Mary understood that anguish: the pain of knowing the grievous sin that was in one’s heart and the way that it disappointed the Lord, and what it meant when one contemplated the fires of Hell that awaited. To be among the damned and not the chosen? There was and there could be nothing worse. And yet people daily made pacts with the Dark One. His seductions were smooth, a vortex from which, once enticed, there was no escape.
