The Great Unexpected

The connections among the characters of the story—most of them hidden from view by death, geography, or the passage of time—are complex and varied, illuminating how interconnected human lives are in myriad ways, whether we realize it or not. Miss Pilpenny mentions that Mr. Dingle introduced her to Sybil, and it seems that their meeting did not take place until after Margaret Scatterding (Lizzie’s mother) and Mary Deane (Naomi’s mother) had already met at Ravensworth Hospital. After all, when Miss Pilpenny sent the iron rooks to Margaret, she was already working as a nurse there, though her daughter, Lizzie, had not yet moved to Blackbird Tree. Lizzie and Naomi moved to the town under slightly different circumstances—both of Lizzie’s parents were dead, but Naomi’s father was still alive—and when the girls were different ages. Nonetheless, Lizzie and Naomi met and developed a friendship, just as their mothers had done years before in Ravensworth. Mary’s death leads Naomi to Nula, who is Sybil’s sister, just as Miss Pilpenny, now Sybil’s companion, is Margaret’s sister, so each girl is “mothered” by the sisters of Sybil and Miss Pilpenny, who also happen to have been introduced. Lizzie discovers that Margaret had once nursed Naomi, and Hazel Wiggins reveals that Naomi’s mother, Mary, was the woman Mr. Farley loved. In addition, Margaret gave Mary the iron rooks, later seen by Naomi in Mr. Farley’s rooms, prompting Naomi to make the connection between those rooks and Nula’s. So, prior to Mary’s death, both Mary, Naomi’s mother, and Nula, her eventual guardian, had a pair of iron rooks. Lizzie and Naomi didn’t know their mothers knew each other, and it seems like sheer coincidence that Naomi’s guardian’s sister, who’d be like an aunt to Naomi, is living in Ireland with Lizzie’s mother’s sister, Lizzie’s own aunt. It really does seem that “we find the people we need when we need them” (157), as Naomi says. Naomi didn’t know her mother was called Mary, having no memory of her, or that Mary ever owned a pair of iron rooks or was ever loved by Mr. Farley. She also never knew that Nula had a pair of iron rooks because Nula kept them in her trunk. Certainly, geography—in terms of Ravenswood and Blackbird Tree and Ireland and America—is partly responsible for the girls’ lack of information, as are the deaths of several close family members who might have shared or maintained their connections had they lived. The connections are also buried under bad feelings, from falling outs, grief, or something else. It is so normal for people to move away from home, to keep secrets, or to become estranged from their families that there could be no end to the hidden connections that link families, communities, and friends.

In fact, other mysterious connections do remain unexplained, such as the fact that Sybil’s cook is “Crazy” Cora’s sister and that her gardener is old man Canner’s brother, but Creech, like Naomi, seems to want “to leave room for possibilities” (212) or mysteries. Naomi doesn’t want to try to figure out everything, in part, because it simply isn’t possible to do so. Her acknowledgment that we truly know so little compared to the “the billions of things we couldn’t know” (223) shows this. This “web” of connections is intricate, indeed, and most of the links have been buried for so long that their revelation appears too strange to be true, connecting this theme to the next by emphasizing how compatible fantasy and reality are.