But Mary Beth hesitated, then shook her head. Her hair spread over the surface of the rising water like a ruined halo. “We used to be friends. All you have to do is close your eyes and walk toward me. Then it will be over.”

Eugene thought of his parents’ graves, warm from the summer sun, sinking slowly into the moss. He thought of his apartment, stiflingly hot, even with the lazy circles of the ceiling fan, and the black stain seeping ever lower. The photo of Benoit buried in his night table drawer, the image replaced in his memory by that hollow corpse. Johnny Walker, beautiful and deadly, the heat of his kisses and the touch of his hands, their bodies pressed close as Eugene panted a curse or a prayer over the drowning Bible. Gunshots, spent bullets, a doomed town. Plush lips pressed to his.

Shutting his eyes, he stepped forward. The bayou was getting deeper by the minute; the water rose up to his throat, lapping around his chin.

Mary Beth, sitting in the church courtyard with her knees stained green from the garden, with flowers in her hair.

He held his breath and took another step. The water was neither warm nor cold, only heavy, and thick with death.

Mary Beth as she paused for one last moment in the sunshine, looking back at him over her shoulder before stepping into the church, her hair a waterfall of waves, her eyes dark and inscrutable. Had the priest already started in on her by then? Had she known how it would end? Had she known—

One more step, and the water closed over Eugene’s head, and he didn’t know anything at all.

XVIII.

Water filled Eugene's lungs like it was meant to be there. For the first time since his asthma had struck, his struggle to draw breath matched his circumstance. His body jerked against the water's weight, instinctively trying to kick back to the surface, despite his mind's acceptance of his fate. Mud closed around his ankles, holding him down as the bayou swallowed him. The humming was quieter underwater, the voices muffled and far away. As his vision blurred, the last of the light filtering down through the green water, he shut his eyes.

* * *

An eternity passed.

* * *

A hand plunged through the rot and algae to grasp Eugene’s collar, dragging him back to the surface. Water streamed from his hair down his face and over his glasses in slick, dark rivers, and he choked, sputtering, his lungs still swimming with the stuff. Johnny brushed the water aside as he lay Eugene down on the gnarled tree roots, and Eugene stared up at him, horrified but too weak to struggle away, like a moth with his wings pinned to the collector's board. The humming was back, urging him to return to the water. A hundred voices whispered over one another, calling his name, coaxing him back to drown with them.