Part 1

Flannery's Bear - Part 1

Once upon a time there were three children who wanted to save the world.

The first, and the oldest of the three—and whose name was Flannery—knew this from the outset. It was as if she arrived upon this Earth a bundle of purpose: the world was in trouble, and she knew it. The Great War, still less than seven years past, had left the world in a darkness that for all the optimistic political rhetoric, and the noble aims of the League of Nations, never quite lifted and which was soon to return fully fledged to the world with a small mustache and renewed violence.

The second child, whose name was Heather, and who was the youngest of the three, arrived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in December of 1950, just a little over five years after the Second World War finally ended, and on the very day Flannery left Ridgefield for her painful and prolonged audience with death. When in her seventh year her Irish Catholic father beat her younger brother senseless with his fists, and then killed him by tossing the lifeless five-year-old boy down a set of stairs—deemed an accident by the local Irish Catholic investigator, and grandly forgiven by the local Irish Catholic priest—Heather knew she must find the root of evil in this world and help eradicate it. God was not doing a very good job.

The third child, Gabriel, who was born on the 9th of August, 1945, took his first breath the very instant that the bomb over Nagasaki, Japan, detonated. He was later to muse that his first lungful of air contained the souls of 40,000 Japanese children. He had no notion about his purpose on Earth until one summer morning, when at the age of fourteen, almost fifteen—it was a Saturday, the 23rd of July, 1960, a little after 10 in the morning—40,000 dust motes, shimmering in the slotted sunshine inside an abandoned attic, suddenly began to sing.

There was also the fourth child: Netoniel.

Gabriel was half-way up the rickety wooden ladder. The rungs, if not completely rotted through, still looked treacherous, so he proceeded up them slowly, taking care to step close to the sides, where they would be the strongest. The ladder groaned softly under his weight.

A perverse curiosity had brought him. About ten years ago, a man had hung himself here, in this very attic. Well, he didn’t really know that for a fact, hadn’t asked anyone to confirm it, but it was widely rumored, common knowledge, as it were, especially amongst the kids. Which beam, he wondered as his head cleared the opening in the attic floor and his pupils slowly dilated to take in the darker space above him—which beam did the man hang himself from?

There were several to choose from. There was the long, at least a foot thick, roughly hewn beam that ran the length of the open ceiling, and which spawned evenly spaced vertical risers to support the rafters and roof beam. There were also, he counted one, two, three, four, narrower and smoother beams running perpendicularly, and neatly joined to the main beam, kind of keeping the walls apart, he thought, although that was not the case, of course.

He couldn’t picture it though. There would not be enough space for a fully grown man to hang himself from any of them, the distance from the attic floor to any of these beams was barely six feet, and with the rope and the noose and at least five foot plus worth of man, well, he would be standing on the floor, no matter what—no matter which beam he chose. Unless, well, of course, he realized with a little chill, of course: he must have secured the rope to the beam crossing the open hatch he was just emerging through. He looked straight up again, and yes, there was one of the narrower cross beams, neatly in the very right spot. Yes, of course, he thought again, secure the rope, noose over the head, tighten the knot, jump through the hatch. That would still count as hanging oneself in the attic, technically, if indeed it had happened at all.

The chill then added: you are at this very moment, standing on the fourth rung from the top of the ladder, occupying the very same space that the hanging man would have dangled in. He shivered. Then he tried to taste it.

How did he die? he wondered. Did he know enough about hangings to place the knot just right—slightly to the left of but touching the atlas, he had read—to break his neck, or didn’t he know, which would have meant that he probably suffocated from strangulation. Most suicides do—the same article had said—strangle themselves. He shuddered again, imagining the hanging man, losing breath and life, to never breathe again. He held his breath and counted. By forty his lungs had had enough and screamed for air. He obliged. The man could have done the same, he thought, could have reached out and heaved himself up by the edge of the opening, back to the living.

Then again, what’s to say that he didn’t? Or that he tried to, and failed. What’s to say that it happened at all? It probably wasn’t true. Probably just rumor, kids talking.

Outside the little house a cloud found the sun and suddenly the attic turned many degrees darker. His next thought was that even the sun knew about the hanging, and was sending him a warning. His impulse was to climb back down and get the hell out of there. Oh, God, you’re such an idiot. The sun knowing about it. Give me a break. You’re here to look around, so look around.

Besides, if someone did hang himself in here, that was a long time ago, there would certainly be no bodies here now, so damn it. Could be ghosts, though. No, not in broad daylight. He stepped up another rung, then held his breath: everything was dead still in there, just the renewed groan of the ladder. No danger here, and he was quite brave, right? He climbed the remaining three rungs, and heaved himself up on the attic floor.

He rose to full length, kind of unfolded himself. His eyes had adjusted to the diminished light now and he could see quite clearly again, sunless daylight seeping through the slots between the walls’ vertical planks.

He looked around. Dust, and lots of it, softly contouring what it covered with an almost wheat colored blanket. Things in the corners. Things. He walked over to take a closer look, treading carefully, still stirring clouds of dust into the air behind him, not quite visible in the gloom, had he indeed turned around to look.

Things: shoes, two but not a pair, the lower part of an ax handle, a bicycle seat, a pile of old newspapers, a wooden bowl, huge. He pictured someone kneading dough for very large loaves of bread in the thing, old hands, grandmother’s hands, it was that kind of bowl, and he wondered if it had any value, whether this bowl in particular was one of an impossible to find kind that would make him immensely rich now that he, Gabriel, had discovered it, and so would pave the way for a great life as yet undefined.

Of course not, it was just an old wooden bowl, tossed up into this above the ceiling out of the way as worthless. It was chipped, and cracked, too. Not worth much, if anything. Or it wouldn’t be here, would it? Of course not.

More newspapers on the floor. In a neat pile, held together with fraying string. He looked at the date. 1955, August. He untied the string and looked at the next paper. August 1955 as well. The whole pile. He stood up and looked around again. More newspapers, these nailed to the walls as insulation, now torn and peeling, and only in this corner. Why, he wondered. Then he looked closer at the other walls, and saw traces of newspaper on all of them. So, they had initially covered the whole attic. He leaned closer to check the dates of these papers. 1941, 1942, war pictures, originally in black and white, now more like brown on yellow. Fighting in Finland. Sweden still neutral, it said.

