He pulled back before I reached him and I remembered my manners. We were back in Haven Valley and he wasn’t bleeding to death. I should know better. Regardless, I’d never been happier to see him.

“Jamie!”

“Hello, sister.”

His hands were wrapped around the water glass on the table, fingers still bandaged. His face was covered in bruises, mostly purple, but some orange and yellow, which meant they were healing. He wore a simple black shirt, but it didn’t fully hide the lumpy bandage strapped around his chest where he’d been gashed. They’d taped another white bandage across his left cheekbone, underneath a swollen eye. He looked as if he’d been dragged through a field by a horse, but he was alive and on the mend.

I sat across from him and tucked my hands into my lap. “I didn’t know you were coming home.”

“Of course he was coming home,” my mother said, placing a large bowl of soup in front of Jamie. She laid her palm on Jamie’s healthy cheek and smiled. “Soup?” she asked me.

I nodded, even though I had no appetite and still felt a bit queasy. I studied Jamie as he picked up his spoon and began to eat. He looked different. More than just all the bruising. Something new filled his eyes. An eagerness.

“Is it silly to ask how you’re feeling?” I asked.

“Like I’ve been dragged across a field by a horse,” he said, and I laughed.

“You look like it.”

He chuckled, then grimaced. “Ouch!”

“Sorry.”

Mother set a bowl of soup down in front of me, and I pulled away from the pungent odor. It made my stomach turn. I sat back, hand over my chest.

“Are you alright?” my mother asked.

“Yes, sorry. Just a bout of queasiness.”

“Odd.” She placed the back of her hand against my forehead and held it there for a long moment. “Are you coming down with something? I can’t even remember the last time you were sick.”

“I’m just tired.”

“You don’t have a fever.” She returned to the stove and walked back with a bowl for herself. “If you really aren’t feeling well you should go to bed early. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“It is? Why?”

Mother stole a look at Jamie and beamed with pride. “Your brother’s been asked to speak in morning Chapel.”

I looked to my brother, stunned. “What for?”

Jamie swallowed a spoonful of soup and set his spoon back in the bowl. Patted his lips with his napkin. For a long second we all just sat there in silence, waiting for him to speak.

Jamie cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, then drilled me with clear eyes. “I understand the truth in a new and terrifying way,” he said. “I came face-to-face with evil and survived to tell others how threatening the darkness really is.”