Every since she was a little girl, Gail dreamed of being a fairy. She dreamed of being able to fly with wings of her own. Of leaving a trail of glitter in the sky. Of using her fairy magic to help other girls like her. She looked wistfully out her window every night, spending hours wishing she could fly from house to house, to find other girls like her. Girls without hope. Girls without dreams.
Gail was dying. Each day brought death a step closer. Each day she felt the weakness in her limbs grow, the fluttering of her heart grow more frequent, her breath grow more shallow, her pulse grow slower, and weaker.
She sat in her chair, staring out her window, looking at the clouds, and wished she could be a fairy, and fly in the sky at least once before her time in life reached its end.
That’s when the fairies answered her. Flying through her window. Spreading fairy dust of gold and silver all around the room, and all over her, as they sang a song of flying in the sky.
Gail fell asleep that night, sitting in her chair. “Thank you, fairies,” she declared, “for your lovely song.”
She woke up the next morning, resting on her window sill, beneath the light of the rising sun, her heartbeat regular and strong, the breeze caressing her hair. She sat up on the window sill to discover she wore a dress of rose leaves, held together by strong silk, woven by the spiders. She realized there were no shoes on her feet, and someone had woven tiny blue flowers into her hair.
Gail had to smile, for she knew there were fairy wings upon her back. Shaped like the wings of a butterfly, in sapphire blue and white. Wings all her own.
She remembered the fairies that had visited her that night, with glitter of gold, and silvery white, and the song they sang to her. And she knew somehow the fairies flight, and the glitter of the night were a colorful induction of her wounded, lonely heart into the sisterhood of fairies.
She knew she would fly on fairy wings that night.
Later, I heard two trucks. I spotted them outside the window. They stopped in the field behind the cabin. Two dogs leaped out of the truck beds, and a man in a scarf approached the cabin. “You called?” he asked.
My Soul's Tears 