"What about those little tiny things?" she asked, grabbing her bags and following me to the pub's entrance.
"Little tiny things?"
"You know, those little atom things that no one can see, but which you all know are there? The ones with the Star Trek name."
I frowned down at the top of her head (Sarah, in addition to being petite despite the birth of three children, was also a good six inches shorter than me) as I opened the door to the pub. "You mean quarks?"
"That's it. You said that scientists believed in quarks a long time before they ever saw them."
"Yes, but they saw proof of them in particle accelerators. The detectors inside the accelerators recorded tracks of the products generated by the particle collisions."
Her eyes narrowed as she marched past me into the inn. "Now you're doing that physics-speak thing that makes my brain hurt."
I smiled and followed her in. "OK, then, here's a layman's explanation: We knew quarks existed because they left us proof by way of particle footprints. That tangible proof of their existence was enough to convince even the most skeptical of scientists that they were real."
"But before those fancy particle accelerators, no one had proof, right?"
"Yes, but calculations showed that they had to exist to make sense - "
Sarah stopped in the doorway to a wood-paneled room. A woman at the bar who was serving a customer called that she'd be right with us. Sarah nodded and turned back to me. "That's not the point. They believed in something of which they had no proof. They had faith, Portia. They had faith that something they couldn't see or touch or weigh existed. And that's the sort of faith that is lacking in you. You're so caught up in explaining away everything, you don't allow any magic into your life."
"There is no real magic, Sarah, only illusion," I said, shaking my head at her.
"Oh, my dear, you are so wrong. There is magic everywhere around you, only you're too blind to see it." A little twinkle softened the look in her eye. "You know, I've half a mind to...hmm."
I raised my eyebrows and forbore to bite at the "half a mind" bait she had dangled so temptingly in front of me. Instead, I reminded myself that I was her guest on this three-week trip to England, Scotland, and Wales (classified, for tax purposes, as a research assistant), and as such, I could keep at least a few of my opinions to myself.
It wasn't until a half hour later, after we'd taken possession of the two rooms the pub boasted for visitors, that Sarah continued the thought she'd started earlier.
"Your room is nicer than mine," she announced after admiring the view of grassy pastureland outside my windows. Sheep and cows dotted the landscape, the few trees set as windbreaks waving gently in the early summer breeze.
"I told you to take it, but you liked the other room better."
"It has much calmer feng shui," she said, turning back to me. "And speaking of that, I have decided we're going to have a bet."
"We are? Is there a casino around here? You know I suck at card games."
"Not that kind of a bet. We're going to have one between us. A wager."
"Oh?" I leaned back against the headboard as Sarah plumped herself down in the room's only chair. "About what?"
"I am going to bet you that, before the end of this trip, you will see something that you can't explain."
"Something like...quarks?" I asked, thinking back to our earlier conversation.
"No, you believe in those. I mean something you don't believe in, like spirits and UFOs and faeries. I will bet you that before the end of our trip, you will encounter something that can't be explained away as a hot air balloon, or settling house, or any of those other unimaginative excuses people like you come up with to explain the inexplicable."
I sat up a little straighter on the bed. There's nothing I loved like an intellectual challenge. "Well now, that's an interesting thought. But it's hardly fair for you to throw something like that at me without allowing the inverse."
"Inverse?" She frowned for a moment. "What do you mean?"
"You can't take me to a haunted house, and when I point out that the plumbing is archaic and responsible for making the suggested poltergeist knockings, refuse to allow that as a valid explanation. You have to be open to rational deductions as to the source of your mystical events."
She bristled slightly. "I am the most open person I know!"
"Yes, you are; too open. You're much more willing to believe in something paranormal than normal."
"Oh," she said, glaring at me. "That's it! Put your money where your mouth is!"