Miracle Creek

Pak and Mary wait for Young to return. When she does, she asks Pak to tell her the truth, and once again he confesses to setting the fire, thinking to himself “this was [the] goal, for her to believe he was the villain, and continued with the mix of truth and lies he’d decided on” (317). He thinks his plan is working, because “her eyes hardened, her pupils contracting into pinpoints of pure black […]” (317).

However, Young doesn’t believe him, and she points out the many flaws in his lies; it wasn’t Pak who got the real estate listings, but Mary. It wasn’t Pak’s stash of cigarettes, but Mary’s stash. She even guesses Pak’s real plan—to have set the fire and put it out, to show the police how dangerous the protestors were. Finally, Young says the one thing that he wished she wouldn’t say, that she knew the real truth: Mary was the one who set the fire.

Mary remembers the night of the explosion, especially Janine’s accusations, calling her a “whore” and a “stalking slut” (324), which were devastating, especially considering Matt was the one who had assaulted her, “who’d pretended to be a caring friend before exposing his true motives, who held her down and pushed his tongue into her mouth as she tried to scream out, who got on top of her and forced her hand inside his pants, wrapping it around himself so hard it hurt, using it like an object […]” (324).