I was eight years old and in the hospital.

My mother was caressing my shoulder, familiar worry etched into her face.

The white room we were in smelled like flowers dipped in rubbing alcohol.

Next to her was the doctor, hunched toward me and taking his sweet time suturing the

final stitches in my fingertip, the one I foolishly sliced open with a can lid.

Even with the shots they gave me, it still hurt.

But behind the mild tugs in the sharp jolts of pain, my mind took notice of something moving

in the room. A small, grainy shape floating by the doctor's head, an arm, like a snow globe.

Amously, it wafted around the room, a helpless bubble caught in an unseen current.

The inside of it fluttered with swarming specks of light that made me think of fireflies.

All at once the specks condensed in the orb center,

throbbing brightly with a pulse of light and then continuing to swarm in their different

directions. They did this at a steady pace, just like the pulse in my finger.

Mom, I finally asked, do you see the fairy?

Both she and the doctor exchanged puzzled looks. That was the first time I saw them.

The second time was at my friend's house back in 7th grade.

It was a school night and we'd spent the evening shifting between scary movies and reaction

videos. What had started for me as a slight ache in my temple soon escalated into a pounding

migraine. My head was absolutely killing me. I dreaded the walk back home and my friend's

dad let me sleep on his couch until the painkillers sedated me. In the quiet darkness of his stairway,

I caught another orb in my peripheral vision. Its hazy, light-filled body drifted by the stairs.

The same clustered specks, the same whisking, clueless movements, but one thing was different.

...