“A Wolf Called Wormwood” stalks Birdy 130, October 2024, with art by Oksana Drozd. The wolf devours memories, making it nearly impossible to track; but one mnemonist plans to lay a trap.
One illustration in particular gripped them. A star with a tail like a dragon’s fell through the sky, roiling smoke, while the earth beneath it burned, villagers fleeing strangely angular buildings. The verses beneath, Revelation 8:10-11, were in vulgate Latin, but Eoghan translated them effortlessly in a hoarse whisper:
“And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”
Beneath the verse, in the wide lower margin, a later artist had drawn a vivid addendum: a red-eyed wolf, chained, slavering and furious.
THE FELL AND THE FAE 