"'If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble!'" Father Hugh observed the faces of his congregation, at least half of whom were surely hiding their boredom behind masks of eagerness. He spoke not for them, though, so much as he spoke for the one person he hoped might somehow receive his message. "So Matthew tells us. Children, my friends, are by their very nature, innocent. They come into this world small and weak, ignorant of all of its troubles and challenges. They don't ask to be born, no—it is God that entrusts them to their parents, here on Earth. Therefore, it is the responsibility of mothers and fathers and, truthfully, all those hoping to enter the Kingdom of God to protect and nurture the children gifted the world." Before continuing, the priest breathed deeply, steeled himself for what he was about to say. His eyes scanned the nave all the way back to the narthex, right before which a marble baptismal font gently trickled water. The church was quiet enough that Father could hear it. "As all of you know," he carried on, "our community has experienced terrible tragedy over the past few months. The suffering and loss of the LeBlanc family is suffering and loss of us all. And while there is much that can not be done by those of us remaining on Earth, while Stella and Jane and Maryellen and Tom cannot be brought back to us and it is likely David will soon follow them into the hands of God, the children—Davey and Jennifer—are not yet lost. Someone somewhere has information about those lost lambs, and I ask you, I beg you, for the sake of those children, if you have even the smallest bit of information . . . do not hesitate to make it known. If fear holds you back, know always that the confessional is a sanctuary, a place where you may speak safely and cleanse your soul of whatever may ail it.

"For you must recall, there is nothing, no sin too great for God to forgive. The almighty is merciful. Just!—but merciful. No wolves in all their perversion and cruelty can devour the soul of one who puts his faith in God. We were all lambs, my friends, innocent at one time. The world has tarnished our purity, our belief in goodness, but we are even now His flock, and He still cares for the sheep that seek His guidance. He will nourish the souls of those who cry out for aid. He will free us from the wolves of the world if only we make a promise to him to protect the most vulnerable, and that includes speaking out when we know of anyone who may be harming them."

The Sunday morning sunlight, stronger than it'd been in weeks, shifted just enough that it caught the stained glass of a blood-red east-facing rose window high up above the altar, casting a scarlet beam of light upon Father as his homily took a darker turn.

"Who among you," he continued, dropping his voice to a more casual yet deeper tone, "hasn't at some point felt abandoned by our Lord?" He picked a little at a bit of composite wood fraying from the edge of the lectern. "You pray and you pray—you ask, beg, for assistance in controlling those urges through which the forces of evil assail you. Day in and day out, you seek to banish, even just to tame that sinfulness; it is something you recognize as wrong, as corrupt, and the recognition torments you! But your understanding of your corruption is a blessing, for does it not confirm you are a child of God? Would not a lost soul be unconcerned with sin?" He curled his fingers more tightly around the lectern, his knuckles whitening. "You question why a loving God would allow this temptation to work its way through you, to burn its twisted path through your soul, and you live in fear of your sinful desires manifesting beyond your thoughts into action. You know that without God's intervention, you will no longer restrain yourself, and you will hurt—you will hurt yourself, and you will hurt others.

"But your prayers are not in vain, my friend. For even though you may feel God has forsaken you, know that he instead is testing you. And even if you stumble and fail in this test—as so many of our Christian brethren have done before us—you have not lost the love of the Lord. You, too, are one of his flock, and if you repent of harming his little lambs, you will relieve yourself of that millstone hanging around your neck. There is no need to drown yourself . . . so long as you seek His mercy."

Father darted his eyes meaningfully across the alternating emotional and stony faces before him before muttering, "In Jesus's name, Amen."

He slowly crossed the altar to the presider's chair and, sweeping his vestments behind him, the man carefully seated himself. Despite his caution, a volt of pain zigzagged up his spine, and his breath caught. He couldn't show his parishoners weakness. He'd been back at it for three weeks, now—Father Kenyon had long gone—and he was determined to show them strength.

The rest of Mass went smoothly enough. A permanent Deacon had been assigned the parish after Father Kenyon's return to Ethiopia, and though Marion had somewhat begrudged the insinuation he'd need continued support, he'd ended up grateful for Deacon Glen. Glen helped out as much as Father asked, no more, and didn't live in the rectory with him as Father Kenyon had done. So Marion had regained his peace and solitude, the entirety of the rectory, and the silence in which to pray and think. And he'd been doing a whole lot of both.