At that moment, outside, the cloud released the sun and the attic nearly exploded into light, surprising his eyes, now used to the near darkness. He turned around almost by reflex, like someone behind him had just thrown a light switch, and suddenly the air is completely alive with brilliant sheets of dust where the sun now raced in through the evenly spaced bars of narrow air.

He had never seen anything quite like this, anything quite this beautiful before, not in his entire life. It was a gallery of sun and dust and suddenly they started singing.

He stood stock still, then sat down, very slowly so as not to disturb the display. Very slowly, down, down upon this empty crate for apples, down, down, and now he was sitting.

He could not help but hear the singing and, hearing it, he felt an urge he had never felt before: to capture some of this, to, somehow, preserve it—in words.

Never taking his eyes off the flickering sheets of dust and sunrays, he groped for and found a stub of pencil in his left pocket, a sheet of paper in his back pocket. He unfolded the sheet (a phone number to call, don’t forget), smoothed it a little on his lap and touched it with the pencil, thus:

Am I a troll or a human being
I don't know.
But I do know that long before
I came here
this page of my life
had already been written.

He stopped there and read what he had written.

Somewhere within him a voice demurred, in fact ridiculed him a little—just a whisper, mind you—for what he had just done so reverently had nothing to do with engineering (his paternally decreed, and on the whole much manlier, destiny). Still, this felt right, it was right somehow, important, somehow, but of course they were just words, made up words. Still.

He read them again. They sounded true, these words, of course they were not. Lies. But good lies, he almost said to himself, or thought so loudly he could hear it.

He read the first line again, aloud. Listening to it. Crossed out “a troll or a” and “being”. Re-read it: Am I human. That, he knew with a slight shiver, was the better question, the real question. And again read what he had written:

Am I human
I don't know.
But I do know that long before
I came here
this page of my life
had already been written.

Then he scratched out “do” and “long” from the third line, and then read the six lines aloud to himself:

Am I human
I don't know.
But I know that before
I came here
this page of my life
had already been written.

Another chill. Though not from the rumored hanging this time. It rose from a faint but unmistakable internal resonance. The sheets of dancing dust motes still talked to him and now struck him as his very own and golden northern lights, a private winter sky made small especially for him. And he shivered again.

The very moment Gabriel finished saying the word written, his tongue still resting against his teeth in the final n, Flannery hit the “?” on her new, and still unfamiliar, Underwood typewriter to complete a quick note to Fiona McCullough, a friend from the State University of Iowa, who now lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and with whom Flannery still maintained a regular, almost weekly, correspondence:

Well poor old Jack. I hope he gets elected. I think King Kong would be better than Nixon. We didn’t see any of it, having no television, but one night I listened for a spell on the radio when we had company who must hear it. Fortunately the company soon left to seek out a television so we went to bed.

Do you ever cross paths with any of the Paleys on your strolls through Ridgefield? I assume that you still stroll.

She read her note in silence, approved. Then addressed and stamped an envelope, folded and inserted the note and licked the envelope shut. She would take it to the mailbox tomorrow morning before the mailman came.

Gabriel sat for quite some time looking at the words he had written, feeling there was more somewhere, that there were other wells with other waters to find and tap. He groped around within him for more words, for more meanings to pencil down, but could find none. Then another cloud found the sun and the dust suddenly stopped singing. The moment had gone.

He looked around the dark stillness one last time, the dust now invisible again, or mostly so. He felt slightly shifted from center, though, as if he no longer was quite himself, or just a little more himself. Odd feeling. It was hard to put a finger on. The attic was dead still. Outside he could hear birds in the nearby trees. Arguing, it sounded like. A noisy family gathering. A truck geared down up on the road, its engine now groaning up the hill he himself would soon have to climb to get back home. He stood up, folded his paper and put it and the pencil back in his pockets. He descended the rickety ladder, which groaned again but let him down unscathed.

His bicycle, leaning against the red wall, waited for him. Green and silver. Almost new. Shiny, he saw to that. Much his. Pride. He climbed on, began to pedal, avoided the larger potholes in the old, now untended road leading up to the paved one where the truck had just gone by. Reached it, and now for the hill. Steepest in the county, they said, and he could believe it. Especially on a bicycle. Took some doing this hill, and with the effort he now had to put in he promptly forgot all about the folded sheet of paper in his back pocket.

Much later, in London, in another language, he would look back on this day in the old attic, and write:

Dust and sun rays
talk to me
in sheets of light
that flutter silently
Still too young
to understand
this simple dreamer
gently gathers them
in his hand
My tenderly real
gift of the sun
dances to heal
hearts that crumble
lives that stumble
Startled by
his very heart
they smile
but always depart

A possessed human being is nothing but bones, flesh, heart, and skin operated by the Devil, although it does not have to be the Devil. According to the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Possession, the term give to the supposed control of a human body and mind by an alien spirit, human or non-human; or the occupation by an alien spirit of some portion of a human body, causing sickness, pain, &c. The term obsession (Lat. for siege) is sometimes used as equivalent to possession; sometimes it denotes spirit control exercised from without, or it may mean no more than a maniacal monoideism. From an anthropological point of view possession may be conveniently classed as (a) inspirational, (b) demoniacal, (c) pathological, according to the view taken of the reason for or effect of the spiritual invasion of the possessed person.

The spirit that possessed Frank Paley, however, that afternoon in 1957 when he killed his son Michael, was not the Devil, nor anyone but Frank Paley himself, still fighting off the army of children he knew would suffocate him were they to finally corner him and make him face himself. So, purely in self-defense, mind you, for his own survival, he pinned the five-year-old boy to the floor of the second floor landing with his knees, and pummeled his face until there were few teeth left in their original sockets, and until no part of either eye could be seen. Frank swore at every cut those sharp little teeth (where broken into jagged chards) inflicted on his knuckles and proceeded to teach them the lesson to break more evenly.

Having survived the vicious attack upon his hands by sharp teeth, he then tossed the listless body down the steep set of stairs, where an unfortunate tumble—or fortunate perhaps, this is a matter of viewpoint—snapped the little neck with a sick crack that told Heather, sitting on the living room sofa and clutching her 13-months-old little sister to her, that Michael was no more.

When Michael’s body came to a stop at the foot of the stairs, it looked a little like a sack of dirty laundry, she thought. Frank was yelling for his wife to clean it up.

Then for precisely one minute no one in that house breathed.

