"I've got things on my mind."
"Sacra Silver."
Now she looked at me, her blue eyes glittering in the moonlight. "I know you came in and found Sacra there, Mongo, but he'd only come to the house a few hours before. Things aren't what they seem."
"How do you know how things seem to me, Mary?"
I waited for a reply, but there was none. She again looked out over the river. In the distance, out in the deep channel, an enormous tanker was making its way downriver, its dark bulk silhouetted against the bright lights on the Westchester shore.
"It seems to me that you and Garth love each other," I continued. "It seems to me that the two of you were building a fine life together here in Cairn. Then one day somebody out of your past shows up, and you fall to pieces. You let the guy run off at the mouth about you belonging to him, and telling Garth he should leave so that you and the guy can take up where you left off thirteen years ago. It seems to me that you may think you're doing what you're doing to protect Garth. Sacra Silver just isn't your type, Mary."
"I hate him!" she snapped with an abruptness that startled me, arching her neck and spitting out the words. "I hate him!"
"Then why-?"
"Sacra can make very bad things happen to people, Mongo."
"Like what? Does he beat them up? Write nasty letters? Make obscene phone calls?"
"You don't take him seriously."
"I take you seriously. What does Sacra Silver do to make bad things happen to people? I saw him draw a knife on my brother, and we both watched Garth take it away from him, in a manner of speaking. Don't you think Garth can take care of himself?"
Mary shook her head. "Mongo, I love Garth more than I've ever loved any man. I don't think I ever really knew what love was all about until I met Garth. If anything ever happened to him, I think I'd die."
"That doesn't jibe with the way you've been acting."
"Garth has never met anyone like Sacra, Mongo. Neither have you."
"You're quite wrong, Mary, but that's beside the point. I'm not about to bore you with stories about the kinds of people Garth has dealt with, real bad guys who would eat Mr. Silver for lunch."
Again, she shook her head. "Sacra doesn't hurt people himself, at least not with his hands, or with weapons. He just makes bad things happen."
"You mean he can will things to happen?"
She nodded.
"That's your first mistake, Mary-believing that Silver can just will things to happen, or that he has special powers. Right now he has power, but it's over you, and you've given him that power by believing his bullshit. The terrible irony is that something bad certainly has happened, to you and Garth. I suppose you could argue that Silver made it happen, but that isn't true. He wanted to come between you and Garth, but you granted his wish by your reaction to him. That's how witchcraft works. Garth can fight Silver, but he can't fight you; he loves you way too much for that. By trying to protect him by preventing him from protecting you, you've caused him great hurt. You've made it appear that you believe negatively in Silver more than you believe positively in Garth, and that hurt him terribly. It hurt him so much that he had to leave. Presto. Silver gets what he wants. But there's nothing magical about it, is there?"
The wake from a passing powerboat hit us, causing the canoe to bob and the plastic bottles to scrape against the canoe's metal skin. I braced my arms on the gunwales to steady us as I met Mary's gaze. There was a different light in her eyes now, perhaps reflecting understanding, a different set to her mouth. I thought I might finally be getting her attention.
"Does Garth think I want to be with Sacra?" she asked quietly.
"I'm not sure. Garth isn't thinking too clearly right now. You've certainly made it appear that way. Garth isn't a jealous man, Mary, but he is a very proud man. He loves you dearly. He would fight for you, die for you without a moment's hesitation. What he won't do is fight to keep you; he would figure that it's up to you to decide who you want to be with. If you wanted to be with somebody else, he would simply accept that decision. I suspect he's thinking along those lines now, because, at best, you've been sending him very mixed signals by what you've done and not done. You've hurt his pride. He sees that you're deeply troubled, but he feels that you pushed him away when he tried to help. That's what he can't abide."
Mary sighed deeply, gazed down at the bottom of the canoe. "Sacra can bring harm to people, Mongo. It isn't something I believe, it's something I know. You have a point when you say that Sacra has already hurt Garth through me, but it's not that simple. Sacra controls other people too; there are a number of men and women who will do whatever Sacra tells them to do. There are people who will kill for him; he doesn't have to do it himself. That's why I've. . done what I've done. I can't bear the thought of Sacra and his people harming Garth. If the price I pay is having him leave me, then I'd rather pay it than have Garth hurt-or dead. That's what could happen if Sacra doesn't get his way."
Now it was my turn to sigh. "Mary, you can't shut out Garth. The price you're paying is worse than wasted, worse than if you were simply getting nothing in return. What you've bought so far is misery for the two of you. Again, I'm not going to bore you with war stories, but I can absolutely assure you that your old boyfriend is a pussycat compared to some of the people my brother has handled in the past. But don't you defeat Garth. You've got to have faith in him."
Once again, Mary was silent for a long time. I poured some more wine, watched her watching the river. The tanker in the deep channel was well past us now, heading for the large, central span beneath the Tappan Zee Bridge. We would soon be bobbing up and down again when its bow wave and wake reached us.
"Talking to you makes me feel better, Mongo."
"Thank you, Mary. That's a nice compliment."
"I lose myself when Sacra is around. He's always had that effect on me. I just. . get lost. He's a manipulator, and I know it, but I just can't seem to stop him from manipulating me. He's a spiritual terrorist; he finds out what people believe in, and then he goes to work on their hearts."
"Mary, I don't understand what you mean. I don't understand just what it is you perceive that he can do to people, aside from rounding up some gang to beat on somebody. You're saying it's more than that."
"Garth wouldn't understand either. That's because you and Garth have no faith."
The bow wave from the passing tanker finally reached us, and the thick, lazy swell rolled under the canoe, lifting us up, dropping us down in its trough. The strands of the drift net scraped against the gunwale beneath my right arm. I sipped at my wine, asked quietly, "Why do you say that?"
"Neither of you believe in God. You're not religious."
"I believe in mystery. So does Garth."
"Now I'm the one who doesn't understand."
"Mary, there's nothing mysterious about religions-any of them. They all try to give you recipes, recipe religion; cook your life like our priests tell you, and God will reward you. I don't remember exactly when it was, but I wasn't very old. I was sitting in church one Sunday, and I suddenly realized that I didn't buy any of it; I didn't believe any of the things that my parents and those other people there presumably believed that was prompting them to worship and pray to some all-powerful, invisible thing. When that thought first occurred to me, when I first realized I didn't believe in the God I thought everybody in the world believed in, I got real scared. For just a moment, I thought I was going to die, to be punished by that God for not believing in messiahs, miracles, and all that other stuff I know you believe in. Then it occurred to me that, if God was omniscient, if He or She already knew what I was thinking anyway, then it didn't make any difference. There was no point in trying to hide what I thought. And I wasn't afraid anymore. After all, I was only using the brain God had presumably given me in the first place. What replaced the fear was a sense of indescribable awe in the face of the universe, of eternity. I couldn't feel that while I was preoccupied with trying to learn a recipe for living, which in my case just happened to be of the Christian variety. Religions demystify, Mary. They consistently trivialize the notion of God."