“Aren’t you English?”
Walker smiled. His teeth gleamed white and far too sharp. “No, I’m far older than that.”
“Your accent . . .”
“Irish, Mr. Rêveur. Louisiana has its share of Irish immigrants, though most have lost the language.”
“What do you think happened at Roanoke?”
Walker shrugged. “I wasn’t there. If they haven’t found a single solid truth by now, I doubt they ever will. Your town reminded me of it, that’s all. Tonight seemed like the right time for ghost stories.”
Eugene remembered Benoit's empty apartment, and shivered. “Do you think they went one at a time like they do here, leaving their dishes on the tables?”
Walker exhaled, a quiet sound in the dark, and smoke wisped from his mouth. “Maybe it was just a story the English invented. It’s not like that tree’s still standing, carving or no. Sometimes towns end up abandoned. Sometimes it’s better that way.”
“Like ghosts disappearing in the night.”
Walker smiled. “I never took you for a sentimentalist. You get spooked easily, Mr. Rêveur?”
“There’s something in the air lately that makes me feel like a rat in a maze, scratching to get out.”
“You ever consider leaving Louisiana for good?”
“This is my home.”
“Still?”
Eugene didn’t answer. “You said this place inspires strange dreams. Do you have them, too?"
Walker stubbed out his cigarette and rose. The room wasn’t large. Eugene could see the sweep of Walker's eyelashes when he blinked, thick and black like spider legs against his cheek.
“I've been dreaming about you.”
Walker moved as if to reach and touch—the blood rose to Eugene’s face and he flushed, lips parted, his heart stuttering—but Walker paused, then let his hand drop. He backed up a step, out of Eugene’s space. Eugene turned and pressed his back to the doorframe, head down, avoiding Walker’s gaze.
“Sleep well,” Walker murmured, and slipped from the room.
Eugene stayed where he was, staring into the darkness. By the time he moved to the bed the mattress was cold, as if Walker had never been there at all. He closed his eyes and thought about water: murky and depthless, lapping around his ankles, drawing him in while Chanlarivyè stood as an empty specter behind him.
XII.
Eugene sat in the church confessional. “Forgive me, Father,” he began, but he didn’t know what to say next.
“It’s all coming down,” Walker said from the other side of the latticework. “Do you remember that summer?”
“I was twelve.” There was someone pacing the church pews, Father Latimer or the man or the devil himself, Eugene didn’t know. The confessional was dark, but it couldn’t hide him from whatever was outside.
“She was a sweet girl,” Walker continued, oblivious to Eugene’s mounting dread. “She deserved better. I tried to help her. Why didn’t you say anything?”
The footsteps grew louder and less human and Eugene shrank back, one hand pressed to the wood panels of the wall behind him. They were carved with roses and crosses, and neither made him feel any better.