Letter I: Upon the Diagnosis

“The Reeling Begins”

My dear Mumblewort,

Savor this moment, nephew, for rarely do the Lower Offices deliver such exquisite raw material into the claws of a novice. Your newly assigned patient’s hands hang limply beside the phone in her lap. Her child has just received the official diagnosis. She stares at nothing—or perhaps at everything her life will never be.

You are now steward of a most promising opportunity. This diagnosis is a doorway—and through it, we may usher your patient into a lifelong state of unrest, if you apply your craft with precision.

Let the gravity of this opportunity weigh upon you. Already the Enemy, ever scheming, intends to twist this episode into His own nauseating narrative—kindling trust, summoning patience, awakening (horrors!) a kind of joy she never imagined possible. We cannot permit this. Follow my counsel, and you will secure not merely her despondency but her complete spiritual unraveling.

Your first and most urgent privilege is disorientation. As she has just received the news, you must take advantage of the moment between knowing and understanding—that deliciously vulnerable space where shock has silenced her defenses but comprehension has not yet arrived. Flood her mind with anxieties that spiral endlessly. Let no room remain for the Comforter’s voice. See that her thoughts tumble over themselves, frantic and grasping:

What will life look like now?

Who could possibly understand—really understand—what this means?

Am I strong enough for this? What if I’m not?

What will people think when they find out?

How do I tell family… friends… our church?

What if he never…?

What if we can’t…?

Why us? Why him?

In these first stunned days, your role is not to construct new truths, but to ensure none can penetrate. Let every room echo with unanswerable questions. Let her wake to them, work through them, fall asleep beneath their weight. Be relentless—never let true silence fall, for in its quiet, she might begin to hear something eternal: that still, small voice that speaks her name, that calls her Beloved, that whispers of plans and purposes she cannot yet see.

Most crucially, you must scramble her image of her child. Present a double vision, oscillating so rapidly she cannot settle on either. First, show her a fragile innocent in need of her fierce, protective love. Then, within the same hour, show her an unbearable burden whose care will consume her life entirely—let swells of guilt and dread wash over her. Alternate these waves until she is dizzy with emotional whiplash, until she can only see a problem to be managed or a tragedy to be mourned—never the gift she has been given, never the specific, carefully crafted, unrepeatable child the Enemy has entrusted to her care. For if she ever sees him clearly, as the Adversary does, that clarity will undo everything we are building.

Mumblewort, I see your eagerness, but take care. The first days are not for constructing grand lies, but for crowding out the truth. Sap her spirit with the sense of sinking—as though the ground has given way and she is falling through darkness with no promise of landing. The rest, as you will see, builds from there.

Your affectionate uncle,

Drivelbane