Inside, the lamps were lit, low and flickering. Mom was folding laundry at the table, moving like her hands belonged to someone else. Zeke sat across from her, head down, sharpening a knife with slow, even strokes. Dinah rocked Thalia near the hearth, her eyes somewhere deep and far. The child was asleep, cheek smushed against her shoulder.
Nobody looked up when I entered.
Nobody had to.
I went to the washbasin and cleaned the dust from my hands and face, dried them on the towel hanging limp by the door. The sound of water dripping from my wrists was louder than anything else.
We ate what little dinner there was—bread and lentils, I think. I don't remember the taste.
No one spoke.
Plates were passed. Glasses filled. The clink of utensils was the only conversation. Even Thalia didn't cry. She just slept through it all, like she knew.
Zeke stood up first, rinsed his plate, then left it in the drying rack like always. His boots thudded softly as he crossed the hall. I heard the door to the spare room close behind him.
Mom cleared the table next. Didn't ask for help. Just moved slowly, like someone walking in a church after a funeral.
Dinah stayed seated, holding her daughter like the motion might keep something else from slipping away.
I went to my room and sat on the edge of the bed for a while. Didn't take my shoes off. Didn't light the lamp. Just listened to the house settle into itself. Every board, every drawer, every breath seemed half-swallowed. Like we were ghosts, haunting the place we still lived in.
I didn't dream that night. I didn't sleep.
The light through the shutters felt cold somehow, even though it was the middle of summer.
When I stepped into the kitchen, Mom was already kneading dough again, flour in the same places as yesterday. Dinah was sweeping. Zeke had gone out—probably to split more wood, same as always.
No one said good morning. No one had to.
We moved around each other like dancers in a silent play we didn't audition for.
Even Thalia, now awake and chewing on the ear of a stuffed lamb, didn't make much sound.
The world had changed. But the chores didn't care.
Jonas was already under the fig tree when I came. He had a crust of bread in one hand and a grape in the other, like he hadn't been able to decide which was breakfast. His legs swung lazy off the wall, boots hitting the stone with every second swing.
"Didn't think you'd come," he said, not looking at me.
"You told me to."
"Yeah, but people say things when they're sad. Doesn't mean they mean 'em."
I sat down. "I meant it."
He tossed the grape over his shoulder without even aiming. It landed somewhere in the weeds behind us.
We sat quiet for a while. The sun was higher today, and hotter. The fig leaves above us curled a little at the edges, trying to hide from the light.
"You know what I hate?" Jonas said.
"What?"
"That they never tell us anything. About the war. About what we're walking into."
I didn't answer right away.
"All I know is it's been going on forever," he said. "My ma said her grandfather fought in it. Said his pa did too. It doesn't even sound like a war anymore. Just… a fact. Like wind. Or hunger."
"I heard the priest say once that it started in Jerusalem."
"Yeah. But how? Why?" He looked at me now. "You ever ask?"
"I ask God."
"Does He answer?"
"Not in ways I understand."
Jonas chewed on his lip. "Figures."
He pulled up a weed and stripped it leaf by leaf. "You think there's even a front? Like a place where the world ends and the demons begin?"
"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe it's like the priest says—the front's wherever the faithful stand."
He snorted. "That sounds like something a man says when he wants to send boys to die."
We were both quiet for a moment. A dove landed on the wall nearby, blinked at us, then fluttered off again like it had better places to be.
"I had this idea when I was younger," Jonas said. "That the war was far away. That there were big walls, maybe oceans between us and it. It was something you heard about. Something you lit candles for. Not something that showed up with a paper and a stamp."
"Yeah," I said. "Me too."
"But now?" He shook his head. "Now it feels like it's already here. It's just been polite enough not to knock until now."
I picked up a rock and rolled it between my hands. It had a crack down the middle. I ran my thumb over it, again and again.
Jonas leaned back on his elbows. "What do we even become, Salem? If the war doesn't kill us. If it doesn't take our brothers or our mothers or our names. What's left?"
"I don't know."
"You think we get to have lives? Families? A little land with figs and olives and stupid chickens?"
"I want to," I said.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Me too."
We sat in silence again. It was the kind that didn't ask to be filled. The kind that felt too old for us, but there it was anyway.
He looked over at me. "You ever feel like we're just... waiting to be used up?"