That wolf hadn't been a hallucination; he was sure of it. The vision had been sent from God like some miracle of old. Hadn't the Lord spoken to others in strange ways? Through burning bushes and talking donkeys . . . so why not through a vanishing wolf? And the passage the creature had turned to could not have been coincidence, either: "He was despised and rejected by mankind . . . A man of suffering, and familiar with pain . . . yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted." Hadn't those been the words of the mysterious figure that'd visited him in his confessional, the penitent that'd started this whole tragic web? For there was no doubt in Marion's mind that his troubled visitor and the disappearance of the LeBlanc children were knit. Why he was so certain of this, he didn't know, but the man considered that perhaps Divine intervention had something to do with it.

Father Hugh allowed Deacon Glen to greet the parishioners once Mass had concluded. After the processional, he returned to the sacristy to remove his sacred vestments. The chasuble was first, followed by the cord around his waist. The stole and alb were last, leaving him in his standard black cassock. Every time he stripped himself of these holy garments, he felt a sense of enervation, as if the clothing which he'd prayed over as he'd adorned himself in them held some kind of extra power, made him invincible, like the shell of a holy tortoise. Still, the humbleness of his plain black robe held a strength all its own, though it alone wouldn't help him complete his housekeeping tasks; he grabbed the cane he'd been using to steady himself after long periods of standing draped in all those heavy layers. As much as Marion disliked showing weakness, he knew even His God in the form of his own Son had been thought weak, taken all the abuse and scorn of the crowds; if Christ had shown humility, so could he.

Leaving the sacristy, he thought to replace some of the candles on the altar, and the few leftover Easter lilies—somehow still blooming—needed watering. The laywoman who typically tended to these sorts of tasks was on summer vacation (she'd told him where, but his memory hadn't been as sharp since his brush with death). Nearly all of the parishioners had exited the building, hurrying off to their brunches and soccer games and other Sunday activities. Father much preferred the church empty, anyway, as contrary as that was to his ministry's desire to fill the building with faithful. There was a subdued holiness about the place when it sat in cavernous, candle-lit silence; the true presence of the Lord was never clearer to Marion than when he spent time alone in a church, and St. Basilio's presented the perfect atmosphere for those tremulous sensations of "otherness," of something beyond Earthly life.

At the sides of the altar stood the two massive marble lambs that'd been at the church longer than anyone remembered. Marion had of late equated those statues to little Davey and Jennifer, lost as they were. As he approached one of them, put his hand on its muzzle and looked toward the other, some strange notion crept into his thoughts, that if he cracked them open the children would tumble out of their remains, hopefully alive.

Because he felt so sure they were still alive.

The cool marble assuaged his chafed fingertips. Examining the index finger of his left hand, Marion noticed he'd gained a splinter from the lectern. His subsequent sigh was louder than he'd thought it would be.

"Father?"

Marion spun, the sudden motion electrifying his spine. Behind him stood a woman, young, with thick brown curls cropped short and a figure-hugging though modest striped dress. He calmed when he recognized her. "Mrs. St. James," he spoke through his pain, masking it, "it was nice to see you back in church today."

"It's Glory," she said, her voice soft as decorum required inside the church. Her fingers worried the clasp of a clutch she held. "And I . . . I just never apologized for my boys, for them breaking your window."

"Oh, there's no need." Marion smiled, his lips quivering slightly as he noticed the bright red polish of Glory's nails. "I spoke with your husband about it a few weeks ago."

"Yes, I know. But Dell . . . well, he don't come to church. I'm sorry—"

"That's all right, Glory. There's no need to apologize for him. The Lord speaks to us all when we're ready to hear Him."

The woman sucked in her lips and then curled them out into what appeared to be a smile, though somehow it was strained. Marion reacognized the red shade she'd painted them, as well, and Glory's appearance in conjunction with her diffident affect gave him pause.

"Can I help you with anything else, Mrs. St. James?"

"Glor—"

"Glory?"

"Yes, I—I think so, Father. Or, I mean, I think I can help you, a little bit, too."

