She didn’t get to finish her sentence. Paulina stepped forward and took Nora in her arms for a long hug. Cyrus said, gloating, “I knew you two would get along.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Friday.

Cyrus had been right with his prediction. On Friday, the front page of the paper revealed damning evidence of a coverup in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Archbishop Dunn’s secretary had served as a source. At age thirty-seven, while working as a school chaplain at a New Orleans parochial school, Father Isaac Murran had kissed a student and rubbed her thighs. That girl’s family made a complaint. Another girl came forward and said he’d done the same to her. Father Isaac was transferred to a post working as a chaplain in a men’s prison, then at a nursing home, then back at a middle school. Archbishop Dunn was aware of the complaint in the file, the prior bad acts, but still chose to transfer Father Isaac to a new position at a different school. It seemed the archbishop was well-aware of many prior bad acts of several priests in the diocese. Instead of defrocking the priests or calling the police to report the crimes, the men had simply been transferred, then transferred, then transferred again.

Nora took a copy of the paper to Mercedes at The Good Witch. She found her in the reading room, already pasting a cut-out of the article into her big black leather magic book.

She stood in the doorway of the room, watching Mercedes work.

“I made the scrapbook,” Nora said. Mercedes looked up from her cutting and pasting.

“It’s called a book of shadows, not a scrapbook,” she said, though Nora could tell she was trying not to smile. “If your name had been in the article, I would have framed it and put it on the wall with the others.”

“I’m glad my name’s not in the article.”

“I’ve been working spells to protect you all week.”

“I think they’re working. They haven’t said a word about me. Not even a hint. Cyrus’s name is everywhere though.”

“I didn’t cast any spell of protection for him.”

“That’s not very nice.” Nora tried to scowl.

“Your friend is a detective. Getting his name in the paper for solving a case is good for him, bad for you.”

Mercedes motioned at the chair across from her currently occupied by a small black cat that didn’t look much older than a kitten.

“Is this Hestia?” Nora said.

“No, this is one of the stray ‘familiars’ someone dropped off at my doorstep. I need to change the sign to say, All Familiars Must be Accompanied by Their Human.”

She smiled. Mercedes said, “How are you?”

Nora picked up the half-sleeping cat and took the chair. The cat merely stretched and yawned and fell back asleep on her lap.

“Everyone keeps asking me that. Angry. But I’m okay. Just worried about that little girl.”

“Even a cleansing fire can burn you, if you stand too close. Churches are burning in this town. I see the fires on the altars. But better careers burning than children.”