An Incident At Bloodtide

need a knife or gun.'

'For sure. You've already made something bad happen in this house, but that's because one of the people involved, Mary, believed you could make bad things happen. The healthy response when she found you on her doorstep would have been to slam the door in your face, but her faith in your powers wouldn't permit her to do that. She let you into her home, and back into her life, and both she and the man who had faith in her are now suffering because of it. Mary's wound is self-inflicted, but the pain ends up shared. You control Mary because Mary believes you have the power to control her; by believing it, she makes it happen. It's a very sad, but simple, self-fulfilling prophecy.'

'What's your faith, Frederickson? What do you believe in?'

'Gravity, mathematics, and mystery.'

'What about God? Do you believe in God?'

'Now, there's a mystery.'

Sacra Silver, squinting slightly, stared hard at me. I stared back. 'You believe in yourself,' he said at last. 'And you believe in your brother. That's your faith. You believe that the two of you, working individually or together, can overcome virtually any difficulty.'

'No, I don't believe that at all. I do imagine things, and one of the things I imagine is that I have enough sense not to let your imagination get the better of me. Imagination, of course, is the third leg of the Witch's Triangle, along with will and secrecy. I don't know how much will you have, because, so far, the only person I've seen you manipulate is Mary, and Mary's very impressionable. As for power you derive from secrecy, that remains to be seen. You use a witch name in your everyday life, which interests me. Most witches don't, you know. I imagine that if I nosed around enough to find out who you really are, your background and all that, the information might go a long way toward helping people who have let your imagination get the better of them.'

He didn't like that at all. His black eyes flashed with anger, and his thin lips drew back from his teeth. 'I tend to imagine horrible things happening to people who make themselves my enemies, Frederickson. Very horrible things. And sometimes the things I've imagined actually do happen to those people.'

'That could easily be construed as a threat,' I replied evenly, and smiled at him. 'It's hard for me to believe that you take risks like that.'

He frowned slightly. 'What risk am I taking?'

'It's lucky for you I don't take your shade prince act too seriously, big fella. Let's just suppose I did. Suppose I believed that the next bad thing that happens to me is your fault, because you imagined it-cast a spell, so to speak. Naturally that would make me paranoid, and the focus of my paranoia would be you. Considering you responsible for the bad thing that's happened to me, I take the very unimaginative and unmagical step of walking up to you with a gun and blowing your brains out. A nonbeliever like me would call that poetic justice, but a witch would call it rebound. See what I mean about risk-taking? If I were you, I'd be downright careful about threatening anybody with as wispy a weapon as Sacra Silver's imagination.'

'I don't make idle threats, Frederickson.'

'Oh, have you been threatening me? I thought we were just having a casual conversation about having to be careful what you believe, because you tend to become what you believe.'

'You said I was none of your business.'

'I did say that, but just out of idle curiosity I'd like to know what brought you to Cairn in the first place. Was it because of Mary, or did you have some other business in town and then just happened to find out that she lives here now? Thirteen years is a long time to stay out of touch. And what do you really want from her? Money? Or do you just want to get your face on television at the next Grammy awards? What's the inside scoop on this sudden visitation?'

'Curiosity killed the cat, Frederickson.'

'Funny, but I was thinking along those exact same lines not ten minutes ago.'

'What the hell does that mean?'

I wasn't about to tell him what the hell that meant, any more than he was likely to tell me anything I really wanted to know, but I was spared the trouble of coming up with an evasive answer when Mary suddenly appeared at the door. She looked terrible; the color was gone from her face, and her skin was blotchy. She had a tic in her left cheek.

'Hello, Mary,' I said, rising to my feet.

Seeing me made her look even more stricken, and I suspected it had more than a little to do with the fact that I had found Sacra Silver in her house. She swallowed hard, glanced back and forth between Silver and me. 'Mongo, I didn't know. . Sacra's only been here since this afternoon.'

She was trying to tell me Silver wasn't sleeping in Garth's bed, and I was glad to hear it. I raised my hand, shook my head. 'You don't owe me any explanations, Mary. I just came by to see if you were all right. Mr. Silver and I have been passing the time with a pleasant conversation about witchcraft, ceremonial magic, imagination, and how bad things can happen to people who expect bad things to happen to them. Now, can you and I talk?'

Once again, she glanced uncertainly back and forth between the other man and me. 'Mongo,' she said in a small voice, 'I don't think you can understand. I don't want anything to happen. .'

'Mary, believe it or not, I think I do understand. You don't want anything bad to happen to Garth, or to me. I think you're trying very hard to protect Garth from harm. It's all right.' I paused, turned to Silver. 'Is it all right if I talk to Mary, big fella? You're not worried about anything, are you?'

'I'm not worried about a damn thing, Frederickson.'

'Good,' I said, taking Mary's hand and leading her toward the door. 'See you later. Don't let anything bad happen to you while we're gone.'

Chapter Four

How's your assistant pastor?' I asked as I stroked, then feathered with my paddle to keep the canoe on a steady course as we headed upriver, against the current. We were about thirty yards from shore. It was a clear, warm night, and the river was unusually still, at least on the surface. I was a firm believer in the calming influence of large bodies of water, and when we had come out of the house I had suggested that we go out on the river. When Mary hadn't objected, I'd dragged the large, steel Grumman down the beach, seated Mary in the bow, then sat in the stern, along with a bottle of wine, corkscrew, and two glasses I'd snatched from the bar and wine rack on our way out. From her position in the bow, Mary stroked regularly and with power, her back muscles rippling beneath the light sweater she wore.

Mary shrugged. 'Sacra told you about it?'

'He said something about the man falling down some stairs and breaking his back while he was looking for someplace to hide a flag.'

'He thinks somebody pushed him.'

'Thinks? Wouldn't he know if he was pushed?'

'He's in a great deal of pain, and very depressed. He can't remember things clearly right now.'

'I thought that issue had been resolved a while ago.'

Mary was quiet for some time. Finally she said, 'It was; the flag was to remain on the altar. Tim-our assistant pastor-just felt it was wrong, blasphemous. It ate at him. He wanted to remove it one more time, as a symbolic gesture. He believed it was what God wanted him to do. Now he's not only in the hospital, but I think the congregation is going to vote to fire him. I wish he hadn't done it.'

I imagined the assistant pastor also wished now he hadn't done it, but I didn't say so. Instead, I steered us out another fifteen yards to where two buoys constructed from plastic soda bottles marked the ends of a drift net that had either been set for the night or not picked up during the day. I grabbed hold of the closest buoy, tied on with the painter attached to the stern of the canoe. 'Time for some refreshment,' I said.

Mary set her paddle down, turned around, then sat in the bottom of the canoe, resting her arms on the gunwales. I slid down, opened the wine, filled two glasses, and handed one to her. Mary sipped at her wine, then gazed out over the moon-washed river, which was still tinted red with bloodtide.

'You don't look good, Mary,' I continued quietly. 'You don't look good at all.'