45
" But then, not long after, in another article, Loftus writes, " We live in a strange and precarious time that resembles at its heart the hysteria and superstitious fervor of the witch trials." She took rifle lessons and to this day keeps the firing instruction sheets and targets posted above her desk. In 1996, when Psychology Today interviewed her, she burst into tears twice within the first twenty minutes, labile, lubricated, theatrical, still whip smart, talking about the blurry boundaries between fact and fiction while she herself lived in another blurry boundary, between conviction and compulsion, passion and hyperbole. " The witch hunts," she said, but the analogy is wrong, and provides us with perhaps a more accurate window into Loftus's stretched psyche than into our own times, for the witch hunts were predicated on utter nonsense, and the abuse scandals were predicated on something all too real, which Loftus seemed to forget: Women are abused. Memories do matter. Talking to her, feeling her high-flying energy the zeal that burns up the center of her life, you have to wonder, why. You are forced to ask the very kind of question Loftus most abhors: did something bad happen to her? For she herself seems driven by dissociated demons, and so I ask. What happened to you? Turns out, a lot. (refers to Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus) "
47
" [A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret. "
― Michael Chabon , Gentlemen of the Road
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" The car drives through, stops while the man closes and fastens the prickly gate behind it. The bell shuts off; the stillness is deafening by contrast. The car goes on until the outline of a house suddenly uptilts the searching headlight-beams, log-built, sprawling, resembling a hunting-lodge. But there's no friendliness to it. There is something ominous and forbidding about its look, so dark, so forgotten, so secretive-looking. The kind of a house that has a maw to swallow with - a one-way house, that you feel will never disgorge any living thing that enters it. Leprous in the moonlight festering on its roof. And the two round sworls of light played by the heads of the car against its side, intersecting, form a pear-shaped oval that resembles a gleaming skull. (" Jane Brown's Body" ) "
56
" Long story short, I got lured into a trap. A Mage using that concealment spell tried to knife me. Then someone else tried to blow my brains out with a bullet." " A Mage attacked you?" Alain asked, feeling a sick sensation inside. " She tried. I knew they'd been watching me. I didn't give them any reason to try to kill me." Mari looked at him. " Did I?" " It is my fault," Alain admitted. " Even though I have tried to keep them from finding out who you are, they still believe that you are dangerous." She gave him another look, then shook her head. " From the looks of things, I'm mainly dangerous to my friends and myself. Just how much trouble did you actually get in because of spending time with me in Dorcastle?" Alain looked into the fire. " My Guild did not believe that I had been with you in Dorcastle. The elders thought that the woman I had been seen with in that city was a common I had sought out because she researched the Mechanic I had met in Ringhmon." " Why would you want to find a common who looked like me?" Mari asked. " For physical satisfaction." The simple statement would have created no reaction in a Mage, but he saw the outraged look in Mari's face and hurriedly added more. " I would not have done that. But the elders assumed that I did. I told you that they believed I was attracted to you." " Alain, 'attracted to' doesn't bring to mind the idea of finding another woman who resembles me so that you can pretend that you're—" she choked off the words, glaring into the night. " The elders assumed that. I never wanted it. I would never do it. There is no other woman like you." Somehow he must have said the right thing, because she relaxed. " But because of that belief of theirs," Mari said, " your elders thought you might look for me again." " They actually thought that you would seek me," Alain explained. " They were very concerned that you would..." His " social skills" might need work, but Alain realized that he probably should not say the rest. Too late. Mari bent a sour look his way. " What did they think I would do?" " It is not important." " Alain..." He exhaled slowly, realizing that Mari would not give up on this question. " The elders thought that you would seek to ensnare me, using your physical charms, and through me work to strike at the Mage Guild." She stared back in disbelief. " Ensnare? They actually used the word ensnare?" " Yes. Many times." " Using my physical charms?" Mari seemed unable to decide whether to laugh or get angry. She looked down at herself. " I'm a little low on ammunition when it comes to physical charms, or hadn't these elders of yours noticed?" " You are beautiful beyond all other women," Alain objected. Mari rolled her eyes. " And you ate seriously deluded. I hadn't realized how badly until this moment. "