The priest cocked a wide eye to the right and to the left, as if he might catch God unawares, tiptoeing across the water.

“You’re a creepy old loon, you know that?” said Mr. Hugo. “We already ransacked Baudelaire Quatro’s Place. Maybe we ought to burn your church a second time while we’re at it.”

“On a night like this,” said the priest, sticking his bald head under a stream of water leaking down from a hole in the ceiling, “you might find it difficult. I doubt the wood would catch!”

“Cheeky too, he is,” said Cecily Bob. “Might need to be taught a lesson there, eh Mr. Hugo?” He stroked the priest’s neck with the knife. Then he yanked the bottom of the priest’s beard and sawed it off in one swipe.

The priest fell over backward, cackling in the water.

“I’d wanted a shave!” he hollered, holding chunks of wet beard in his hands. “I’ve been meaning to see a barber! A barber in the swamp! You should go into business, the two of you!” He splashed in the water, laughing.

“Let’s go, Mr. Hugo,” said Cecily Bob. “The man’s got too many bats in his belfry.”

“Aye,” said Mr. Hugo. “We’ll get no truth out of him.”

When they were good and gone, the priest looked up to where Tally and I hid in the rafters.

“You see that?” he said. “I foxed them, I did. I foxed them good.”

Me and Tally made our way down to the pews, the water up to our waists now. The owls didn’t hardly fluster. They just watched on, not even curious, like they already knew what was going to happen ages ago.

“Thanks for saving us,” said Tally.

“That’s my job, little one,” said the priest. “Or it’s supposed to be, anyhow. Can’t say I’ve done too much saving the last few years. Glad to have the opportunity this evening.”

“So you knew my daddy?” I said. “Davey Boy Pennington?”

“Of course I knew him!” he said. “I knew all of them, Sinclair and Marina and the rest. Being priest here used to mean something, I tell you. I had respect, I did, and those who came to me knew I would tell them the truth, and they were safe to receive it as they liked. I was also a magnificent cook, if I do say so myself. That brought folks around, when the sermons didn’t.” He leaned down to me. “I even blessed you, child, on the day you were born, if you can believe that.”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could. I didn’t remember much time in chapel, not when I was a kid, except getting bored and falling asleep in the pews. It made me happy, it did, to know that someone had blessed me along the way.

“Did you know Boss Authority too?” said Tally.

“Little Bobby Felix you mean?” The priest frowned. “Yes, I knew him. Quiet boy, he was. Sinclair was cruel to him, vicious even. They all were, except for your mother, Samantha Annie. Wild, she could be, but never cruel. Tell me, how does she fare these days?”