell it, right?”
Lewis went quiet.
Then nodded.
“For years now,” he said. “Morris brings it up every chance he gets. Sometimes politely. Sometimes less so. They want to turn it into a warehouse.”
The word struck the room like an insult.
Warehouse.
This place had been built for people, and Joja wanted to fill it with boxes.
“Pelican Town could use the money,” Lewis admitted.
His jaw tightened as soon as he said it, like the words tasted bad.
“Road repairs. Clinic subsidies. School supplies. Public works. There are always things that need funding, and there is never enough gold to do all of them.”
“But you haven’t signed.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Lewis looked around the ruined hall.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then:
“Because some things become shameful only after you sell them.”
That was the most honest thing he had said all morning.
It also was not enough.
There it was again.
That feeling.
A missing puzzle piece.
Something unsaid.
Not just about Joja.
Not just about the Community Center.
Not just about Grandpa.
The mine.
George.
The Wizard.
Gunther.
Peter Keene.
Everyone kept handing me fragments and then acting surprised when I noticed they belonged to the same broken thing.
“Lewis,” I said slowly, “is Joja the only problem here?”
He flinched.
Not much.
Enough.
“H-hey now,” he said, too quickly. “Don’t get so worked up. I was mostly joking earlier about the membership thing. You don’t have to buy anything from them if you don’t want—”
“No.”
My voice came out sharper than I intended.
Lewis stopped.
The old building seemed to hold its breath around us.
“No,” I repeated, quieter but firmer. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
He looked away.
That made the heat rise in my chest.
“I feel like this town is hiding something,” I said.
Lewis’s shoulders sank a fraction.
I stepped closer, unable to stop now.
“There’s a Wizard in the woods no one talks about like that’s normal. There’s a mine north of town with monsters in it and apparently no safety regulations beyond an old man handing me a rusty sword. George talks about Dwarves in a war I’ve never heard anyone mention. Joja clears a landslide caused by their own drilling operation and somehow that’s just paperwork.”
I could hear myself getting louder.
I didn’t care.
“And everyone keeps telling me my grandfather loved this place, but no one explains why he left. Or why Mom stopped coming. Or why he gave me the farm like he knew I’d need it someday. Or why you all look at me like you’re waiting to see whether I’ll become him or break where he broke.”
Lewis’s face had gone pale.
Good.
Maybe that was cruel.
I didn’t care about that either.
“I am overwhelmed,” I said. “I’m tired. I don’t know what I’m doing. I almost collapsed in a mine because copper somehow felt more important than sleeping. And every time I ask a real question, someone gives me half an answer and expects me to be grateful.”
The words echoed slightly in the empty hall.
Dust drifted through the light between us.
I swallowed hard.
“What is going on, Lewis?”
He did not answer.
Not at first.
His posture wilted.
The mayor disappeared from him piece by piece. The upright stance. The practiced smile. The careful civic warmth. What remained was an old man standing in the ruins of a building he had failed to save, facing the grandson of a friend he had failed to fully understand.
“I feared this might happen,” he whispered.
My anger faltered.
“What?”
Lewis looked toward the far wall.
“I wasn’t sure bringing you back here was fair.”
The sentence struck harder than I expected.
Bringing me back.
Not welcoming.
Not receiving.
Bringing.
“You didn’t bring me back,” I said.
“Didn’t I?” His voice was tired. “The letter was Peter’s. The farm was Peter’s. But I sent the keys. I signed the papers. I knew what this place had become. I knew what memories might still be waiting here.”
My pulse beat against my throat.
“What memories?”
Lewis closed his eyes.
“Eric…”
“No,” I said. “Don’t do that. Don’t say my name like that and then stop.”
He opened his eyes again, and the pain in them was real.
That almost made it worse.
“Then tell me,” I said.
“I can’t.”
The words were quiet.
Firm.
Infuriating.
“Why?”
“Because some answers aren’t mine alone to give.”
I stared at him.
Lewis looked older than I had ever seen him.
“I need you to trust me,” he said.
I laughed once, bitter and short.
“That is an insane thing to ask right now.”
“I know, but you have to.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word.
That stopped me.
Lewis looked around the Community Center again, and when he spoke, he did not sound like a mayor making a request. He sounded like someone begging at the edge of something he could not hold back much longer.
“Help me push Joja out,” he said. “Help me restore the town. Not because it fixes everything. It won’t. But because if Pelican Town loses this place, then whatever comes after won’t matter. There will be nothing left to tell the truth to.”
The room felt colder.
I looked at the broken walls.
The vines.
The dust.
The empty hall that used to hold people.
“And then?” I asked.
Lewis met my eyes.
“And then we’ll talk.”
“When?”
“When the town can survive the conversation.”
That answer made something inside me go very still.
It was not enough.
He knew it.
I knew it.
But it was the first answer that sounded like he was not merely avoiding me.
I looked away from him, toward the far end of the hall where sunlight slipped through a cracked window and touched the ruined floorboards.
Help restore the town.
Then the truth.
That was not a promise I trusted.
But it was a shape.
A path.
Maybe that was how Pelican Town worked. It didn’t hand you answers. It handed you broken things and waited to see whether you cared enough to fix them first.
My jaw tightened.
“You’re asking a lot from someone who passed out last night.”
Lewis gave a sad little smile.
“I know.”
“I don’t like this. And I don’t trust you enough for this.”
His smile faded.
“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose you do.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he reached into his coat and took out an old key.
It was brass, worn dull at the edges, and attached to a small, faded ribbon.
He held it out.
“The door sticks,” he said. “And some of the rooms may not be safe. But if you want to look around, you should be able to.”
I stared at the key.
It felt heavier than it should have.
Everything in this town did.
Slowly, I took it.
Lewis’s hand lingered for half a second before letting go.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
He looked at me.
“For all the things I’m still not saying.”
That was honest too.
I hated that it helped.
Lewis stepped past me toward the entrance, his boots creaking against the old floorboards.
At the doorway, he paused.
“Your grandfather believed this place could survive almost anything,” he said.
“And did it?”
Lewis looked back at the ruined hall.
“I’m still trying to find out.”
Then he left.
I stood alone in the Community Center, the old key cold in my palm.
Dust shifted in the light.
Somewhere deep in the building, wood groaned.
For a moment, I thought I saw something move near the edge of the room — small, green, and gone before my eyes could catch it properly.
I turned sharply.
Nothing.
Just vines.
Rot.
Silence.
And the feeling that the town had not brought me here to answer my questions.
It had brought me here to make them impossible to ignore.