Brenda and Mand crunched over the ground between the shed and the barn. The frosty night air had frozen whatever moisture that was contained in the topsoil, turning it from a soft and somewhat sloppy muck to an uneven and rigid surface. Claire used the bright moonlight to pick her footsteps carefully, doing her best not to stumble and fall from being caught in an unyielding foot or hoofprint.
As the two got closer to the large structure, Mand's heart began to quicken - she would finally get a good look at the item that she had coveted from her hiding place in the little shed.
"I can hear Val's voice now," Mand thought. "She would yammer on about all the things we could do with it, and I'd have to remind her that it didn't belong to us."
"But YOU thought about using it without permission," she heard her sister's voice scold her in her mind. "I guess it's OK when YOU do it!"
Mand sighed. As the both of them grew older, Val had begun to challenge her guidance more and more. Mand knew that if this separation hadn't occurred, she and her sister may have been facing a huge blow up as the friction between the them grew to critical mass.
"Maybe it's better this way," she thought. "Maybe the both of us will have had a chance to grow a little more now that we're not together. Maybe things will go back to normal once we reunite."
A dark thought crossed her mind. "IF we reunite."
"Mand?" Brenda whispered as she looked at her, concern in her voice. "Are you alright?"
"Sorry, just a lot of things on my mind," Mand whispered back.
The woman nodded, seeming to have an inkling of understanding.
The two continued to walk. Much to Mand's surprise, Brenda did not go towards the large barn doors at the front of the structure, rather the woman brought them around to the far side of the structure to a normal sized door. Brenda opened the door and motioned for Mand to enter.
Mand stepped across the threshold to the structure and was immediately greeted by a blanketing warmth that seemed to emanate from a small woodstove in one corner of the barn. Next to that woodstove, was the large tracked yellow vehicle that Mand had caught a glimpse of earlier in the day. Mand stood, mouth agape at the sheer size of the thing.
"Ahh, admiring the tractor," Brenda said as she stepped through the door and closed it behind her.
"Tractor, right..." Mand trailed off. She was sure that she had encountered the word somewhere before, but it still had a foreign ring to it.
The thing must have weighed a literal ton. In her travels, Mand had come across the rusted remains of pre-war vehicles from time to time, but she had never seen something this intact before. A large curved blade sat at the front of the tractor, held inches off the ground by two metal arms that connected to its body.
"It's apparently been in my Dad's family for generations. It's as least as old as the farmhouse." Brenda said.
"How is it in such good condition?" Mand asked. "Most pre-war vehicles are usually no better than scrap at this point."
"The family's been maintaining it ever since the fall. Of course, we don't have any fuel to run it, so I have no idea if the thing actually works."
Mand raised an eyebrow, "But why? What's the point if there's no fuel?"
Brenda shrugged, "I guess one of my ancestors had the hope that things would return to normal at some point and fuel would be a thing again. For now, it's just a project that each generation of the family inherits."
"I'm a little surprised that nobody sold it," Mand mused. "You are literally sitting on a small fortune of metal."
"Yeah, Dad's talked about it. I think as long as the farm is doing ok, he won't go through with it though. I think he feels that he'd be upsetting all his ancestors if he did so though."
"What about you?" Would you sell it?"
Brenda shrugged her shoulders. "I've put as much work into it as my father has. I'd only sell if we ended up in a situation where we needed the money for survival."
Mand felt her face go flush. She imagined how upset the farmers would have been if she had gone through with her plan to pull a chunk of valuable alloys out of the vehicle to barter for passage off the island. She would have made a weapon for herself as well. All those years of the farmers preserving the tractor would have gone to waste.
"Amazing," Mand said. "If my sister was here, she would have insisted that we try and operate it."
The woman raised an eyebrow, "It's pretty complicated..."
Mand nodded, "Val has a way with gears and motors. She's spent a lot of time studying them. No doubt she'd love to see the manual."
Brenda laughed, "Manual? If we ever had one, it's been lost to time. Everything passed down is kept up here," Brenda said tapping the side of her head.
The two stood in silence for a moment.
"Oh, I said I was going to get you some warmer clothes! Stay here for a bit. Feel free to look around, but try not to bother the horse."
With that, the woman opened the side door of the barn and stepped out into the chilly night air.
Mand was by herself now, staring at the tractor.
She couldn't help but place a hand on the side of the large vehicle. She felt every inch of its structure. She could feel some rust, but for the most part, the majority of the thing seemed intact. Some parts felt newer, like they had been replaced in the intervening years.
"Even if they had fuel, I doubt it would run," she thought. "It feels like the parts that carried the power would probably burn out. Those bits feel brittle."
She closed her eyes and focused on those bits that seemed inadequate. She concentrated, breaking down those brittle pieces, and reformed them until they were like new.
"Probably still not enough, but I hope it at least helps."
She took her hand off the machine and sat down next it, waiting for Brenda to return.
Pain suddenly flashed behind her eyes.
"Not again!" Mand thought.