“I wish I could fly…” I mused, looking at the birds conquering the sky.

“It’s easy,” My grandmother said from her chair, smiling wistfully. “Just tame a feral pixie.”

I looked from the window to her smiling face.

“How? Pixies aren’t real.”

She chortles then, peeling her eyes from her tiny t.v. “That’s what the adults want you to think. Feral pixies have forgotten their place in the world, and are found in rubbish, often scavenging scraps. Catch one in a strong container and look after it. Simple.”

My eyes are wide. “Are they dangerous?”

She looks at the cracked screen again. “Only if you don’t believe.”

I was eleven at the time, and searched every rubbish bin, skip, and pile of waste I could find, holding a box and waiting with baited breath.

I did catch one, once, but as soon as the flaps closed it burst from the other side and vanished, leaving a perfect outline of minuscule limbs and wings behind.

I showed my grandmother and she smiles. “Boxes aren’t enough. Try glass.”

I searched in the attic and found an old candle holder that seemed sturdy enough, and waited around in search of a glimmer of magic.

Unfortunately, words spread like poison, and people began to tease me. “Bin girl!” They would screech, holding their noses and running away.

I was thirteen then, and felt the shame of social pressure.

I abandoned my pixie trap in a corner of my room and scoffed at any idea of pixies, even though my mind wandered to the perfect silhouette in cardboard pinned up on the wall.

Now fifteen and well into my teen angst, my room became as messy as my attitude. Forgotten snacks, lost soda bottles, outgrown clothes, and stacks of magazines and forgotten homework.

Imagine my surprise when one day a glimmer of light shot in though my window and disappeared in a rustle of paper.

I closed the window, waiting for movement. Maybe it was a bug?

An old half-eaten apple was suddenly seized by weeny hands. I noticed it run on dainty toes straight under my bed.

Fuelled by curiosity, I place the glass candle holder next to where I saw it last and wait.

It takes three days and a cupcake for me to find a dainty figure asleep inside.

The latch shut with a snap, and suddenly the pixie was alive and angry about its predicament. It hit the glass, screaming tiny words at me.

Neglecting my schoolwork and watching my grades slip was worth it over the next few months. We came to an understanding. I gave it food, warmth, old doll clothes, and it gave me companionship.

“My name is Emily.” The pixie said eating pizza greedily. “Are you fattening me up to eat me?”

I was surprised I could hear it now.

“No, I just- I want to learn to fly.”

The pixie looked up at me with a tiny frown.

“That’s all? You will have to wait until my wings grow back, but keep feeding me and maybe we can have an arrangement.”

It took a very long time for those tattered wings to grow back. By the time they were back, she had gotten used to me and I to her.

My window was her gateway to the world, though she always came back to sleep in the dollhouse furniture I’d crammed into the candle holder.

I was seventeen now, and whereas most kids my age were worried about exams, I was with Emily, talking about anything and everything.

“I think - I think I’m ready now.” She said one day.

Her wings were the colour of tangerines and her hair as dark as ink, and so, one day we went to an abandoned field and she covered me with shimmering dust.

My whole body lifted, not enough to take me completely off the ground, but enough to fill me head to toe with joy.