“You’re thinking very loudly,” Johnny commented.

Eugene blinked and forced his eyes away from the stain, turning onto his side to face Johnny. “They say the devil comes dressed as everything you’ve ever dreamed of. I never really imagined what it meant until I met you."

“Should I be flattered?”

“I don’t think it’s a compliment.”

“I’m not the devil. Of course, that’s what he would say, isn’t it?” Johnny traced Eugene's jaw with one finger. “Are you worried about your immortal soul?”

Chanlarivyè's church stood empty, a towering grave marker without a body to honor, its steeple pointing high into the roiling clouds toward an absent god. Father Latimer and all his sins were long gone. “Aren’t you?”

“Hell has no claim on me, but if it did, it wouldn’t be on account of who I take to bed. There are plenty of more important sins to choose from if they want to drag me down to the fire and brimstone.” Johnny's hair splayed around him on the pillow like a halo, or a flood. "What you and I did isn’t cause for damnation.”

"I've done it enough times with enough people that you wouldn't make a difference one way or the other." The last allure of sleep fled him, and Eugene settled one elbow against the mattress to hold himself up. “You’ve killed people.”

“I have.”

“Do you ever feel bad about that?”

Johnny shrugged. “There are some deaths I regret, but none by my hand. Regret doesn’t get you far in life.”

“I knew a girl who died, a long time ago.” Eugene fell to his back, his hands on his ribs. Everything felt underwater. “Am I dreaming?”

“Go to sleep, Eugene.”

XIV.

Eugene was there when they pulled the body from the bayou. He saw it, before his mother turned his face away. The casket was closed, but she was in there. They put her in the ground and heaped the damp, black earth on top of her. She was gone.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Mary Beth stood in the bayou, the water up to her knees as if she were nothing more than another tree twisting its way toward the weak sun. Her skin was pale and clammy, her hair hanging in thick, dripping locks down her back. Her big gray eyes glared reprovingly as she met his. “You knew what that priest did. Why didn’t you tell?”

“I tried,” Eugene said brokenly. “No one believed me, just like no one believed me when I told them about the man.”

“Those are two different things. The man in the suit never hurt me.”

“This is a dream,” Eugene whispered. “You’re dead, and I’m dreaming.”

Something rippled through the air like a humming, a hundred voices layered over one another, all of them out of tune.

“He left me here,” Mary Beth said. Her voice was deep and dark like decay. Lightning slashed through the trees and cast slanting shadows over her face where her eyes used to be. Her skin shone translucent, a skeleton smile behind her lips. Insects and squirming things moved in her hair. “They took my body but he left me here. I can hear you, Eugene. I can hear all of you, living your lives like nothing ever happened. I know where they buried my bones. I know my parents moved away. But he stayed behind with me. I’m still here!”