Or could breathe. Flannery, sitting on her porch in Milledgeville knew of the violence so many miles to the north, sensed it, as she knew of and sensed so much violence elsewhere, but this had made her particularly sick to her stomach. So she strangled the house with her fist and deprived all who lived there of oxygen for exactly sixty seconds.

Frank Paley’s face was alternating between the white of terror and the red of asphyxiation when Flannery let go and oxygen finally entered his starving lungs.

“Who the hell did that?” he said, then turned around, hoping to find a child source for his screaming lungs.

“He’s dead,” said his wife from below.

“What the hell was that?” he screamed, still afraid.

“You’ve killed him,” said his wife from below. Then she, too, began to scream.

Heather, testing the air and finding it breathable again, dialed the police.

Flannery opened her fist and closed her eyes. She sat still for several deep breaths. She heard the crickets and the birds. A cow mooed not too far away. Another answered. Wind in the trees like gentle applause. Peacocks strutting, dragging their multicolored plumes in the dust. The help arguing in the kitchen. Things alive.

Then she rose and walked back into the house, into her bedroom, which also served as her study and library. She sat down at her desk and found a pen, then a sheet of paper. Then she decided to type instead—a little faster, perhaps, clearer for sure, and easier on her hands, which had grown annoyingly weak of late—now that she had gotten almost used to this darn thing. She still hated it, it was a sort of an invasion, this stealer of pens’ work, but not as much as before. It was a little quicker too, or could be once she’d learned it a bit better. Noisy though.

She began, pecking out one letter after the other, reminding herself of a multi-headed chicken hunting for and finding seeds, her wrist the neck, fingers the many beaks:

“Once upon a time there were three children who wanted to save the world: Flannery, Heather, and Gabriel.

“Flannery, the older of the three was eight years old and had long, cascading red hair, bleached, but not much, by the sun. Her eyes were blue and non-believing.

“She was very pretty,” she added.

She read the last sentence, once, then again, frowned, then brought back the carriage and x’ed it out. “What has that got to do with it?” she mumbled to herself, then continued:

“Heather, the youngest, was six and perhaps one of her small arms taller than her dark brown hair was long. She always wore a plain, blue dress.

“Gabriel, at seven, was all a blond mop of hair with blue eyes in a deep tan from playing in the fields most of the days of his life. He was Heather’s brother, or pretended to be, and Flannery’s brother, or pretended to be.

“None of them had living parents, nor could they, even if pressed, remember ever having had any.”

“There was also the fourth child: Netoniel.”

Netoniel: Hiding now. Keeping away. At a safe distance. Still wondering why the strands did not evaporate. Why they instead formed a blanket, growing ever thicker. It was the one thing he had not foreseen. Could not have foreseen. How could he have? No strands had formed when he tried it. Well, that’s not quite true, when the original wish had passed through the mirror—as designed, while it reflected its opposite—it had exited in the form of a thin silver strand, but this had evaporated into nothing almost immediately.

Could that have been, he then wondered, because he was aware of the mirror’s presence?

He also wondered whether Flannery knew. Then he assumed, it had been nearly five thousand years, after all, that she did.

The field was as green and shiny as some fresh underwater emerald. The sky a dark, luscious blue. The wind was thick and slow and sweet and swayed the huge green valley surface now this way, now that, as the three children made their way through a waist-high grass that pretended not to want to let them through.

There were many movements around them of animals small and not so small scurrying—some to meet them, some to act afraid of them, though none were. The children noticed and smiled but did not stop to talk, nor to pat them. They had things to do and were on their way to do them. Flannery first, then Heather and Gabriel.

An older bear noticed this scurrying back and forth of unbridled welcomes and silently told the younger, and smaller—and, perhaps, happier—creatures, to leave them alone. They were busy, didn’t have time for your nonsense now.

Although Flannery didn’t quite know what to make out of that—the little things were not disturbing them, after all—should she thank him, or not? The bear, though, knew her very well, and had sensed her urgency, so she decided to appreciate his help and smiled in his direction: thank you.

The bear glanced at her sullenly beneath furry brow and forehead, and nodded, turned, and left them to their purpose.

The many smaller animals left too. That left only the three, wading through the grass, which parted now to let them through uncaressed. The bear’s doing as well, thought Flannery.

Heather was quiet with thought. Gabriel, too, wondering why the urgency, though he could guess. Flannery had been quite insistent that he come, now. As in now.

They were nearing the far edge of the long valley where a small building came into view. It was a one room cottage, by a lively stream. Brightly red it was in the glittering sun, and with a thatched roof. White corners and a gray chimney made from many stones. It was the kind of house this valley could have grown.

They reached it and entered the cool of the interior. It smelled fresh with morning, it was clean and safe. Flannery set about to make some tea. This was her house. Well, one of her houses—they each had many, as many as they needed, where and when ever they needed them. Tomorrow this house could probably be found somewhere else, in some other valley, by some other stream, perhaps. Perhaps in a forest, or on a mountainside, or by a lake, to serve some other need. Perhaps it was the same house moving, perhaps they were different houses. Today, however, this was the house Flannery had intended, and her need was a place to meet.

Flannery turned from her task at the stove, where the fire had now begun to crackle, to face the other two: Heather already sitting by the table, Gabriel still standing by the doorway. “We must go there,” she said without preamble, and so loudly that Gabriel started a little.

“Where?” he asked.

“Earth,” said Flannery.

“Earth?” said Gabriel, beginning to understand what this was all about.

“Yes,” said Flannery.

“Yes,” said Heather, obviously already in the know.

“It has gone too far,” said Flannery.

Her parents never knew quite what to make of Mary Flannery. She was not a usual child. For one, there were times when her mother Regina would swear that her daughter, at all but eleven months, could read, so intently would she scrutinize the magazines and papers she seized with strong fingers if they came within her reach. This got so she even mentioned it to her husband, Edward.

“Don’t be silly,” he assured her. “She’s just looking. The pictures, you know. Look at her.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she’d answer, “I don’t know.” Then she thought to herself, though she would never tell her husband, you scare me sometimes, Mary Flannery.

However, by the time Mary Flannery was two, Regina knew that she was reading and probably had all along, but did not share this with her husband. It would have upset him, she presumed. Instead she told her daughter, “I know that you read, Mary Flannery” she said. “I know that you do.”

Flannery looked up at her with the smile that often was to be confused with a frown once she grew older. “I know,” she said.

