For a curious boy like Jess Hall, growing up in Marshall, North Carolina means trouble when your mother catches you spying on grown-ups. Adventurous and precocious, Jess is very protective of his older brother, Christopher, a mute whom everyone calls Stump. Though their mother has warned them not to snoop, Stump can't help sneaking a look at something he's not supposed to-an act that will have catastrophic repercussions, shattering both his world and Jess's. It's a wrenching event that thrusts Jess into an adulthood for which he's not prepared. While there is much about the world that still confuses him, he now knows that this new understanding can bring evil--and the possibility of deliverance.