Sublime

Dross spun off his shoulder and back into his spirit. [Some consider owls to be omens of death,] Dross said. [Especially mice.]

A lot of conspiratorial hysterias in the early days of this country focused on what the historian Kathryn Olmsted in her book Real Enemies calls “alien subversion”: a fear that disaffected outside groups—Jews, Catholics, Freemasons, Mormons—were plotting to seize control for themselves. Sometimes, more rarely, the alien enemy was closer to home, as

As it replied to the last question, I saw a closed circle of black-feathered angels with red eyes all around me. They stood in complete silence, like a living wall or chain of darkness that concentrated all life and light in itself. The outer skin of creation.