At that moment Regina knew that she was in the presence of greatness which was a sense that would not leave her, ever. And later it would give her the strength to help her daughter through her long and slow dance with death.

Perhaps Regina, had she reflected on this logically, should have been scared, should have sought some help, should have told her husband, but she did none of these things. Instead she accepted what she saw with a proud heart and she was grateful to be in its presence.

Over the next few years Regina kept Mary Flannery’s ability a secret, all the while she supplied her with books that she asked for.

“Crime and Punishment,” said Edward over dinner one night.

“What, dear?”

“I didn’t know you liked the old Russians,” he said.

“Oh, him. Yes. Well, he is a very good writer. A bit dark perhaps,” and shot Mary Flannery a glance, where on earth did you leave that book, girl?

“A bit much for my taste,” said her husband. “What are we having for dessert?”

At five, Mary Flannery told a chicken to walk backwards, and it did. She proudly showed her mother, who hurriedly showed her father, who happened to mention it to Morgan White, a realtor colleague, who mentioned it to his cousin, a reporter, who on a slow news day brought camera and notepad to Lafayette Square to see for himself, which is how the story got into print. The local story in turn caught the eye of Pathe News, a New York newsreel company, which sent a cameraman to record Flannery and her chicken in action, which is how cinema visitors all over the country, and some even in Europe, got to marvel at her feat.

“The highlight of my life,” she would say later, with that ironic smile of hers that to so many looked like a frown.

At ten she was reading openly and voraciously, making sure that others knew what she thought about the fare by short comments on the flyleaves of the books she read. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland she adorned with “Awful. I wouldn’t read this book.” Shirley Watkin’s Georgia Finds Herself merited “This is the worst book I have ever read next to ‘Pinocchio’”. She liked Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men better: “First rate. Splendid.” Regina thought at times to tell her to stop defiling perfectly good books, but she thought better of it.

At twelve she was already writing poetry and short short stories which she would not show anyone, not even her mother.

Regina did, however, come upon one of her stories while cleaning her room. Her initial reaction was that she was trespassing upon sacred property, but curiosity got the better of her and she sat down to read her daughter’s inky pages. The story was about a bear and a green valley, complete with illustrations. Had she not known this hand to be Flannery’s, she would not have believed her daughter could have written it. She finished reading, confirmed in her conviction that her daughter was not of this world, then replaced the manuscript where she had found it and left the room.

The following afternoon, after Flannery had finished her homework and came out into the kitchen for some juice and crackers, she said, “You’ve read my story, then?”

“Why, what makes you think that?” Regina answered, looking up from her task.

“You reordered the pages for me,” she answered. “Please don’t read what isn’t finished yet,” she added.

Regina found no words. Being upbraided by her daughter, even if mildly, was nothing she’d had experience with. Besides, she still felt a little guilty for intruding. Nonetheless, she was looking around for the courage to restore the authority of motherhood when Flannery asked, “So, what did you think?”

“Oh dear,” she answered, almost with tears, “you have a gift, Mary Flannery.”

Flannery smiled then, an inward smile that bore no resemblance to a frown, and Regina felt happy to have helped.

At fourteen Flannery drew cartoons and wrote for the Peabody Palladium, her school newspaper. While considered odd by most students, she was nevertheless appreciated for her caustic articles and cartoons.

When at sixteen she began sewing clothes for her bantam hens in her home economics class, she quickly gained notoriety as the weirdest person on campus.

“And proud of it,” she’d add to anybody voicing that sentiment.

Then her father died, and she never mentioned him again, erasing him along with the pain of losing him.

She loved geese and set out to immortalize many of them in little illustrated books that she described to those who wondered what she was doing as being “too old for children and too young for grown-ups,” her way of saying her scribblings were not for public consumption. She hid them well, even from Regina, as she viewed these little books as private exercises, as getting ready, as finding her voice and medium. And at that time she preferred drawing to writing, thinking that “things with pictures talk louder, and these people need loud talking to.” Words were too subtle, it was with pictures she would touch them, she was pretty sure. And so she filled her books with them.

When she entered Georgia State College for Women, just a few blocks from where she now lived in Milledgeville, Georgia, she involved herself in all aspects of student life, except dancing, which she considered a waste of time, and sports, which she was no good at. She majored in Sociology and English.

While family and friends still addressed her as Mary Flannery, Flannery decided to drop Mary from her artistic name, and signed all academic work, and all writings and cartoons Flannery O’Connor from this point on. Regina thought of objecting, but as usual when it came to Mary Flannery’s quirks, thought better of it.

So it was as Flannery O’Connor that she had signed the two pieces that Regina wanted to “talk to her” about: My Relitives and Why I Chose Heart Trouble. Two more little books that Flannery had written and illustrated for her own amusement and as her way of getting ready.

“I’ve read these,” said Regina, indicating the two stitched sheaves of lined paper which lay on her desk.

“I know,” answered Flannery.

“I’m sorry,” said Regina, “I know you don’t want me prying.”

“I left them out for you to read,” she answered.

“You mean . . . ?”

“Mother,” said Flannery. “I need someone to tell me how I’m doing. It’s so easy to lose perspective when all you have is your own opinion, and that of infantile juveniles.”

“Well,” said Regina, and flattened the fabric of her skirt against her legs. “Well,” she said again. “Although I must admit that what you say in these stories is true, or mostly anyway, you can’t really say these things about people in this house.”

“Who’s to know?” said Flannery.

Regina thought about that for a spell, and yes, if Flannery kept them to herself, none would be the wiser. “You can’t publish these things in The Corinthian,” she said.

“Didn’t intend to.”

“That’s good.”

At which point Regina had run out of things to say. Except the one thing, of course, which she had noticed first of all: “Oh, and Relatives is spelled with an a, rel-a-tives, not with an i, rel-i-tives.”

Flannery cast a glance down at the cover page of the top manuscript. “Ah, yes,” she said. “Spelling’s not my strong point.”

“I’ll help.”

“That would be good, Mom,” said Flannery; and from that point on Regina became her personal line editor-cum-critic.

A couple of her other pieces did, however, make their way into The Corinthian, the college literary magazine: The Domestic Bliss of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Bookkeeper’s Chaucer, to the delight of her classmates who had heard Flannery read them to the class firsthand as completed class assignments. Her reputation as a comic and satirical writer, and artist, grew, somewhat to her teachers’ dismay who felt that perhaps Mary Flannery was not taking her assignments seriously—though even they could not help smiling as they read her pieces.

