Fertile Valley Re-Upload: Ch. 1 + Queenie Luna's Intro

1 Rock Bottom, Thy Name is Pete

Have you ever had that moment where you see yourself completely without having to look in a mirror? That split second of transcendent clarity where you’re finally able to pierce the proverbial veil of your own bullshit and peer inside your soul? For me, that moment was March 15th, 2024, at about seven twenty-five P.M.

 I did not like what I saw.

What you have to know about me is that I was a diagnosed addict of the carnal variety. It was one of those rare addictions that people had literally no patience for, too, at least in my experience. If you were a gambling addict, alcoholic, or even a raging chocoholic, you’d get some pity for the way your condition affected you. Try telling your friends that you aren’t going out with them on a Friday night because of your sex addiction, though—see how that goes. My guess? Not great.

“Pete,” they’d always say, or offer some variation on the theme, “Who isn’t addicted to ‘gettin’ it on’ these days? It’s the twenty-twenties, my guy!”

They didn’t get it. I’d ruined marriages and my own friendships, broken hearts, and left a trail of destruction in my wake wherever I went. As a self-employed fix-it guy, handyman, plumber, and electrician, it was way, way too easy to meet women and be invited into their homes, and things always seemed to turn out a certain way.

These last eight years, ever since I struck out on my own, it had started up abruptly and only gotten worse with time. I couldn’t point to any triggering event or aspect of my childhood that would be the root cause of such a compulsion. My parents died when I was in college, but that didn’t exactly explain it.

But the big moment—the breaking point, where I swore it was time for me to make some kind of change—happened in a local Episcopalian church. I was at a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting, or on my way to one, when my sponsor lured me into a bathroom stall just outside the meeting room.

I suppose you can guess what happened from there.

Twenty minutes later, the two of us were cooling off in the church parking lot, leaning against the chain link fence that looked out into the playground where kids usually played after mass while their parents got coffee and doughnuts every Sunday.

“Got a light?” Tammy asked me. I should have been mad at her for taking advantage of me—she, who was supposed to be my support system and advocate…but I wasn’t mad. I didn’t have the energy to be mad. I was always just so…exhausted.

“Yeah, sure,” I said as I pulled a Bic lighter out of my pocket. I didn’t smoke, but a lot of easy chicks did—no offense to any easy chicks reading this. Anyway, a lighter was a useful tool for an addict of…well, just about any kind to keep around for one reason or another.

She reached out for it and smirked at my shaky hands. “When you’re ready, Pete.”

“Here ya go,” I said, my voice dry, creeping halfway to a hazy monotone. I’d never done a drug harder than marijuana once in my life, but I felt like a fucking junkie then. “I fucked up, Tammy,” I muttered as she took it from me, letting my hand drop so fast it audibly smacked the side of my leg.

She took a puff of her cigarette, staring at me with a side-eye, sucking in air to let the flame do its work. Her piercing hazel eyes looked at me for a second, then down at the gravel parking lot ground. “Yeah, me too. I’m sorry, Pete.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be. It takes two to fuck up at that level.”

She snickered a little and blew out some smoke through her nostrils. “It was nice, though.”

“Yeah, it was.” That was a lie.

***

That night, I arrived home around nine o’clock in the evening and entered my dingy apartment. There was a pile of envelopes on the table. Most of them were bills I’d yet to pay—not that I was totally broke. I just hadn’t gotten around to it. One letter in particular caught my eye, though, as I flipped through them all.

“Mineral Village,” I muttered, reading the return address. “Joseph Busch. Huh. Grandpa. Haven’t thought about him in a while. I wonder how he’s doing on that old farm of his.” Welcoming the distraction, I hastily and gracelessly ripped the envelope open, doing some minor but negligible damage to the letter inside. This letter was a connection to somewhere other than here, a rare lifeline that would let me stop existing as myself for a moment.

The letter, however, was not an escape, but an icy splash to the face.

Dear Pete,

I’m writing to you from the local clinic as the coroner takes him away. I am very sorry to say, but your grandpa passed away last night in his sleep. He had been sick for a while, though we didn’t realize how bad it really was. We had him staying at the clinic but he always insisted he’d pull through, hence the late notice to you. In his will, he expressed his wish that you come to his farm and collect your inheritance as his next of kin. PLEASE NOTE: it includes property and substantial financial assets.