Marion knit his brow. The candles in the recesses along the sides of the church seemed to flicker all at the same time, and the church darkened. "How do you mean?"

"I listened to your sermon, what you said about those little babies missing. It's so sad, so sad, Father."

"Yes, it is."

"All I've been able to think about is how much I would miss my own, if something happened to them, and now those two don't even have their momma and daddy to look for them. Who'll be trying to find those kids?"

"Right . . ."

"And I thought—I thought, Father, that since you care so hard about them, and I care so hard, maybe . . ." Glory fell into a demure pose, looked askance.

Father Hugh had been waiting for some kind of revelation, some crumb of a clue about the person who'd visited his confessional. Glory's cliffhanger was unwelcome. "What?" he blurted a bit too loudly. "What is it?"

Glory slightly recoiled, and Marion momentarily regretted losing that bit of control. But then the woman swept away any of his remorse when, biting her lower lip, she admitted, "At night, I . . . I been hearing things, out in the bayou."

"Hearing things? What—what things?"

The woman dipped her head, vacillated.

"Glory." Marion gripped her upper arms, shook her once. "If this has something to do with those children, you must tell me."

The way Glory looked at him made the priest release her, and yet he couldn't turn away. If she knew something, no matter how small.

"It's just that Dell—"

"Mr. St. James?" Father's stomach turned. He'd always felt there was something off about that man. The couple of times he'd seen or spoken to him, he'd reeked of the very fumes of depraved living. Could it have been Lindell in his confessional?

"Please, Mrs. St. James. What is it about your husband?"

Glory's face fell. The shy affect she'd worn evaporated, and an unexpected seriousness overtook her lined eyes, her dusted cheekbones. "He wouldn't want me talking to you, is all," she stated.

A sense of gravity crept across Marion. He'd held many private conversations with many different people, both in the confessional and out of it, and for the most part, his chosen vocation had shielded him not just from the intentions of others but also from his own observation of them. But this . . . it was different. He held no interest in this woman beyond what information she might be able to provide. No, he caught himself. That's not true. I care for her immortal soul, as I care for the souls of all. That recognition encouraged him. "If you have information concerning your husband, you should perhaps take it to the police," he gently told her.

"Wolves, Father," the woman blurted. "It's wolves. Howling all night in the bayou. I've been hearing them ever since those children went. And I have told the police. I was scared for my boys, you understand, but they didn't believe me. Ain't no wolves in Louisiana, they told me, not for hundreds of years. And Dell, he don't hear them." Glory's chin began to flutter, and she clenched her teeth to stop it. Averting her gaze, she added, hands gripping her clutch, "I know what I hear. I'm not crazy." She snapped a hand up to her nose and rubbed a quick finger beneath it, shrugged her small shoulders. "I just hear you talking, and I thought maybe you'd believe me is all. And maybe those children, maybe the wolves . . . But if you think I'm—"

"No, Glory," Marion affirmed, "I don't think you're crazy. I've experienced things myself that I cannot explain without understanding them as the hand of God."

Like a wilted flower meeting the sunlight after a rain, Glory St. James blossomed beneath Father's words. "You believe me about the wolves?"

The wolf in his kitchen hovering in his thoughts, Marion nodded. "I believe there are many things in this world that can be explained only by considering the next."

"You—you'll come, then, to the house? To hear them?"

Though he didn't quite know what good it might do, Father Hugh couldn't discount the correlation between Glory's claim and his own experience. "When do you hear them?"

"Every night, when it gets dark."

"I'll come tonight."

The woman surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck in an embrace, and Marion nearly let fall his cane. Before he could react to the lack of decorum, though, she'd separated herself, thanked him, and started down the aisle toward the front doors.

Father Hugh found himself grateful there were no parishioners who'd remained after Mass to pray; none had witnessed his conversation with Glory St. James, a woman he barely knew. As he watched her retreating and then exiting figure, the yawning silence engulfed him once again, and only the trickling baptismal font water made any sound. Releasing a shuddering breath, the man—for he was just a man, after all—looked back at the marble lamb behind him, which appeared now, in the shifting scarlet light from the stained glass window, to be drenched in blood.