By now she had begun submitting her stories and poems to various publications, but commercially her work did not yet cut it. When asked at that time, she claimed that her main occupation was to “collect rejection slips.” But then she would add, without smiling, and mostly as a promise to herself, “I have things to say. I will learn how to write as well as I can, perhaps a little better.”

Of all her teachers, however, it turned out to be a new college faculty member, George Beiswanger, that—being an outsider hit with a Flannery in full stride—saw her talent the clearest. He encouraged her to work for extra credit to win a scholarship, and to apply for the State University of Iowa’s graduate writing program.

“Could I cut it?” she wanted to know. “Or am I wasting my time?”

“I have no doubt,” he answered. “You are good enough.”

And he was right. At first, however, she not only took classes in literature, but also in advanced drawing, American political cartooning, advertising, and magazine writing, still thinking that pictures were the way to go, were the better way to touch more of “the normal people,” even though the cartoons she had already submitted to The New Yorker and other commercial magazines had been rejected.

In fact, it was not until Paul Horgan, the director of the Iowa State Workshop’s fiction program, took her aside one day and convinced her to concentrate on fiction—including the discipline (which she stuck to) of putting in four hours a day, at the same time, every day, on writing—that she finally, and somewhat reluctantly, abandoned her cartoon aspirations.

Her roommate at Currier House in Iowa City, Fiona McCullough, agreed: if Flannery would concentrate on words instead of images—“let them form their own”, she told her, referring to her readers—she would certainly be published. She would become a major writer, she added.

Flannery, who rarely listened to advice from anyone her own age, and much less adopted any that she deigned to receive, was nonetheless heartened by Fiona’s encouragement, which was to form the foundation of a lifelong bond between them. Even so, Flannery was happy that Fiona traveled a lot over the weekends, leaving Flannery alone, and undisturbed, to write.

As if to corroborate a decision correctly made, Accent magazine accepted her story The Geranium in March of that year—it was now 1946. And that was it: she knew that she would make it. And knowing, now she began writing “for real” as she put it. She started a novel.

After continued studies at Iowa during 1947 and part of 1948, she accepted an invitation from the Yaddo Foundation to spend June and July at its artists’ colony near Saratoga Springs, New York, still working through chapter after slow chapter of what she at the time called Wise Blood and Simple.

By the end of that summer she received an offer from Iowa State of a modest fellowship, while she at the same time was invited to stay on at Yaddo through the end of the year. Much to Regina’s dismay, and over her long distance protests, Flannery declined the teaching position at Iowa and remained at Saratoga Springs, until February of 1949 when she left for New York City to continue her work on her first novel. While in New York she also met Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, who would invite her to live with them in their house in Ridgefield, Connecticut, to let her finish the novel without financial worries, or with fewer, as Flannery put it.

By October the next year, she had found a publisher for her book, and she knew she was on the cusp of success. She even allowed herself to taste the pleasure of renown, to contemplate the coming fruits of her labor, an indulgence which her bear didn’t take too kindly to. So to prevent her from sliding under the blanket, and to keep her wide awake and focused on her task, he gently reached inside her body with tendril fingers and began to squeeze.

She was twenty-five then, and when the first tendril reached her, when slow death in bear form announced its arrival, she again—and clearly—remembered why she was here, valley and all.

Flannery’s bear would not leave her side for the next fourteen years.

Neither Heather, who knew exactly what Flannery was talking about, nor Gabriel, who had yet to fully find out, answered.

Flannery leaned with her back against the countertop and looked at Heather in silence for some time. Then she turned toward Gabriel. It was a look he recognized well. The deep concern mantled with anger. Flickering eyes, which could reflect irritating annoyance and controlled rage, both. Gabriel was leaning towards controlled rage.

Then she looked out through the doorway. The wind had softened to hardly a whisper outside, the grass had stilled and seemed to murmur to itself, not entirely pleased with the stillness, wondering where had the wind gone. Grasses like to move.

She faced Heather again, then went over to and sat down at the worn table. Gabriel followed her. She looked at them both again, “It has gone too far,” she said again. “There is no other choice. We must go there.”

“Netoniel?” said Gabriel. Not really a question.

“Yes,” said Heather.

“His mirrors?”

“Yes,” said Flannery.

“So the blanket is still growing then,” he said, now realizing why he was there.

“Yes, it is,” said Flannery. “And things are now getting out of hand. Well, they have been out of hand for some time, but now . . . ,” she shook her head, and her voice trailed off.

“And Netoniel?” asked Gabriel.

“Is nowhere to be found,” said Heather.

He looked at Heather, then at Flannery. “He’s not there?”

“No,” answered Flannery. “And we don’t know when he left, or for where.”

“Well, he was . . . ,” began Gabriel, but now it was his turn to not complete the sentence.

“There has been a terrible war,” said Flannery finally. “A terrible, terrible war. The whole world was fighting.”

“And you’re sure it’s the blanket?” he said.

“What else could it be?” she answered. “It has gotten progressively worse over the last many centuries. Darker and darker, increasingly vile. Culminating in this. And,” she added, “they are preparing to fight again.”

Heather was inspecting her hands, then looked out at the still grass, wishing herself amongst it again. Roaming again. Exploring. Or, wishing herself at home in her own cabin, or house, or castle. “I wish we could forget the whole thing,” she said.

“Well, frankly,” said Flannery, “I wish we could, too.”

“I am tired of tidying up after him,” said Gabriel. And he was.

“He is our brother,” said Flannery.

“I know.”

“And as a brother,” began Flannery.

“I know.”

“I think you goaded him to it,” said Heather, still looking out at the still grass.

“I did not,” said Gabriel. Not being entirely truthful.

“You said he could not do it,” said Heather. “You said no one could do it. Could not be done, you said. I heard you.”

“Well, what he was proposing was ludicrous. And impossible.”

“Knowing full well,” she went on, ignoring Gabriel’s interjection, “that for our esteemed brother, that was pretty much the same as a personal challenge.”

“It could not be done,” protested Gabriel.

“Calling his competence into question, that’s what you did. That’s goading. At least when it comes to Netoniel.”

“It was a stupid idea,” said Gabriel.

“That’s the only kind he has,” said Flannery.

“And it can’t be done. You know that. Who’s ever heard of killing the soul?”

