“Yeah, we stopped seeing each other. Different interests, you know?”

“Was she okay when you — stopped seeing each other?”

“I guess so.”

I stared straight into his eyes and he winced. I didn’t like that ‘I guess so’. I could see that he was a little afraid of me so I decided to push it.

“What do you mean ‘different interests’?” I asked.

“Well, she got a little weird, you know?” he said.

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

He licked his lips and looked away “I don’t want any trouble,” he stated.

“I’d rather not indulge either. What was the matter?”

“Well,” he said, “she was scared.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“Uh — of you.”

“Me? That’s ridiculous. I never did anything to frighten her. What did she say?”

“She never said it in so many words, but I could tell, whenever your name came up. Then she developed all these funny interests.”

“You’ve lost me,” I said. “Completely. She got weird? She got funny interests? What kind? What was going on? I really don’t understand, and I’d like to.”

He got to his feet and headed for the rear of the store, glancing at me as if I should follow him. I did.

He slowed when he reached a section full of books on natural healing and organic farming and martial arts and herbal remedies and having babies at home, but he went on past it into the hardcore occult section.

“Here,” he said, halting. “She borrowed a few of these, brought them back, borrowed a few more.”

I shrugged.

“That’s all? That’s hardly weird.”

“But she really got into it.”

“So do a lot of people.”

“Let me finish,” he went on. “She started with theosophy, even attended meetings of a local group. She got turned off on it fairly quick, but by then she’d met some people with different connections. Pretty soon she was hanging around with Sufis, Gurdjieffians, even a shaman.”