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announced that his name was Alfrod Seems and that he was an angel. “I’m here to prepare you for the coming of God,” he shouted, lifting his ivory walking stick into the air, and, convinced by his wings, they listened. He promised to protect the villagers from their enemies, their crops from blight or drought, and their homes from storms and floods and fires. They cheered. There was, though, one stipulation, and it was that each year he be allowed to pick from among the people a servant to help him in his sacred duties at his den in the forest.
    It seemed like a fair trade until it came time for the angel to make his first choice. When he arrived, they stared in disbelief, as if they’d never seen him before outside of a dream, and yet they knew full well what they’d promised. He strode the snow-filled streets and saw a woman by the name of Elshin Marsh carrying a load of laundry from the river. He approached her, bowed, and grasped her forearm. Upon realizing who it was that had stopped her, she froze. “You must put down your load here and this minute come with me to my den.” Elshin screamed, and, since she was close to home, her husband heard her.
    He came running, carrying an old chair leg. Elshin tried to flee, but Seems held her fast. Mr. Marsh rushed the angel, holding up the crude club. Fast as a snake striking, Seems lifted his hand and, with his fingers curled but for the first two, aimed for the man’s eyes. A moment later, Marsh was on his knees, crying blood into his hands.
    When Elshin was returned to the village the following year, her husband was dead and a set of antlers grew from the temples of her forehead. She’d lost the power of speech and only grunted. In her possession was a thin glass tube that contained a yellow liquor, which the angel had promised could bestow a very minor miracle upon the drinker.
    Months later, it was discovered she was pregnant. The village was in an uproar, frantic with outrage and fear. After seeing what Seems had done to Elshin and her husband, though, they wondered what else he was capable of. The leader of the village council proposed that they tell the angel they no longer desired his protection. Because no one knew where Seems lived, they were forced to wait until he appeared, which no one minded.
    When the poor woman went into labor, she drank from the glass tube and wished for death. Elshin Marsh gave birth not to a baby but a manikin—a miniature Alfrod Seems with white hair and beard and fluttering violet wings. The poor mother’s heart stopped during the delivery, and not an hour after the strange homunculus came into the world, there was heard from across the fields, from somewhere deep in the forest, the baying of the angel’s mastiffs. They came, galloping out of the trees, dashing through the fields. Their call was piercing, and people hid beneath their covers with their hands over their ears. The dogs’ approach seemed both an instant and a year, but they came to the door of healer Struth’s home, where Elshin lay dead upon the table and the little Alfrod Seems was just learning to stand.
    Hearing the beasts panting outside his home, the healer went for a pistol he kept in his desk, but before he could open the drawer, the dogs smashed into the room, boards and splinters flying. One of the monsters held him at bay, growling, while the other caught the miniature Seems and devoured it. Struth would later take his own life. He’d told more than one that the screams of the miniature angel as the creature’s fangs turned it to gore never left his head. That night, the mastiffs made one more stop.
    The leader of the village council, Matten Gersha, was in bed with his wife, cowering beneath the covers, when the dogs let themselves into his home. One tore the blankets off the frightened couple. The other took off Mrs. Gersha’s left foot at the ankle and swallowed it without chewing. Then they pulled the leader of the council out into the street, and