The paper stayed where it was, catching the morning light like something holy and wrong.
The screen door creaked when I stepped out after him.
Zeke was already down by the edge of the olive trees, near the place where the earth sloped off toward the valley. He wasn't doing anything—just standing there, hands in his pockets, looking at the horizon like it owed him something.
I didn't say anything at first. Just walked over and stood beside him.
The cicadas were already humming. Morning light caught the dew on the branches, and the fields past the grove looked peaceful in that indifferent way the world does when something bad happens.
He broke the silence first.
"You remember when we were kids, and I told you that if you ever got drafted, I'd punch the officer in the teeth and run off with you into the mountains?"
"Yeah," I said. "I remember."
He smiled. Just barely. "Turns out that plan doesn't work so well when you're twenty-four and you've got a wife and kid."
"No," I said. "I guess not."
He nodded, jaw working a little. "I'm scared, Salem."
It wasn't whispered. It wasn't broken. It was just true.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to kill anybody either. I don't even know how to hold a rifle right."
"You'll learn."
"That's the part that scares me more," he said.
We stood there, side by side. A crow flapped somewhere overhead. A breeze moved the leaves, like hands brushing past one another.
"I keep thinking," he said, "what if I go and I don't come back? What does Thalia remember? What does Dinah do? What does Mom do?"
"You think I'll just fall apart without you?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
He looked at me sideways. "No. I think you'd hold it all together. That's what makes it worse."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I picked up a small stone and tossed it down the hill.
He exhaled, long and slow. "I always thought if it came to this, I'd feel… I don't know. Braver."
"You're plenty brave."
He shook his head. "I'm just trying not to throw up."
We were quiet again. The olive branches swayed gently above us, casting shadows that shifted with the wind.
Then he said, "Promise me something."
"What?"
"When I go… Don't try to be me. Don't try to fill my spot. Just be you. Salem Vale. The weird kid who talks to doves and knows every psalm by heart."
"I don't talk to doves."
"You do," he said, nudging my shoulder. "They talk back, too."
I rolled my eyes, but it made me smile.
Zeke looked ahead again. "I'll write, if I can. As much as I can."
"I'll write back."
"And when I come home," he said—he said it like a challenge, like he was daring the world to stop him—"we'll take Thalia to the sea. Let her see something wide and good."
"Yeah," I said.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
He nodded again. Then scrubbed a hand through his hair and started walking back toward the house.
I stayed a little longer, letting the silence settle around me.
The wind quieted as I stood there alone, the last of Zeke's footsteps fading up the path. A dove cooed from somewhere in the grove. The sun had climbed higher, but it hadn't warmed anything inside me.
Eventually, I followed.
By the time I stepped through the screen door, Zeke was already seated at the kitchen table again, his back to the wall. Dinah sat beside him, one hand gripping his knee. Mom had poured tea for everyone, but nobody was drinking it. It just sat there, cooling.
Thalia was on the floor with a toy wooden lamb, dragging it in slow, absent loops across the rug.
No one looked up when I entered. It was like time had stopped moving, and I was the only one who still remembered how to walk through it.
I sat down across from Zeke. He glanced at me for half a second—just enough to know he'd kept his promise and said none of what we talked about. He didn't have to.
Mom finally broke the silence.
She pushed her tea away and looked up at Zeke, then at me. Her eyes were rimmed red, but dry now. Her voice, when it came, was quiet but carved from something solid.
"I know what war does to men," she said. "I've seen what other mothers' sons write home. What it turns them into. How they talk about it—like they left something behind and had to bury what was left of themselves to survive."
Zeke didn't move.
"If you have to go, and it looks like you do—then you go. You hold your head up. You remember who you are. But listen to me, Ezekiel."
She reached across the table and took his hand.
"Don't kill if you can help it. Not unless you have to. Not unless there's no other way."
Dinah swallowed hard, her eyes fixed on the table.
Mom turned to me next. "And you, Salem. You're not being called yet. But someday, it might come to you, too."
I nodded.
"If it does… you carry light into that darkness. You don't let it twist you. I don't want to lose both my boys. Not one to war, and one to hate."
The kettle hissed softly on the stove.
Zeke gave the faintest nod. "I won't forget who I am."
"I know," she said. "Neither of you will. You were raised better."
For a long time, that was all. Just the clock ticking. Thalia murmuring to her lamb. The scent of over-steeped tea and cooling hearth smoke.
Then Mom stood and gathered the cups. No one stopped her. She wasn't rushing to clean. It was just something to do with her hands.
Zeke leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on something no one else could see.
And I sat there watching all of it, feeling the weight of something too big for the walls to hold.
I left not long after.
Told Mom I was going to see Jonas. She just nodded, barely looked up from the bread she was kneading. Her forearms were dusted white with flour, and Thalia clung to her skirt like an anchor.
The sun had burned off the last of the morning haze by the time I reached the ridge path. Dry leaves cracked underfoot. The goats in the distance bleated like they hadn't heard the news.
Jonas was in the side yard, mending the leg of a chicken crate with twine and a rock he was using like a hammer. He looked up when he saw me and wiped his hands on his shirt.
"You hear?"
I nodded.
"Your brother?"
"Yeah."
He stood and let out a slow breath through his nose. "Damn."
We sat under the fig tree near the fence line, where we used to pass hours tossing pebbles at the fence post, betting imaginary coins on who'd hit it first. We didn't do that now.
"How'd your mom take it?" Jonas asked.
"She's… holding together. Sort of."
He nodded, chewing on his lip. "Mine cried when they started posting the names in the square. Said she knew it'd reach our hill sooner or later."
"She's not wrong."
Jonas looked at the dirt. Picked up a stick. Drew a crooked line.
"Zeke scared?"
"Yeah."
He nodded like that made sense. "I would be too."
We were quiet for a while.
The fig leaves above us trembled with wind. Down the slope, someone was singing—faint, distant. A woman's voice, carrying laundry or water or grief.
Jonas spoke again. "You think they'll send him to the front?"
"I don't know. Larnaca first, then wherever they need bodies, I guess."
He winced. "Sorry. That was dumb."
"No," I said. "It wasn't."
He threw the stick.
"When my cousin Leon went last year, he said the ones from the mountains barely knew which end of the gun to use. Said they just pray and run and hope someone behind them knows better."
"Sounds about right."
Jonas glanced sideways at me. "You scared for him?"
I didn't answer right away.
"Yeah."
More quiet.
"I keep thinking," Jonas said after a while, "what if I'm next?"
I looked at him. His jaw was tighter than usual, but his eyes weren't scared—not yet. Just trying to understand something too big for our age.
"Then I guess I'll be scared for you too," I said.
That got a faint smile.
We sat like that for a while longer. Not saying much. Just letting the weight of it hang between us like storm clouds not quite ready to rain.
Finally, Jonas said, "Come by again tomorrow?"
"I will."
He nodded, then looked back down the slope.
I walked home slower than usual.
The sun was low when I got back.
The door was open, the way we always left it when someone was out. The porch boards creaked underfoot, but nobody called out. No voices from the kitchen. No smell of supper.
Just quiet.