I have many fond memories of you visiting us every summer during your childhood. You were such an energetic boy back then. I hope you’ve kept up your energy, and I look forward to seeing you soon. 

I’ve attached my business card so you can contact me in case you can’t make it—but I urge you to show up. The funeral will be Saturday, so you can visit us for the weekend and be back in Max City by Monday morning if you need to return in a hurry. Of course, we hope you can stay a while. The reading of the will will happen after the funeral. If you truly can’t make it, then let me know as soon as possible so we can figure something out. I really hope this reaches you.

Sincerely, and with best wishes,

Mayor Elizabeth Luna

P.S. My daughter is excited to see you again. You left something with her last time you visited.

I stared at the letter and went over its contents from start to finish at least three more times. ‘Liz Luna’ was a name that I’d forgotten almost completely in the eight years following my last visit to my grandfather’s farm, though her daughter’s name and face certainly stuck in my mind. Hell, I probably thought of her at least once a day. 

Even so, I couldn’t for the life of me think of what I’d left in her daughter’s care after all this time. I didn’t remember much at all from my last visit, really, aside from a few nights of passion which probably awakened me to my downward spiral once I left that town behind me.

Eight years…shit. “Is that really how long it’s been?” I asked myself as my eyes glazed over, producing cross-eyed doubles of the letter in front of me. “I’m sorry, Gramps.”

A little corner of my numbness gave way to profound sadness as the letter’s contents truly settled in my brain. Grandpa Joe was the one family member who never abandoned me or grew to be ashamed of me. He always knew me as the energetic little helper that came to him every Summer vacation for two solid months until I was eighteen years old—and once following my sophomore year of college. Almost a decade had come and gone since I’d last visited him, letting myself get caught up in bad habits and a life that was going nowhere. 

He and I stayed in touch via the occasional holiday phone call and greeting card exchange, but I had a hard time finding the time to visit him. I was always busy, but if I was honest with myself, that was by design. Part of me could never stomach the idea of him seeing what I’d become. A much bigger part now wished I’d just taken the initiative to visit him more often.

“Not even that,” I growled to myself. “I should have been there all along.” If I’d been in that cozy little town instead of Max City, I was certain my life would have played out differently, and I would have been there to care for the old man, maybe even prolong his life. 

But that ship had sailed. Just another regret.

When my parents died, leaving me their inheritance, I quit my office job and spent three years doing nothing worth reporting—a failed attempt at independence. After I more or less burned that money into nothing, I started working again, starting up my own unlicensed, under the table handyman, plumbing, electrician, and errand boy service operating entirely on word of mouth. I’d love to tell you that I made a killing; I didn’t. I never got much further than making just enough to survive and support my bad habits. But that’s what I’d been doing for the last few years and—remember those marriages I said I destroyed? They came from that. Housewives, man. It’s a tough world out there.

The letter was obviously a golden ticket; I had to believe that wherever my grandpa was, he knew he was saving my life right now. Despite the evidence provided by some of my life choices, I wasn’t a total fucking idiot, so I saw the gift horse for what it was and was happy to kiss it on the mouth without further investigation. I took the business card Mayor Luna attached and added her cellular number to my contacts. I left a simple message.

I’ll be there. Leaving now. Tell your daughter I say hi.

My grandfather had been a good man. The best, most compassionate man I had ever known. He had the work ethic of a Clydesdale, and the spirit of a golden retriever. He was exactly who I wanted to become. With a blush, I easily recalled my first grade Career Day. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “A Grandpa”. With some digging, my Teacher, Mrs. Blake, helped me express that what I really wanted to be was a farmer. But she was wrong, too. What I wanted to be was him. I felt like I already had one foot in the door in that sense—after all, we were flesh and blood. How different could we be?

Pretty fucking different, as it turned out. 

Well, I was finally taking a step in his direction. I hoped that I would make the old man proud, wherever he was. I just wished that this journey didn’t start with the death of the only family I had left.