“We know that, and I’m sure that deep down Netoniel knows that too. But that doesn’t change things. He set out to do it.”

“Well, he riles easily,” said Gabriel.

“I don’t care who or what made him do it,” snapped Flannery. “He set out and he tried. And with some very dire consequences. Which we must do something about. Forgetting is just not an option.”

“I know, I know,” said Heather, back to inspecting her fingers, which then began brushing nonexistent crumbs off of the scarred table surface.

The whole valley was still now, listening. The grass had stopped its murmur, the hillsides held their breath. Creatures large and small had gathered outside the open door, trying—though not with any success to speak of—to remain unseen. The bear didn’t even try, sitting in plain view just outside the door, inspecting his paws very thoroughly, as if the last thing he was interested in was the conversation within.

The wind had settled on the roof, with a long, thin, listening leg slipping down the chimney and onto the floor, rustling a leaf or two that—by request from nearby trees—were there to listen as well, and to report back as soon as they knew anything.

Even the table and chairs held their breath.

And, as if by some strange accord, even the three children held their breaths.

Flannery finally let hers out in a long, part exasperated, part wistful, sigh.

“It’s very, very bad,” she said. She shot a glance out at the bear, who didn’t look back at her, then smiled her sardonic smile to herself. “How the word humane came to mean ‘compassionate’ in their dictionary, I’ll never know. I have never seen cruelty so unmasked. On such a scale.”

Neither of her siblings replied.

“They actually poured liquid fire down from airplanes, fire to burn the skin and lungs, down upon a continent of young men, mired in soggy trenches for months, feet and souls rotting, to die, at last, with bleeding lungs, drowning, more often than not, in their own blood.” She drew another deep breath. “This they did from the safety of their wretched airplanes, knowing full well what they were doing. And to think that they will one day call this the Great War.” She shook her head.

“What was it?” asked Gabriel. “That they poured?”

“Poisonous gas,” she replied.

“They had no way of defending themselves?” he wondered.

“Against the gas? No.” said Flannery. “Not really. They had crude masks that did some to protect their lungs from the chlorine gas they started out with, but once the ever enterprising War Research Departments developed mustard gas, these masks did little to protect them. Their simple filters could not catch this new ‘wonderful invention,’ not enough of it to make a difference anyway.”

“And so cowardly,” said Heather, looking up from her fingers.

“When their nations, unified by war into single monsters, begin playing tit for tat with atrocities,” said Flannery, now more to herself than to the others, “there seems to be no depth to which they will not go.”

“Well, you’ve got to hand it to Netoniel,” said Gabriel. “He does have a knack for these things.”

Flannery threw him a scathing glance. “I will pretend I didn’t hear that,” she said.

Gabriel shrugged. “Well he does, doesn’t he?”

Flannery didn’t dignify that with a reply. Then said, “And where have you been, by the way? Is this all news to you?”

“What? About the blanket?”

“No, about the war.”

“Here and there,” he said after considering a while.

“I bet.”

“I’m not his babysitter,” he said.

“He’s our brother,” she said.

He didn’t answer her. Instead he asked, “So, you think he’s killed them, is that it? He has succeeded?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Of course not. Killing the soul, to use your own words, is a ludicrous idea. But,” and she now shook her head slowly, “he has all but vanished it. He has managed to smother and confuse it by his wonderful little mirrors, he has managed to crush it under the weight of his ever-growing blanket, and he has managed to eradicate most traces of decency from an entire population. And, perhaps you can chalk that up as a success of sorts. By his dictionary.”

“I still think you made him do it,” said Heather, back to her hands.

“I just said what either of you would have said, that it couldn’t be done.”

“That has not stopped Netoniel before,” said Heather.

“True,” conceded Gabriel. “But I didn’t mean for him to actually go ahead and try.”

“Is that the truth?” said Flannery. Wanting very much to know.

“Yes,” said Gabriel. And now he was truthful. “I was just baiting him a little.”

“Of course we knew it could not be done,” she said, “but at least I know Netoniel well enough not to provoke him.” She shot Gabriel another cutting glance, which made him wince. “It’s a thing called judgment. You may have heard of it.”

“It was just a game,” he said. “Just a stupid game.”

“Perhaps it was. For you, and for Netoniel. Perhaps it was just a stupid game, stupid brothers, stupid baiting. But there is nothing stupid about their suffering, Gabriel. It is horrifying and real. They have completely forgotten who they are. They are now convinced, to a man, I think, that they are their bodies. That that is what, or who, they are. They hurt at every turn, their despair is tangible. And no one, that I have been able to ascertain, has made it off the planet for at least four thousand years. They can’t leave. They are imprisoned. Either they have forgotten how, or the blanket simply stops them.”

“Or the mirrors,” said Gabriel, mostly to himself.

“Or the mirrors,” she agreed.

Gabriel considered this for a while, then arrived at his strange realization. “So he has killed the soul.”

“Nothing can kill the soul,” said Flannery.

“Of course not.” Gabriel looked up and met Flannery’s vivid eyes head on. “But for all practical purposes, I mean. He has, hasn’t he?”

Flannery did not answer immediately. Then she shook her head again. Not as denial, but in sadness. “For all practical purposes, perhaps he has killed the soul.”

Then she added, “And that is why we have to go there.”

Neither of the other two answered.

“It is our duty,” said Flannery.

“It’s his mess,” said Gabriel. “We should find him. Pat him on the back, ’Netoniel, you did it. Well done. Good Job. Now clean it up. Fix it.’ Let him undo the thing.”

“Well, that is just the point,” said Flannery. “I don’t think he can undo it.”

“You’ve asked?”

“We told you, he’s nowhere to be found.”

“Not a good sign,” Gabriel concurred.

“We have to go there,” Flannery said again.

Gabriel nodded slowly in agreement. Heather nodded too, while not taking her eyes off of her hands, where they still rested on the table.

And then no one said anything for so long that the leaves on the floor thought it was over and hitched a ride on the wind back to their trees to debrief, and the bear outside the door closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep. So asleep that he fell over onto his back with a dull thud, which brought the three children back from their respective reveries. They all looked out at the sleeping bear, and each smiled a private, invisible smile.

Heather spoke first, “Tea anyone?” Then stood up to boil the water Flannery had forgotten to put on the hot stove.

