Eugene didn’t ask about it. They only saw each other once a week. Sitting quietly through Sunday service, hands folded as they tried not to fidget, they waited to be let loose in the courtyard. There, they invented games and pretended the garden was the bayou, ripe for exploration. At the outskirts of the church grounds, they played hide and seek, with Mary Beth calling for him to come and find her, voice raised to a teasing lilt. Sometimes a man in a black suit sat on the bench by the roses and watched them, one knee crossed over the other, his hands resting neatly on top. He was slender, with dark hair and shiny shoes, and he never said a word to anyone, as far as Eugene could tell. He always sat alone, and Father Latimer never acknowledged him, as if he weren’t there at all.

“Who is he?” Eugene finally asked Mary Beth in a hushed undertone as they crouched out of sight in the garden.

Mary Beth cast a glance in the man’s direction. “A friend,” she said dismissively. “Just ignore him. He doesn’t want anything from you.”

Eugene didn’t push for more information, but he was careful to keep his gaze turned away from the stranger. Eugene ignored the man and the man ignored him in turn, and Mary Beth, consumed with that single-minded focus unique to children intent on their own inner worlds, ignored them both until Eugene was ready to resume their games. With Mary Beth, all he knew was the sticky summer heat, the warm ground beneath him, the flying insects, and the smell of pollen in the air. His father was gone and his mother was sad, but those grievances gradually gave way to the solid, impenetrable rock of fact. They faded into the background noise of daily life, lost to the whispered conversations he shared with Mary Beth amid the roses. She told him ghost stories to distract him, or just because she could, their gory contents at odds with the beatific expression she wore.

"There's a rougarou that lives in the bayou." Her tone was as factual as if she were telling him water was wet. "He used to be a man, but then he did something real bad, and a witch cursed him."

"What did he do?"

She glanced at him sideways, her gaze cool, and he shut his mouth.

"She cursed him to haunt the swamp, and when the next full moon came up, he tore off all his skin and turned into a monster. He walks on two legs like a man, all skinny and naked, but he's got a wolf's head on his neck. Glowing green eyes that can see in the dark, and lots of wicked sharp teeth. He stalks all over the place every night looking for somebody to catch so he can pass the curse onto them, and turn himself human again."

"How does he pass the curse on?"

"They just have to talk about him."