I round a corner into Jackson Square and squint against the light. I try to get my bearings. The square is busy tonight. No less than three tour groups are all gathering in front of the garden, their guides decked out in goth wear—vampire tours or ghost tours. The tourists in each group flutter like swarms of flies, brimming with expectations. I don’t see the woman with the skull for a face.

I walk briskly up to the steps of the cathedral toward the side gate. It must be nearing nine or ten o’clock. St. Louis Cathedral is normally closed now, the iron fencing reinforced with a lock and chain. But as I near the gate, I see a shadow shift in the alcove of the door beyond, detach itself from the wall, and emerge into the light. He is as I remember him from that first meeting—scruffy and unkempt, his clothes a hodgepodge of club wear, his face too young for his eyes. He wears a pileup of Mardi Gras beads in a rainbow of colors now, like the high collar of some derelict priest. A few dangle shot glasses and charms and other items—whistles and bottle openers and such—but they are in such a tangle it’s hard to sort one from the next.

“I was starting to wonder if you would make it at all,” he says with a sly smile. He reaches for the gate, giving the lock a deft tug, and the chain falls away. He holds it open for me.

“Is she here?” I don’t know whether to be alarmed or relieved by his presence. “Why didn’t you send her home, call someone?”

“I told you,” he says dryly. “I don’t have that kind of power.”

I feel nearly invisible in the shadow of the cathedral’s looming face. I lean against the wall just inside the doorframe and clutch my side, catching my breath, as he opens the door. I stare up at the arch above me and issue a silent prayer to whatever gods or devils may be listening, then I hear the click of the handle, and I slip inside behind him.

The cathedral is dark and quiet. With no light and no sound and no people, it feels like a shell with the ocean trapped inside, haunted by what it once was. At first, I think either the skull-faced woman or I have made a mistake. I move silently up the aisle past fat pillars of stone, looking for any movement I can find, when the sound of weeping reaches my ears.

“Mom?” I call, hearing my voice ricochet off the walls and domed ceiling.

The sound stops abruptly.

“Mom?” I question to the still flags hanging overhead and the altar that looms like the gates to heaven at the end of the massive room.