Mary Beth’s grave marker was a few rows down. Eugene trailed his fingertips over the tops of the stones as he passed them, as if the rough, warm texture scratching against his skin could ground him. He felt it as a numb drag under his fingers, nothing more. The weeds tangled around his ankles, trying to hold him in place, the water seeping through the seams of his shoes. He ignored it all and walked on.

Her marker was small with a rounded top, an angel carved into it, the details almost worn smooth. Eugene knelt before it, the water soaking his knees as the moss gave way beneath his weight.

Mary Beth Byrne, 1907–1918. An angel taken from us too soon.

Wide gray eyes and a waterfall of dark brown hair that tumbled over her shoulders in perfect waves. She had been so young. He touched his fingertip to her name and the humming increased to a fever pitch, splitting his head. Raising one hand to his temple, he clenched his eyes shut against the pain. Behind his eyelids he saw her again, silk bow, blue skin, hollowed-out eyes that were somehow still accusing, as she lifted one mottled hand to point at him, her lipless teeth biting out a soundless word. Eugene flinched back from the grave, catching himself on one bloodied palm as his eyes snapped open again. The sun beat down, pale and unforgiving. At his back, the bayou reached wider, dark and damp and seeping like a stain. Eugene shuddered and pushed himself to his feet, taking care not to touch the stone again. He put the graveyard behind him as he climbed back over the gate to return to the church one last time.

XVI.

Eugene sat front and center in the church. There was no god left in Chanlarivyè, and even if there were, he didn't deserve any of its attention, but he tried to pray all the same. For Angelique, if no one else. Even if she would have laughed at him. Shutting his eyes, he watched sparks dance in that deep, dark womb-red behind his lids.

“Our Father, who art in heaven,” he began, but couldn’t finish it. He let his hands drop. The wood of the pew felt swollen, straining under his touch.

“It’s almost done,” Johnny said.

Eugene glanced up. Johnny had entered through the front door, walking up the aisle with long, lazy strides. His hands were slung in his pockets like he hadn’t a care in the world.

"Are you just going to leave her there, in the road?" Eugene asked hollowly.

"Seems as good a place as any."

"Is that what happened to your last partner?"

Johnny tipped his head to one side, like he didn't know who Eugene meant.

"The boy you travelled with, before Angelique. Did he eat his gun too, when you wouldn't let him go?"

"Not everyone is cut out for this kind of life," Johnny said.

"Not everyone is cut out for you, you mean."