I frowned at that thought and packed a bag. I wasn’t sure when or if I was going to come back, so I gave the apartment one last look. Thankfully, and perhaps depressingly, I felt nothing as I said my big goodbye. I only had enough belongings to really pack a single large piece of luggage and shove a few additional things into the back of my sedan. The realization would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t a situational relief.

Sending a few more texts to people I was supposed to be doing odd jobs for tomorrow, I explained that I’d just received word of my grandfather’s death and was leaving the city for an indeterminate amount of time. I didn’t get any complaints. A thumbs up. An effusive well-wisher’s TLDR paragraph of compassionate bullshit probably generated by Chat-GPT. And of course some motherfucker just left me on ‘read’.

Finally, I left the key to the apartment under the doormat. The reason was simple. I was, as the letter stated, my Grandfather’s next of kin. That meant that likely everything he owned would go to me—including his farm. And, baby? I was going to keep it. Why would I come back if that’s where this was going?

I got in the car, shut the door, turned the key in the ignition, and fixed the rearview mirror. There was nothing I wanted more than to put this shit stain of a chapter on my life in that rear view mirror and watch as it disappeared for good. 

Eight years. Eight fucking years. Wasted years. Poisoned years. I should have swallowed my pride and shame and been with the old man in his dying days. I wondered if I had missed any other letters. It seemed a lucky accident that I didn’t throw this one out.

My therapist, who, ironically, I slept with a few weeks back, told me that removing oneself from a situation or a place where there are too many temptations is called behavioral avoidance. She suggested moving out of my apartment—but it wasn’t the apartment that was the problem. The problem was in me, I assumed, but I reasoned that by leaving and going elsewhere, maybe I could see myself in a different light. Maybe I would have time to heal before temptation came for me again.

Looking back on it as I write these memoirs, I realize now that there was nothing wrong with me to begin with. It was the city’s fault after all, maybe—we weren’t a match. The city wasn’t my true home, the place where I was meant to be. That place was—and always had been—Mineral Village.

I pulled out of my apartment complex’s parking lot and hit the road with a sigh of relief, my problems more or less at an abrupt end, whether I knew it or not at the time. I looked at my GPS and punched in the address for my grandpa’s place. The region surrounding my destination had an interesting name labeled on the map.

“Fertile Valley, huh,” I mumbled, “Well, here I come.”

Queenie Luna

Queenie Luna, with her blonde, shoulder-length hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, straddled her aging dirt bike. The rusty, grimy machine was a relic passed down from her father who had died when she was young. It was the only thing she really still had of him. 

The dirt bike rumbled like the belly of a hungry bear beneath her. She wore a simple white dress with safety shorts underneath due to all the biking she did in the Valley. Her dress fabric was patterned with wildflowers you couldn’t see unless you were close enough to stare—and you’d better not stare. She had a white hairband, too, which almost matched. The only other noteworthy attire she had on was her faded blue denim jacket, a hand-me-down from her mom, the mayor.

As she approached the ‘Everything’ Store, which was acting as the classroom today, her eyes searched the small pack of village children loitering in front of its doors. Kylie Ann, her daughter, stood out with her bright, curious eyes scanning the crowd. Her hair, a sheet of golden waves that always covered her ears, bounced as she spotted Queenie and waved excitedly.

“Hey, Momma!” Kylie Ann's voice chirped happily as always. Queenie’s heart filled at the sight of her little girl.

“How was school today?” Queenie asked. Her voice was tinged with maternal warmth as they set off, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.

Kylie Ann bubbled over with details from her day. “Good! Mrs. Sanford’s classes are always amazing! We learned about edible plants in the valley. Mushrooms are cool but tricky, you know? Some look harmless but are super dangerous. Honestly, it’s kinda scary.”

Queenie listened, but she was a little distracted, her mind elsewhere. “By now you’ve probably heard about Old Joe, right?” she asked.

The little girl fell quiet.

“I know you liked him a lot. He was a good man, and his farm used to provide a lot of food and financial support to our town.”

“Who’s going to take over that farm?” her child asked anxiously.

Queenie shook her head. “We reached out to someone. If he comes, well—it’d be…it’d be amazing. But I don’t want to get my hopes up. Fact of the matter is our community is in trouble.”

“In what way? How?”

