“Why me?” Eugene asked, his voice barely cracking above a whisper. “Why did you take me, out of everyone?”

“Because you were standing nearest the door.”

Eugene stood, shoving his chair back with a clatter. He didn’t finish guessing Walker’s story. Walker knew his thoughts as sure as day, and Eugene couldn’t bear the sound of his own voice stumbling over the words. He didn’t want to say it aloud, didn’t want to ask if it was true. Didn’t want to know if Walker saw the same thing in Eugene he had seen in that boy.

And more than that, he didn’t want to put in words the feeling he had that Walker held a far greater secret, something old and shimmering that slunk around the tip of Eugene’s tongue, deep as the bayou and twice as deadly.

“I should go to bed,” he said woodenly.

Walker didn’t move from his seat. “Turn the lamp off when you go.”

Eugene flicked it off as he left the kitchen. One foot on the stair, he paused as Walker said, “Good night, Eugene. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He turned just enough to acknowledge Walker’s parting words, and caught a glimpse of his eyes in the dark. They gleamed gold, the irises flat and round like coins. Eugene clenched his fingers around the bannister, but when he blinked, there was nothing but shadows.

A thousand words threatened to spill out, a hundred questions and accusations he didn’t want answered. He swallowed around his tongue and didn’t say anything. Silently climbing the stairs, he turned down the darkened corridor and crept into the room whose door still stood open. He removed his shoes and then his jacket. How long would he stay in the house with Walker and Monnet? Would he wear the same clothes every day until he died? Unbuttoning his shirt, he stepped out of his trousers, folded his clothes neatly over the chair in the corner, and lay down atop the covers in the middle of the bed. The mattress sagged and creaked. He was so tired, all the way down to his bones.

The bedroom had stains on the ceiling. Had he ever lived anywhere that wasn’t stained? Growing up, his childhood home with his mother—had the stains been there, even then? He couldn’t imagine a time before the water seeping into Chanlarivyè.

VIII.

When Mary Beth went missing, the town turned bruise-colored in the summer fog. Eugene wasn’t part of the search party, though he insisted he had recovered enough from his asthma attack to participate. His mother tried to keep him in the house, a sympathetic horror in her chest for Mary Beth’s own parents. On the third day, Eugene slipped away and ran to the church. It was empty, most of Chanlarivyè out looking for the girl, and he folded himself into the very back row of the vacant pews, pressed his hands together, and prayed.

He had never prayed for anyone's life before. He had been raised to never ask anyone for much of anything, and especially not to bother God. The few times he had prayed for something specific—peace for his father's soul, or for his mother to find some scrap of happiness—he never got any kind of reply. It had never bothered him before. God had better things to do than answer every insignificant prayer. But He wouldn't turn His back on Mary Beth, not when distress permeated the town like a living creature. Shutting his eyes, Eugene pressed his palms together so tightly they hurt, and he wished with everything he had that Mary Beth would be found safe.