Mrs. Wilson

Mrs. Wilson found her wings, thick wire covered in soft pink fabric, faded and torn, while clearing out her mother’s attic. She remembered being small, begging, wanting to be a fairy. She remembered her father bending the wire into shape, beating it, cursing at it when it wasn’t just right, her mother’s soft touch when taking the wire from him, wrapping it in fabric, protecting it. She remembered wearing the wings that Halloween, freely flitting between houses that weren’t hers through a wonderland of beautiful creatures. And she remembered when that night ended and her mother eventually had to bring her back home, and she placed the wings in a trash bag.