Queenie forced back tears as she continued on her dirt bike. Her daughter had no idea the way their village really worked. Sure, she knew of its magic like everyone else did—she even had a magical backpack crafted right here in the valley. Still, it was time for Kylie Ann to learn where all these wonders came from. 

For now, though, Queenie changed the subject back. “What about Tommy and Leah?” she probed gently, guiding the conversation to Kylie Ann’s classmates. “How were they today?”

“They were all about berries today! But Sam...” Kylie Ann giggled, “she’s still puzzling over the math lesson from yesterday. She kept muttering about fractions under her breath the whole time while the rest of us were reviewing our foraging lessons.”

Their journey took them through the heart of Mineral Village. The village, under the enduring administration of Elizabeth Luna, who was both the mayor and Queenie’s mother, followed the same gentle, peaceful rhythm day to day. The streets were lined with quaint houses showing their age, their gardens blooming with flowers and herbs. The edges of the town had a few trailer homes on disused plots, like the Copeland plot, where skinny Darlene now lived alone in their trailer after her brother’s departure and her grandmother’s recent passing. The villagers, contributing members of this tight-knit community, waved as they passed by, flashing friendly smiles. Behind each smile was a story like Darlene’s, though—full of loneliness, worry…but still some hope.

“Mom, where are we going?” Kylie Ann’s question pulled Queenie back from her observations.

“We’re visiting a special place today,” Queenie replied, letting her voice take on a hushed tone. “The western woodland shrine. I need to check something after last week’s storm.”

Kylie Ann’s grip tightened in anticipation, her curiosity piqued. They rode in silence, each lost in their thoughts. The steady droning of the dirt bike provided a comforting background sound, even if it drowned out the preferable sounds of nature as they entered the valley.

As they turned off the main road, the terrain grew wilder, untamed. Queenie navigated the black dirt bike with practiced ease, weaving through the dense thicket as her daughter clung to her for dear life. The barely visible path was strewn with rocks and roots, but there was, at least, a path. Eventually, though, they reached a point where the bike could venture no further. They parked it beside an ancient, gnarled tree.

They journeyed the rest of the way on foot, letting the forest envelop them. The sounds of the village had long since faded into sounds of nature—the rustling of leaves, the distant chirping of birds, the soft crunch of their footsteps on the earthy trail. The air was cool, fragrant with the scent of pine and damp soil.

Queenie loved this atmosphere. She wouldn’t trade it for the world. If Mineral Village did die out one day, she would find some way to take her daughter and move into a farm house of their own somewhere else. She had no idea how she’d pull that off—financially, that is. But she couldn’t bear the thought of raising her girl in the city. Then again, the idea of raising her away from the gifts of the Harvest Goddess was equally abhorrent.

After a short trek, they emerged into a sun-dappled clearing. The sight before them was breathtaking—a statue of a woman, with features oozing an almost supernatural degree of beauty. She stood tall, and her skimpy robes flowed around her in stone, giving her a sense of movement and grace.

“Is that her, Mom?” Kylie Ann whispered, her voice laced with awe. It was the first time her mother had brought her here.

“Yes, honey. That’s the Harvest Goddess,” Queenie replied with a reverent tone. “This is one of many statues of her hidden in the valley. The only one most people see is atop Harvest Hill—well, that and the smaller ones, like in Bob and Candy’s shop. I guess you might not fully recognize her because every statue is a bit different.”

“I know she’s super important to our family, but you never talk about her in public,” Kylie Ann whispered. “The other kids mention her sometimes. I hear grandma whispering about her too.”

That didn’t surprise Queenie. “I don’t imagine your friends know all that much, do they?”

The little girl shook her head. “Not too much. They say she’s real. A real goddess.”

“You know our valley is special, honey,” Queenie said. “That magical backpack of yours, Old Joe’s tools, too, even the way every local business just seems blessed to thrive on so few actual customers from outside of town—our town clings to life when it should be long dead, really. It’s her who keeps us going.”

Kylie Ann gazed up at the statue, her imagination ignited. “Will I ever meet her, Mom?”

Queenie’s heart warmed at her daughter’s question, and she smiled, reaching behind the curtain of golden hair to touch her daughter’s sharp ear. “I am sure you will, Kylie Ann. One day, when the time is right. That’s why I brought you here. It’s time for you to enter this hidden world. It’s your birthright, after all.”

