A sixteen-year-old girl in Civil-War-era New Orleans is friends with God, but He leaves her when she is forced to marry a man whom she fears.

A Kansas man who believes that God lives in all young children for a time recalls to a companion the exact moment that God left him. As a boy, he befriends a woman who the town believes is a witch, but when the town turns on her, he joins the mob instead of defending her.