information; it did: Two entries. December, 1850, six days apart: Cremated due to contagion Elizabeth Hanley, age thirty-four Laura Marie Hanley, age six The road to the depot was spotted with snow, his hands raw where he wrung them, each knuckle white at the bone. The last car was empty, its windows heavy with soot; he saw trees hardened with ice, and a sky going grey without clouds. He pulled the shade to the sill. He'd learned to survive, but lately had taken to staying on after his nightly novenas, to kneel slouched in the front pew to stare up at the dead man screwed to the windowed wall and think fondly of the grave. He half-expected the body to move, the flick of an eyelid, a twitching thumb, a groan rising from the throat, maybe even a word, his name, something, anything he could hang on to. They took him that way; before he woke from his trance they were peeling off his socks for a black wad to jam in his mouth; he felt his shoes dangling around his neck; saw his undershorts soggy in the baptismal font, his cassock a costume for the one called Sonny, the soutane sleeves flapping as he whirled away to the loft to slash the bell-rope and watch it fall: a stricken snake coiling on the wooden floor. They cracked him to his knees and bound his wrists behind him, lashing them hard against his feet, causing old prayers to form on