The priest bowed his head and began to pray, a long ambling please Lord we beseech thee type of thing you could bet would last an hour at least.

“Come on now, none of that,” said Mr. Hugo. “There’ll be no praying now. We’re trying to ask you a question.”

“Then I shall pray in my heart, silently, so as not to distract you,” said the priest. “Your questions, sirs?”

“What about your old pal Davey Boy Pennington? You seen him?” said Cecily Bob.

Wait, did the priest know Pop? How? I had never known Pop to be much of a churchgoer, though Mom loved church, even if it turned out she was a witch. Seemed like every time I learned something new about my folks the more questions I had. I guess that was the way of the world. Every time you get an answer to something you’re wondering about, it just leads to more and more wondering. Maybe nothing ever truly gets answered. Maybe that’s all life is, just wondering and wandering and hoping, maybe getting a thing or two right now and then.

“Davey Boy? My friend?” The priest bowed. “You do me honor sir. But nay, no Davey Boys here. Not a sighting, not a hide nor hair. Only stray cats here and there. Felines and owls. Snakes. Seen several snakes. They slither past the pulpit, yes. They be slithering past your ankles right now.”

Mr. Hugo glanced down in a panic at the water rising around his knees. I heard Tally cover her mouth and snicker.

Cecily Bob drew out a knife, that same long one he pulled on my daddy. Cecily Bob poked at the priest with it. The priest giggled a little, like the knife tickled.

“I remember when you weren’t stark raving mad,” said Cecily Bob. “Do you remember that, priest? Do you remember a church full of the pious and holy?” He laughed, the sound slapping across the wet water room.

“I recall, yes sir,” said the priest. “I do recall smiling faces gazing up at me from the pews.”

“You gave quite a homily, I do declare,” said Cecily Bob. “I myself attended several services. Was raised in the church you know, don’t have much use for God, because God don’t hex people. People hex people, they steal and murder and kill. God just sits up there and fumes about it, if ever he gives thought to us at all. Maybe he whips up a hurricane and sends it our way a few years down the line. Don’t got nothing to do with me.”

“I think you will find,” said the priest, “that God is quite active in the world. Yes, I daresay he is the very thing holding the blood in your veins right now.”

“He didn’t keep us from torching your church though, did he?” said Mr. Hugo. “God didn’t protect you from that.”

“Perhaps,” said the priest, his voice trembling just a little, “God did save his church.” He knocked a hard rap on the pew with his fist. “The building of course is just a building, bricks and stone and wood. God’s church is people, it is, and he is active in the hands and fingers that heal, in the mind and eyes and heart of those seeking justice.” The priest held his arms out wide over the flooded church floor. “If ye squint even, perhaps you’ll yet see God hovering over this very swamp right now.”