I swallowed. "Yeah."
Jonas turned his face toward the sky, eyes half-lidded against the light. "It's like we're born with our names already etched on some stone at the capital. Just waiting for someone to come scratch the last line."
I didn't say anything.
He sat up straighter, wiped his hands on his pants. "I don't want to be brave, Salem. Not the way they mean it."
"How do you want to be brave?"
"I want to stay. To build something. To raise kids who don't have to wonder what the front looks like."
I nodded.
"I want to live a long, boring life," he said. "And die in my sleep with my boots off."
"That's not boring," I said. "That's holy."
Jonas grinned, but only for a second.
Jonas picked at the edge of his boot sole, then glanced sideways. "You still got the paper?"
"What paper?"
"The draft notice."
I nodded. "Yeah."
"What's it say? I mean, besides the obvious."
I reached into my coat. I hadn't meant to bring it with me—I just had. It was folded into fourths, creased from being read too many times. I handed it to him.
He unfolded it slowly. Read it with his mouth shut, like it might bite if he made a sound.
"ORDER OF CONSCRIPTION," he read aloud, almost a whisper. "Son of Joshua Vale... Report to the coastal fortress at Larnaca within seven days."
He looked up. "Not Zeke Vale. Just… son of Joshua Vale."
"Yeah," I said. "I noticed that too."
"That's strange, isn't it?"
I took the paper back. Folded it up. "I guess that's how they write them. Makes it official. Old world style."
Jonas shook his head. "No, it's not just style. It means something. It's not Zeke they're taking. It's whoever stands in that line. Whoever fills the spot left behind by a man named Joshua."
I felt something cold move in my chest. Not fear, exactly. Just a sense that the ground I'd thought was solid had turned soft beneath me.
"Your dad ever send anything?" he asked.
"No."
"But they still called him by name."
I nodded, looking out past the fig tree, toward the hills.
Jonas leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "It's like they're not conscripting the man. Just the blood. Like the war remembers your father and came back for the rest."
I didn't speak.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it? If that's why it never ends. Because it doesn't matter who fights—just that someone from the line does."
I swallowed. Hard. "I don't think I like that."
"Me either."
We sat there a while longer, the draft paper back in my pocket, but heavier somehow.
We sat quiet for a while. The breeze rustled through the fig leaves like they were trying to whisper something neither of us wanted to hear.
I took the paper back from Jonas and folded it up slower this time. Like I was trying to learn something from the creases.
"It doesn't say Zeke," I said after a minute. "It just says son of Joshua Vale."
Jonas raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. We said that."
"I mean… what if it's not just for him?"
He blinked. "What?"
"What if it's for me too? For either of us. Both."
He stared at me, the way someone looks at a friend who's gone too close to a cliff's edge. "What the hell are you talking about?"
I looked down at the folded paper in my hand. "Just saying. It doesn't name him. It names a place in the line."
"You think that matters?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe it was supposed to be whoever was old enough first. But now I'm almost there. Two years, and I'm standing where he's standing. Maybe I'm standing there already."
Jonas shifted on the wall. "Salem."
"What if I took it?" I asked. "What if I went instead?"
"No." His voice was sharp. The word dropped like a stone.
"I'm serious."
"Yeah, I can tell. That's the problem."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees again, staring at the ground.
"You want to do something holy, Salem? Something brave?" he said. "Stay. Be here. Be a brother. Be a son. Be the one who remembers Zeke when this is all over."
"But what if—"
"No," he said again, louder this time. "Don't do that. Don't go turning this into prophecy just because the war forgot to use your first name."
I swallowed and looked away.
The silence came back. Not the safe kind from before. The hard kind, like glass you could fall through.
Then Jonas said, softer this time, "You think God wants you dead just because your father got sent off and vanished? You think He makes mistakes like that on purpose?"
"I don't know what I think."
"Well think harder," Jonas said. "Because if you go looking to fill a grave that's not yours, you might just find one."
I nodded. Not because I was convinced. Just because there wasn't anything else to say.
And beside me, Jonas sighed, long and tired, like someone already grieving something that hadn't happened yet.
I kept turning the paper over in my hands, like the answer might be hidden between the folds.
"Zeke's got everything," I said finally. "A wife. A daughter. A life that matters. If he dies, the world actually loses something."
