"So it was arson."
"Looks that way."
"Any idea who?"
Tom looked toward Willow Ridge.
"Not yet."
Emma stared at him.
"Dad..."
Eli didn't respond.
Claire approached.
Her face was pale.
"I'm sorry."
Eli nodded.
She looked at the ruins.
"Was there anything we can do?"
Eli stared at the ashes.
"Stay out of it."
Claire froze.
He immediately regretted the words.
But he was exhausted.
Angry.
Afraid.
That night, Eli sat alone on the porch.
The farm was dark.
For the first time in seventy years, the Harland barn was gone.
And for the first time in his life, Eli wondered whether his grandfather had been wrong.
Maybe land wasn't something you kept forever.
Maybe sometimes you had to know when to let go.
Three days after the fire, Emma found the notebook.
It had been hidden inside an old metal cabinet.
The cover was blackened.
The pages smelled of smoke.
On the first page was her grandfather's handwriting.
Samuel Harland — 1968
Eli read silently.
The notebook contained records.
Crop yields.
Expenses.
Weather.
But near the back were notes about the northern property.
Emma leaned over his shoulder.
"What does it say?"
Eli read aloud.
"Original boundary disputed by county survey."
He turned the page.
A map.
An old map.
The northern forty acres were clearly marked.
But there was something else.
A handwritten note.
Access road is legally protected as agricultural easement.
Eli stared.
"That can't be."
Emma looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because if that's real..."
"The development can't block you."
Eli turned another page.
There were signatures.
County officials.
Surveyors.
Witnesses.
The easement had been registered decades ago.
Emma smiled.