Meadow traced her fingers along the spines of her precious books, arranged carefully on the rough-hewn shelves that Knox had built for her. The faded gold lettering of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone caught the morning light streaming through her classroom’s window. Outside, the Rocky Mountains rose like ancient guardians, their peaks still snow-capped even in the warmer world that had emerged after the Great Disaster.

“Miss Meadow!” A young voice pulled her from her reverie. “Is it true that people used to live in cities right next to the ocean?”

She turned to face Tommy, one of her more curious students. At twelve, he was already showing the same hunger for knowledge that had driven her during her nomadic childhood years.

“Yes, they did,” she replied, pulling out a weathered copy of National Geographic. The magazine’s pages were yellow with age, but the photographs still showed the gleaming skyscrapers of New York, Shanghai, and Mumbai – all now sleeping beneath the waves. “Before the waters rose and the Great Sickness came, millions of people lived in these places.”

“And they all had electricity? All the time?” Another student, Maria, joined them at the shelf.

Meadow nodded, thinking of Knox and his endless tinkering with the radio equipment in his workshop at the edge of New Haven settlement. “They did. And they could talk to people on the other side of the world whenever they wanted.”

The children’s eyes widened. In their world of about three hundred souls, where the most advanced technology was the water wheel that helped grind their grain, such things seemed like magic. Just like the world of Hogwarts seemed magical to Sarah when she’d first discovered the Potter books in an abandoned library in what used to be Kansas.

After dismissing her class for the day, Meadow gathered her shawl and headed toward Knox’s workshop. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across New Haven’s dirt streets, where chickens pecked and goats wandered freely. Women in homespun clothes exchanged the day’s news at the communal well, while the smell of bread baking in the settlement’s ovens filled the air.

The sound of cursing and metal striking metal grew louder as she approached the workshop. Knox emerged, his dark hair streaked with gray despite his thirty years, wiping grease from his hands with a rag.

“It worked,” he said without preamble, his eyes bright with excitement. “For almost five minutes this time. I made contact with a settlement near the Big River.”

Meadow’s heart leaped. “The Mississippi? What did they say?”

“They have a library too,” Knox said, taking her hands in his. “Not as many books as you, but they’ve been copying them by hand, preserving what they can. They even have some history books from after the Disaster that we don’t have.”

Meadow felt tears prick at her eyes. During her years traveling with the nomads, she’d seen so many books lost to rot, to fire, to simple neglect. The thought that others were working to preserve knowledge, just like her, filled her with hope.

“There’s more,” Knox continued. “They’ve been in contact with other settlements. There’s one in the northern forests that’s managed to get some old solar panels working. Another near the Great Lakes that’s successfully cultivating new strains of wheat resistant to the higher temperatures.”

Meadow thought of tomorrow’s Remembering ceremony, where the entire settlement would gather to record the year’s most important events in the community ledger. What an entry this would make – proof that they weren’t alone, that humanity wasn’t just surviving in isolated pockets, but slowly rebuilding.

“We should tell the Council,” she said, but Knox held her back.

“There’s something else I want to show you first.” He led her into his workshop, where the radio equipment sat silent now, the hand-crank generator still. From a shelf, he pulled down a book she’d never seen before – its cover intact, its pages pristine.

“I found this in a sealed container when I was scavenging for parts,” he said, handing it to her. “I’ve been saving it for your birthday, but now seems right.”

It was a technical manual for radio operations and repair. Meadow ran her fingers over the cover, imagining the possibilities. With this, Knox might be able to make the radio work for longer periods. They might be able to teach others.

“Marry me,” Knox said suddenly. “We’re better together – your books and my machines. Knowledge needs to be both preserved and used. That’s how we’ll rebuild.”

Before Meadow could answer, a commotion arose from the settlement’s center. They rushed outside to see people pointing at the sky. A formation of geese was flying north – weeks earlier than usual.

“The world is still changing,” Meadow said softly, squeezing Knox’s hand. “But at least we’re not facing it alone anymore.” She looked up at him. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Let’s show everyone that the old knowledge and the new can work together.”

That evening, as the settlement gathered for the Remembering, Meadow stood before them all. She told them about the radio contact, about the other settlements and their achievements. She spoke of the books being copied by hand near the Big River, of the solar panels in the northern forests, of the new wheat strains by the Great Lakes.

As the town clerk carefully recorded these events in the ledger, Meadow saw hope kindle in the eyes of her neighbors. The world had ended once, three centuries ago, when the waters rose and the ancient sicknesses emerged from the melting ice. But humanity had survived. And now, perhaps, it was ready to do more than just survive.

Later that night, in her small house with its shelves of precious books, Meadow added a new entry to her personal journal: “Today we discovered we’re not alone. Today we began to rebuild not just our settlement, but our connections to the wider world. Today I said yes to building a future that bridges the old knowledge and the new. The waters may have risen, but so will we.”

Outside, the stars shone bright and clear over the mountains, and somewhere in the darkness, another settlement was reaching out across the airwaves, seeking connection, sharing knowledge, working to rebuild the world anew.