“But they’re magic,” I said.

“Ah yes, magic and miracles, miracles and magic,” he said. “It’s all anybody ever wants, magic and miracles, miracles and magic.” A blue-back damselfly flew up and landed on his outstretched finger. “As if all this ain’t enough?” He blew on the damselfly and it flew away and into the night. Lightning bugs blinked all around him, haloing his head in the darkness.

Who was this man, this priest who knew Pop, who knew my mom? Who kept watch over his sunken ruined church, same as he had when it was pretty and filled with people instead of just owls and riffraff? The swamp was full of more wonders than I could fathom, and that was the truth of it.

“Come now,” said the priest. “Let’s find Miss Marina’s. It is a safe place.” He looked around sadly at his church. “Perhaps it is the last safe place, if Mr. Quatro’s has fallen. Come children. We must hurry.”

“What about my skiff?” I said.

“They will know it. No, no, we must take mine.”

The priest led us through a burnt-out hole in the back of the church where a doorway probably once stood. A flat boat floated in a pool of water. It was patched and wretched-looking. Spiders flung their webs all over the bottom, and little water droplets hung everywhere in glimmers. It was the sorriest excuse for a boat I’d ever seen in my life.

“Does it float?” said Tally. “I mean, when it has people in it?”

“It’s floated longer than you’ve been on this earth, child. And it’ll float ages more.” The priest held a couple of mildewed sacks out toward us. “Crouch down and hide, crawl into these. We must pretend you are potatoes, yes? We must pretend you are ears and ears of corn. For the orphans, yes, a donation from the church. Why not? Why not?”

“But they’ll find us,” I said. “All they got to do is yank this sack off us and we’re done for.”

“They won’t dare,” said the priest, “because I shall be preaching. And they hate my preaching, yes they do. It afears them, I do believe. Or perhaps it just annoys. Whichever case, it’ll do nicely.”

We brushed the spiderwebs away and crawled into the boat and stuffed ourselves into the sacks. The priest poled us out into the swamp water. I had a nice eye-sized hole in my sack, just big enough to see through. The rain had stopped, and the night was all foggy and cloudy, barely a wink of moon up there, stars peeking out where you could see them. Deep in the distance burned what looked like bonfires.

“They do that when a prisoner’s on the loose,” said the priest. “When they’re after someone important.”

“They’re hunting us,” said Tally.

“Yeah,” I said, “but mostly I bet they’re looking for Pop.”

“It’s a takeover, it is,” said the priest. “Bobby Felix is finally having his revenge on the swamp.”