It was the 21st of January, 1961, late in the gray Georgia afternoon, and Flannery had just said goodbye to her visitor. She stood by the door for a while, watching her walk down the drive, almost vanishing in the dusk before she reached the road, then returned to her room on the ground floor. She sat down at her cluttered desk to write a letter to Fiona McCullough, in which she, among other things, said the following about her visitor:

I don’t know if anyone can be converted without seeing themselves in a kind of blasting annihilating light, a blast that will last a lifetime. I would be afraid that a psychiatrist would make him lose the little he’s gained, unless it was one who respected his beliefs. This girl, who shows up here from time to time, was a seminarian at Union in New York and quite snarled up in the emotions, etc. When the psychiatrist got through with her, her emotions flowed magnificently and she believes nothing and herself is her God, and everything for her depends on her success in the theatre—which I doubt she’ll ever have. She is charming and very generous but headed for some major crack-up if she doesn’t somehow get back some of what she lost in the psychiatrist’s office.

By the way, has anyone managed to put Frank Paley behind bars yet? And how about Heather? How is she doing?

At the very moment Flannery sat down to her typewriter, Gabriel sat down at his gray Formica top desk in his little room in northern Sweden. He arranged a few things on it, put a pencil and a nearly new eraser away in its drawer, put a book away in its proper place on a shelf, then looked out the window.

It was a cold, clear, and crisp winter day. The sun stood low but bright in the sky and cast sheets of diamonds upon the endless snow fields that raced through the valleys and fields this far north. Even the trees were sprinkled. He followed the fields with his eyes all the way to the forest’s edge a mile or so distant, when he suddenly remembered the attic and his little poem. He had kept it, but wasn’t sure where he had put it.

Maybe it was that the diamonds, the sheets of sparkle that met his eyes, recalled the dust motes shimmering in the still air; perhaps it was their combined brilliance, or maybe it was the silence—for he was alone in the house that Saturday morning—that stirred him.

And, as he remembered his poem, and the sheets of light, the snow began to sing, and again, as in the attic the previous summer, he found a pencil, and a sheet of paper, and began to write, and again surprised himself with the result:

What is it that wakes the soul? What is it that penetrates the slumber of the very person, touches him, and stirs him awake? And what is it that puts him to sleep in the first place? What can possibly drown the desire for beauty so thoroughly that I could so forget those shimmering sheets of dust for these last many months, and not pay them as much as a thought? How is that really possible? How could I have forgotten?

For as I now look back, I felt so alive that day in the attic, more alive than at any time before in my entire life. How could I, how can anyone, just forget a moment like that for months, until this very moment. This very moment. With the same sun dancing on the snow.

Is it the soul that forgets, that falls asleep? Or is it something else? It was I who forgot, but am I really different from the soul? How do we know where to find the soul, and how do we wake him? Does every person have one? Even Hitler? Or, perhaps it is that we do not have a soul. Perhaps it is that we are a soul. Am I, the I who writes this, that guides my fingers to move this pencil into shapes called letters, am this I, perhaps, in truth, not a brain or a collection of molecules and patterns after all, but a spirit?

He put the pencil aside and read through what he had just written. As he got toward the end of the last paragraph he felt a ripple in his feet and in his legs and in his chest and it gathered speed and strength as it reached his head and suddenly shot him, like an invisible cannonball up into the clear Swedish winter air to take a look at things from quite a ways up.

His first thought—if thought is the right word—was that he had suddenly died. His second thought was that he had never felt so alive. He could see, all around him. Clearly, perfectly, everything.

And what a view. His third thought—or impulse perhaps—was to describe what he saw, but he found that he could not control his fingers from up there, could not even find them, could in fact barely keep his body (inside that little house so far below he could barely make it out against the brilliant white) breathing. No, he could only look, and he found himself to be a looking that he knew was him, that perceived everything in amazing detail, that marveled at not feeling in the least cold so high up on a day so cold that just walking on the snow covered ground crunched and squeaked like you were walking on crispy cereal. A looking that was not so sure that there was a difference between seeing and tasting and hearing and feeling.

He remained there, suspended mid-space for a minute, maybe ten, he had no way of telling. Then his body inhaled him and he slid down the chute he had come up and back into his head in an instant. Back to normal, but so very far from it.

Now he knew: the person does not have a soul, he is a soul.

Flannery had just finished the note to Fiona when she felt the ripple and rush so many miles to the east so clearly that she could almost taste the snow. She smiled to herself and placed another sheet in the typewriter. And typed:

He’s waking up is our brother Gabriel; I can tell. (What’s a semicolon for, anyway? Isn’t it for a long pause? Well, no matter, I can tell he’s stirring).

Stirring and steering that Swedish ship of his above those seas and seas of snow. How he loves the snow, does Gabriel, and the sun. Looking and looking. Well, I’m glad he is and that he’s stirring awake. It’s about time.

And you, stupid bear, crawling at me in the shape of slender-fingered Death. Is it not time for you to make up your mind, one way or the other. Either get it over with or keep off. Or is this just your way of keeping me honest?

She leaned back and closed her eyes. Her fingers ached. She was very, very tired. The Lupus was not kind to her, and Death in the shape of a bear was peeking through the cracks, prying them with fine fingers to let him in. Still, she kept him at bay, it wasn’t time to go yet. Was this part of the plan? His plan? Her Plan? She could not remember. Maybe it was just to make sure she did not forget, she could not afford to forget.

And what about Heather?

Maybe she should tell Fiona to at least speak to her. She thought of adding a post scriptum to her letter, but then changed her mind again. No, she had best be left alone for now. She had enough on her mind, and she was not old enough to leave home just yet.

Gabriel, on the other hand, could soon be on his way, as long as he steered clear of those boyish urges.

Nine days later, Fiona McCullough’s reply arrived. Her letter included these two paragraphs:

Frank Paley is still at it and is still very much a free man. Heather seems to be fine, but looks tired most of the time. From what I hear—from a friend who works at her school, I may have told you about her—it seems Heather has become the peacekeeper in that madhouse of a family. Her mother is getting sickly and leans more and more on her as a crutch, from what I can surmise—from the fact that she’s missing too many days of school. I wonder if the girl will in fact hold up under the various pressures she must be under. Also, most of the boys wear bruises to school daily.

Do you want me to speak to her? To Heather, I mean.

Flannery answered, thanks, but no thanks. Just wondering, is all.

