Summary

Mary Shelley goes to the San Diego library and tells the librarian that she needs books on topics such as German military practices, modern war poetry, blackbirds, lightning injuries, spirit photography and after death experiences. In the library's reading room, Mary Shelley sees a newspaper with an article about the opening of a Red Cross house for recovering veterans and she decides to visit to see if she can talk to the men to better understand what might have happened to Stephen in the war. Mary Shelley finds references to blackbirds and crows in a war poetry book and reads extensively on prisoners of war, spiritualism and shell shock but still can't understand what Stephen means when he says that blackbirds are trying to kill him. Mary Shelley asks...