The Last of the Red Hot Vampires - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,2
romances you write - "
"No, it's not your unwillingness to fall in love that I'm talking about." She waved an expressive hand, her face serious as I set her bags down next to her. "No, I take it back, that's part of it."
"It's part of what?"
"Your lack of faith."
The muscles in my back stiffened. I grabbed my two bags from the trunk, locked it, and tucked the keys away before looking at her. "You know what my family was like. I can't believe anyone who knows what I went through would chastise me for rejecting religion."
"No one would blame you in the least, certainly not me," she said gently, a genuine look of contrition filling her eyes as she put her hand on my arm and gave it a little squeeze. "I'm not talking about religious faith, Portia. I'm talking about faith in general, in the ability to believe in something that has no tangible form or substance, something that is, but which you can't hold in your hands."
I took a deep breath, willing my muscles to relax. "Sarah, sweetie, I know you mean well, but I'm a physicist. My whole career is focused around understanding the elements that make up our world. To expect me to believe in something that has no proof of its existence is...well, it's impossible."
"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."