Wyrm 3

I suppose my grandfather must have practised magic; I can’t explain his study any other way - huge books, stars on the floor, strange glass jars bubbling furiously. And there was the little creature that curled itself around one of his candles – no more than a thin lizard with delicate leather wings and a long snaking tail. On sun-drenched summer afternoons I would sit there while my grandfather slept and the creature told me stories. And such stories! When I try to remember them, all I retrieve are minds-eye views of forested valleys, high snows on mountain tops, and far blue horizons.

But my grandfather died when I was only a year old so how can any of this be true? There’s a photograph from the day they dismantled his house and I’m in the garden, clearly barely able to walk. In later years I spent considerable time and money on therapists who had plenty to say about snakes telling stories. But now I am nearly as old as my grandfather, I find myself less sceptical. And still I wake on summer mornings with a tear-stained pillow and half-memories of rushing air under my wings and the clouds beneath my feet.