Jonas didn't say anything, so I kept going.
"But me?" I'm just—" I stopped. The words sat on my tongue, bitter.
"You're just what?"
"I'm just a kid. No name outside of this town. No work anyone'd miss. No footprints. No mark. If I went instead…" I hesitated. "It wouldn't cost the world anything."
Jonas looked at me like I'd slapped him. "You really believe that?"
I didn't answer.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," he said. "And I've done a lot of stupid things."
"I mean it, Jonas."
"I know you do. That's why it's dangerous."
He stood and paced a few steps, then turned back to me. "You think not having a wife and child makes you worthless? You think the only people worth saving are the ones who already built something?"
I didn't meet his eyes.
"You don't think your mother would miss you? You don't think Zeke would lose something if you were gone? You don't think Thalia needs an uncle to lift her up and scare the pigeons off the roof?"
"I just… I don't know what I'm here for. What I'm doing."
"You're here," he said. "That's what you're doing."
"That's not enough."
"It is," he snapped. "It has to be. Because if we start deciding who's worth more based on what they've done by fifteen, then none of us deserve to make it out."
He sat back down beside me, hard.
"I'm not letting you throw yourself into something like that just because you haven't been kissed yet or written a hymn."
I laughed once, bitter. "You make it sound stupid."
"It is stupid, Salem. Brave, maybe. But brave isn't always right."
I let the words sit for a moment.
Then I said, "He's scared, Jonas."
"I know."
"He thinks I'm the one who'll hold it all together."
"You probably will," Jonas said. "But you won't do it by dying."
We were quiet again. The breeze had picked up, and the fig leaves rustled like they were clapping for something we couldn't see.
"You want to matter?" he said. "Stay. Stay and live. Stay and love your family until they don't remember what silence feels like. That's holy."
I didn't answer. But I didn't argue either.
And Jonas sat back, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand like the world was already too heavy for both of us.
Jonas leaned forward, his eyes locked on mine, voice low but steady. "If you—Salem Vale—are ever the dumbest man alive, and you go throw yourself at the front just to feel like you matter—if you go because you're too scared not to—then fine. That'll be on you. That'll be your curse."
He pointed at me, not angry, but like he needed me to hear it.
"But don't tell yourself it's holy. Don't tell yourself it's noble just because your brother got called and you weren't. Don't go thinking God needs another body more than He needs someone who still remembers how to be kind."
I tried to speak, but he wasn't done.
"You think you're nothing. But you're the one who notices the way light hits the trees. You're the one who prays when nobody's watching. You carry your family like you were born for it. You think that's nothing?"
He shook his head, hard. "If you throw yourself away like it means less than Zeke's life, or mine, or anyone else's, then yeah. You'll be the dumbest man alive. And I'll never forgive you for it."
I looked down, throat tight.
Jonas's voice dropped, almost a whisper now.
"Promise me, Salem. Stay. Don't go chasing a grave just because it looks empty. Don't be that dumb."
I nodded.
And for once, he didn't press it. Just sat there beside me, like he always had.
We didn't talk for a long time after that. Just let the wind move through the leaves and the weight of his words settle like dust over everything.
Eventually, Jonas stood. Brushed the dirt from his pants. "Come on. We should get home before someone thinks we got drafted too."
I followed him. Our steps were slower than usual. No jokes. No jabs. Just two boys walking a familiar road that didn't feel familiar anymore.
The sun was tilting westward by the time we reached the fork—his house one way, mine the other. We stopped there, same as always.
But he didn't turn to go right away.
He looked at me hard, like he was trying to memorize my face.
"If anything happens," he said, "if things go bad, or if I say something stupid again and do something even dumber—you remember this, alright? This day. This talk."
"I will."
He nodded. Looked down at his boots. Then back up.
"I'm glad you're my friend, Salem."
That wasn't a thing we said. Not out loud. Not like that.
"Me too," I said.
Then Jonas did something else he didn't usually do—he pulled me into a hug. Quick, tight, and rough, like he didn't trust himself to hold on longer than a second. Then he stepped back and rubbed his nose like it had just itched.
"Go on," he said. "Before your mom comes looking."
"You too."
I watched him go until he disappeared around the bend, his boots scuffing gravel, his shoulders stiff like he was holding back the end of the world.