“Hi, Dad.”

“Are you okay, Jack?”

No, he thought. I’m not. Someday I’d like to be, but at the moment…

“I’m fine.”

His father pushed open the porch door. “Come back in this way. It’s shorter.”

Jack took a step toward the porch, then remembered again that it was Anya who’d packed up the bag. Had she known…?

He glanced toward her place and noticed a figure stretched out on a lounge in the front yard.

“Be with you in a minute,” he said. “I want to say hello to Anya.”

As Jack crossed onto the green grass, Oyv trotted up to meet him, wagging his tail in welcome. The dog escorted him toward Anya, but Jack slowed, letting Oyv pull ahead as he noticed that Anya was topless.

She lay face down on a towel on the lounge cushion, dressed only in lime-colored Bermuda shorts, baking her bare back in the afternoon sun. He was about to turn away when he noticed a pattern of red marks on her exposed skin. He took a step closer and…

Jack bit his upper lip. They looked like burn marks…and crisscrossing her skin between them were thin, angry red lines, as if someone had been stubbing out cigarettes on her back and then whipping her with a fine lash.

Jack wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. He had to stay and stare, horrified, yet fascinated.

Anya’s voice startled him.

“A map of my pain,” she said without looking up. “See what he does to me?”

“Who?”

“You know. The Adversary. The One.”

Oh, yeah. The One…whose True Name Jack wasn’t supposed to know.

“But how? Why?”

“I’ve told you the why: Because I hinder his path. As to the how…he has many ways, and they are all written here, on my back.”

“But how do those burns, those cuts get there?”

“They simply appear. They map his efforts to destroy me.”

Jack shook his head to clear it. “I’m not following. What is he doing to destroy you?”

“Help me with this towel,” she said. “Fold the ends over my back.”

Jack did as she asked, allowing her to wrap the towel around her upper torso as she rose to a sitting position.

“Talk to me,” Jack said.

Anya shook her gray head. “You have your own concerns. Those you should be worrying about. And besides, what can you do to help? Nothing. This I must face on my own.”

“Try me.”

He liked this old lady. He wanted to help her, do something to lighten her load.

“It’s all right, Jack. The sun makes it feel better. The rays don’t heal me, but they lessen the pain.” She rose to her feet. “I’m going in to lie down.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m better than I was this morning and I’ll be even better by tonight.”