[Maybe eventually she'll feel something again. Maybe the words of a hymn asking for the guidance of the Lord won't feel like the worst kind of hollow lie when she half-sings-half-speaks them.

It is a strange and vulnerable kind of awe that keeps Carrie hovering around Jeanne. If she were a poet, she'd know how to talk about it, but she's blunt to a fault. The girl is some kind of saint. That's all there is to it. She's patient, and kind, and smells of roses, of sanctity itself.

But the cracker is still just a cracker, as far as Carrie can tell. She won't ever say it out loud. But after the Mass is done - ]

Next week... if I can find things to make one, do you...

[She stops, blushing and hating her face for betraying her like that.]

Would it help to have an altar cross? Or something to mark where we're meeting like this?