They moved closer to the statue, where Queenie noticed the remnants of her previous visit—a bouquet of wildflowers, now scattered and wilted. She popped open the seat and reached into her enchanted purse—a common accessory out here—to retrieve a fresh bouquet that defied the size of the bag. The bouquet had been provided to her by the reclusive Becca Sue from the local flower shop on Main Street. With Kylie Ann by Queenie’s side, they approached the altar at the base of the statue.

Queenie arranged the flowers with care, their colors vibrant against the stone. They burned the remaining old flowers in a small pile, lighting them up with matches. Kylie Ann mostly watched with her eyes wide with curiosity and awe. “Will our village be alright?”

The question wounded Queenie. She wanted to say yes, but even the kids could feel the vultures circling. Some of the town’s residents were planning to move out now that Old Joe was gone. Where would their food come from? If they couldn’t get that farm back to full strength within a couple of years, they’d have to import so much from out of the village that the influence of the outside world would creep in and slowly corrupt this holy place. It was starting to feel like an inevitability. The slow death of the town felt like it had already begun.

Queenie cleared her throat. “I think there’s a good chance that things will be okay. Like I said, your grandma reached out to someone special about it…but if no one moves into that farm, then maybe some of us villagers will just have to work together to get it going again. It won’t be a perfect solution—not without someone from that family on the land. But it’d be better than nothing.”

“Even if someone does move in, maybe we should help them?” Kylie Ann suggested.

Queenie felt a tear in her eyes as she knelt in front of the statue. “Yeah. Maybe we should, sweety.”

As Queenie whispered a quiet conversation to the goddess, she wondered just how Kylie Ann saw the shrine, knowing so little about it. It was a symbol of their community's friendship with the patroness, and a faith and hope that had sustained them through hardships and joys alike. Though the whole town knew her name and understood how very real she was, the Harvest Goddess was a figure of mystery to most, even so. She embodied the spirit of their village—resilient, nurturing, and deeply connected to the land.

The tranquility of the moment was abruptly broken by the shrill ring of Queenie’s phone, vibrating in her purse. She fished it out and held it in front of her as her expression turned to one of slight unease. “It's Grandma,” she murmured to Kylie Ann, answering the call. “Be quiet. I don’t need her to know you’re here.”

Kylie Ann nodded, but there was no use, anyway.

Elizabeth Luna's voice was unmistakable, deeper than Queenie’s, more authoritative and powerful. "Queenie, I know what you’re doing, honey. Bringing Kylie Ann to a hidden shrine behind my back is…Listen, she's too young to be involved in this."

Queenie felt some anxiety but stood her ground. "Mom, if we’re going to survive what’s coming, she’ll need to know. Things are going to change either way."

Elizabeth’s reply was firm. "Nothing is changing. Not for the worse, anyway."

Queenie knew her mother was usually right, sometimes even seemingly all-knowing, so if she had reason to hope, then Queenie did too. Still…with the passing of Old Joe, a vital link in their self-sustenance chain, the village faced unprecedented challenges. People very well might go hungry or be forced to leave—and so many had already left in the last decade.

"I understand, Mom," Queenie conceded, deciding not to say anything else.

The call ended abruptly, leaving Queenie in a contemplative silence. Kylie Ann looked up at her. She clearly sensed the weight of the conversation, but didn’t understand it. Queenie crouched down, her eyes meeting her daughter's.

"Kylie Ann, some things about our village are very special, and it's important we keep them just between us," she said gently, her hand brushing the little girl’s hair, though careful not to expose her sharp little ear. “I can’t explain right now how your grandma always knows the things she knows, but she wants you to be separate from this world a while longer. I disagree. Still—around her, maybe play dumb a bit, alright?”

Kylie Ann nodded, a serious expression on her young face. "Okay, Momma."

The ride back home was quiet. Even the rumbling engine of Queenie’s dirt bike seemed muted somehow. As they neared their house, Queenie couldn’t escape the feeling that maybe her mother was right. Maybe nothing would change, and that they would find some way to keep the farm alive after all.

She just needed to have some faith.