Heather set the table and served the tea. There was nothing to eat, but as no one was hungry, that did not matter. They were content with the steaming, yellow liquid that Heather poured into their cups. Flannery blew on the surface of hers, took a silent sip, then slowly replaced the cup onto its saucer with a soft tinkle.

The world outside held its breath again, the better to hear. The bear rolled over heavily, onto its side, one ear to the door, wide awake behind closed eyes.

Flannery looked at Gabriel. “Did you know that Charles went there?” she said.

“No, I didn’t. When?”

“Early eighteen hundreds, by their reckoning.”

“Is he back?”

“He is not back,” said Flannery.

“And he is not coming back,” said Heather.

Gabriel cast them a quick glance, surprised.

“The blanket,” said Flannery.

“What happened?”

“Well,” began Heather. “The blanket was thicker, deadlier, than he had allowed for. Apparently.” She took another sip of her tea. “He said he was only going there to have a look around. Quick dip, in and out, as he put it.”

“Why?”

Flannery answered, “The same reason we have to go. He saw the suffering. Went looking for Netoniel, but could not find him. Had to do something, he said. At least find out what was going on.”

Gabriel nodded. That was cousin Charles.

“But he got caught,” said Heather.

Gabriel said nothing, only looked from sister to sister.

“He must have noticed right away, the weight of the blanket,” said Flannery. “He should have left then and there, but he chose to stay.”

“What happened to him?”

“I guess drowned is as good a word as any,” Flannery answered.

“Drowned?”

“Yes. Or suffocated, perhaps. Whichever way you name it, he could not make his way back.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“Once he realized he could not leave, at least not by himself,” said Flannery, “I believe he decided to try to wake some of them up. Maybe with help, he, they could find a way out.”

“Wake them up,” said Gabriel. “How?”

“The only way he knew. With stories.”

“Stories.”

“Of course. What better way is there? And he did write, many of them. Grew very popular as a matter of fact.”

“But it didn’t work?” It wasn’t really a question. Gabriel looked over at Heather, who shook her head.

But it was Flannery who answered, “No, It didn’t work. By this time Charles was already under the blanket’s spell, or whatever it is that it does to you. And his memory of us was fading, if not completely gone.”

“Then we lost sight of him altogether,” said Heather.

It was Gabriel’s turn to shake his head. Then he said, “And you mean for us to go down there?”

“Yes,” said Flannery.

“It does not sound too healthy.”

“We must,” said Heather. “We cannot let the blanket grow indefinitely. It will eventually smother everything. No one on Earth will survive it. The place will become a lifeless desert.”

“Not a pretty picture,” Gabriel conceded.

Returned to his head, Gabriel looked back out the window, the snow still sparkling, tinkling, singing. He could almost hear it, could in fact hear it. That’s what it felt like, anyway. He opened the drawer and brought out his pencil again. Instead of writing, however, he looked at it as if he had never seen one in his life before, which was pretty much the case. He smelled it, the musky, almost spicy wood, the yellow pretty much odorless paint, the gray aroma of lead, the rubbery scent of the pink eraser. Then he weighed it in his hand, it was light. Warm. There. He looked at it some more, surprised almost to be holding it, that it stayed so very apparent. Then he put the dull point to lined paper, and wrote:

It was like an orgasm, this was, this wonderful release. I’m still shaking a little. It was as if I were a sperm, shot out in ejaculation, only it was me and through my real head, far away, far up, soaring. Was this a precursor to new life? New life? Have I just exited Socrates’ cave? And what an amazing thing this pencil is. Needs sharpening though. But I think I have woken up somehow.

Netoniel’s blanket fluttered and gave a little at the last thought, opening just enough to reveal a different air above it, and a field of emerald grass outside a small house, his two sisters within. A large bear was sleeping in the grass. Or pretending to.

For a moment the image lingered, and for that moment it was far more real than the glare of the snow outside, than the warm air inside, than the Formica top his elbows rested upon. Then the blanket shifted, settled again and closed, and the room returned in force, all real again, jealously so.

A brief silence fell over the two sisters and their brother by the old table, each wrapped in their own thoughts, neither liking their choice, each knowing there was no other.

“More tea, anyone?” said Heather, again the first to stir.

“Please,” said Gabriel.

Flannery, surveying the sleeping bear, vocalized her current train of thought, “He must have tricked them into creating it.” Then, after a brief inspection of the hilly horizon beyond, “Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s done.”

She had their attention.

“I have seen it done before,” she turned to them and continued, “though never this effectively, and never for this long.” Then she added, “If we could wake them up, at least long enough to make them see what they are doing, maybe we could help them stop.”

“It, the blanket or it, the mirror?” asked Gabriel.

Flannery eyed him, first a little puzzled, then slightly annoyed. “The blanket,” she said, implying of course.

“Well, the thing is,” said Gabriel. “He never mentioned the blanket, not once. His big thing was the mirror. He called it the reflector.”

“He could have been lying. Trying to fool you. It’s been known to happen,” said Flannery.

“Sure.”

“Or perhaps he didn’t know,” said Heather.

“About what, the blanket?” said Flannery.

“Yes.”

Flannery suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Do you really think that’s a possibility?” she asked. Not sarcastically.

“Yes.”

“I agree,” said Gabriel. “What if the mirrors somehow create the blanket?” said Gabriel.

“But they only deflect. Reverse and deflect. I don’t think a deflection can create anything,” said Flannery. “I’ve never seen that happen. What I have seen is the result of spirits tricked into involuntary creation, and that behaved pretty much like the blanket, though never, as I said, for this long. In my experience they would have remembered by now and realized what they were doing. And stopped.”

“No such luck here,” said Gabriel.

“No,” said Flannery. “No such luck here.”

“I don’t think we can rule that out though.”

“What?”

“That the mirrors may be involved, with the blanket, somehow,” said Gabriel.

“Of course they are involved, but not with the blanket. I don’t see how they could.”

“I don’t know,” said Gabriel.

“The blanket grows,” said Flannery. “So it is being created, still. And as no one would create his own drowning, surely, it is not created voluntarily. That’s what I see.”

“I agree,” said Heather.

“Yes, it make sense,” said Gabriel.

“The mirrors simply reverse their wishes,” said Flannery, “that’s not going to create a blanket.”

Gabriel nodded. “No, I agree.”

“So they are creating the blanket unknowingly.”

“Apparently.”

“And waking them up, will make them stop.”