“Do you have anything to confess?” Father Latimer finally asked.

"Do you?"

Silence reigned.

"Your mother tells me your nightmares have been getting worse," Father Latimer said, after the waiting had become unbearable. "It's natural that you're trying to make sense of such a tragedy. Your subconscious is looking for someone to blame."

"No. I saw you."

A sharp inhalation from behind the lattice. "You saw me," the priest repeated.

"Hurting her."

His voice dropped. "Your mother is worried about you, talking about ghosts and devils like you do. She said you dreamed I was a monster. A rougarou. Is that what you believe, Eugene?"

"Those aren’t real." Eugene forced the words out like he thought they were true. But his voice wavered, because how else could he explain the man? He shut his mouth too late, convinced the priest had already noticed his uncertainty.

The church was empty, so there was no one else to see the priest stand up and push the confessional curtains back, coming into Eugene's side of the booth and crowding him against the wall. Eugene bit his tongue, his arms crossed defensively in front of his chest as the priest put one hand on the wall above his head, the other on his shoulder like an anchor.

"You're confused," Father Latimer hissed, his breath hot on Eugene's face. Eugene made himself small, keeping his eyes fixed on the white collar at the priest's throat. He didn't want to see what animal expression contorted the priest's face. "What you think you saw never happened. It was a trick played by a sick mind."

"I'm not sick. And I wasn't dreaming."

"Either you dreamed it, or I really am that rougarou you're so afraid of."

Father Latimer grasped Eugene by the chin, his nails digging into the skin under his jaw, forcing him to look up and meet his gaze. Eugene stared up at him, horrified, as the image of that wolf's head flashed across his vision, mangy and gaunt and staring back at him with the priest's pale, hungry eyes. He blinked and the wolf's head disappeared, but Father Latimer's eyes stayed the same.

"If you tell anyone that you think I hurt her, I will find you, and I'll do the same to you. Do you know how quickly those gators can disappear a body?" He tightened his grip. "Do you?"

"Yes," Eugene choked out.

The fingers loosened and the priest took a step back, straightening his robes. "Good."

Eugene glared at him balefully, one arm held across his chest, shield-like, while he touched his throat and jaw with his other hand, prodding for bruises. Father Latimer must have read his hatred in his face, because he paused with his hand on the curtains, one step short of exiting the confessional and letting Eugene run home like a beaten dog.

"I'll talk to your mother," he said, his tone light once more, as if this were a conversation in the courtyard rather than threats spat back and forth in the shadows. "There are medicines used to treat nightmares like yours. A boy like you shouldn't be left alone to handle this kind of tragedy without a doctor's help."