Earning Fairy Wings

by Kaylyn Swoyer

The steps to the attic creaked and groaned under her weight as she climbed closer and closer to her destination. It had been years since she stepped foot in this wasteland of cardboard boxes and discarded memories. It wasn’t a big attic. Although, for that matter, it wasn’t a big house. Her grandmother had downsized long before she was even born, to a two-bedroom one-bathroom house that didn’t have stairs to try to navigate. This was the hardest part. Up to this point, nothing that had happened over the last few weeks felt real. Stepping into the wooden space made everything feel so finalized. In the last few days, the downstairs of the house had already been gutted by her family members. Nobody thought anything in the attic was worth much since her grandmother was hardly able to climb the Mount Everest of stairs to get there.

Alice was only four when she lost her mother and grandfather in a tragic car accident. After growing up as a close family, it tore her Grandmother apart when everyone started pointing fingers and putting blame where it didn’t belong. Her mother had struggled with addiction for years. After yet another relapse, her own father had decided to take matters into his own hands and force her into rehab. Some in the family blamed Alice’s grandfather for putting himself at risk by taking her by himself. Others blamed her grandmother for allowing Alice’s mom to keep coming back to her after more than enough chances to clean herself up. And then there were those who blamed Alice’s dad for putting too much pressure on her mom, by threatening to take Alice away from her if she didn’t stop taking the drugs. Nobody would ever know the one true answer to such a dynamic problem, but the only thing that mattered to Alice was that her Grandmother and her Father did everything they could to give her a good life. As an adult, she was truly amazed at her grandmother’s strength to lose her only daughter and husband, but still forge on for Alice’s sake.

After standing in the center of the cardboard kingdom, she took a deep breath. It was time. The stacks of boxes stretched perfectly around the low-ceilinged room. It was fall, so thankfully a good time of year to be faced with such a task, not too hot but not too cold. She wrapped her long purple sweater tighter around her as she decided where to begin. She turned to her right and picked one off the top. It wasn’t so large that she couldn’t pick it up, but it filled her arms as she pulled it to the ground. It seemed like the best place to start. Slowly, carefully, she peeled back the wrinkled flaps. As they jolted open, she coughed from the dust that flew out like a bomb detonating in the desert. Once the air in front of her cleared, she noticed how surprisingly organized the contents of this box were. When she started to reach in, she suddenly hesitated. Going through her Grandmother’s belongings felt like an invasion of privacy. She shook the thought out of her head and pressed on. If she didn’t do this, all these memories would be thrown away and lost forever.

The first thing she pulled out was a raggedy doll that she recognized at once. The poor thing was grey and brown with dirt, bald patches of hair, and half of a leg missing that had been stitched up at the end to look like an amputation. She giggled at how carefully her Grandmother had stitched that poor stump together after she’d lost the foot to a neighbor’s dog she had tormented. Setting it to the side, she reached back in the box and pulled out a stack of yellowed papers that had outlines of what she could only assume were princesses and dragons, although she couldn’t be certain that’s what they were intended to be. Lastly, came a pair of purple sparkly fairy wings that had left glitter all over the base of the box.

She held them there for a moment. Everything always seems so much bigger when you’re a kid. This costume item felt so small and fragile in her hands. She slipped her arms through the straps. She burst through the kitchen door running laps along the fence of the backyard fully believing that she had taken flight. She looked down on the small world around her and thought of what would make it better. First, she put a spell on the neighbor’s dog so that he couldn’t chew up anymore doll legs. Then, she added more flowers to the garden, but they were special flowers that would grant a wish if you were a good person and breathe fire if you were bad. Just as she was about to enchant the apple tree, her grandmother beckoned her inside for lunch. She whined and stomped slowly toward the door. Her grandmother said she could have her sandwich enchanted into any shape she wanted. After finishing her enchanted ham and cheese stars, they went back outside together.

Giggling, she darted into the garden to show her grandmother all the enchantments she made. Together, they flew around the backyard. Her grandmother gave her magic seeds to feed the birds and taught her how to speak to them. They turned the squirrels into acrobats, jumping and doing backflips from fencepost to tree branch. As her grandmother started to wear out, she sat down in a lawn chair to work on knitting love into a blanket of healing. She heard a high-pitched beep. Turning back, she looked at her grandmother still sitting there knitting. She heard the beep again, and again as it became more rhythmic. Then one long steady flatlining beep as the tears rushed back into her eyes.

Sitting in the alone in the attic, fairy wings still in hand, she cried as the memory faded away. She carefully folded the wings and put everything back in the box as she had found it. Just as her grandmother had packed away many years ago. Of all the boxes she went through during the day, nothing stood out quite like the contents of that one box.

It was late when she arrived in her own home once again. She felt fatigued, physically, and emotionally, but that all changed when her own little fairy came running to the door to greet her. She looked down into those innocent little eyes and saw into that magical world that she had once experienced. Crouching down, she opened the wrinkled flaps of that box once more, pulled out the purple fairy wings, and shared her grandmother’s magic with her own eager little fairy. She smiled as her daughter went bouncing down the hallway to cast her own spells. She knew it was her Grandmother’s magic helping her own daughter fly.

Kalyn Swoyer is currently a sophomore working to earn her BSN as part of the class of 2023, and she hopes to work in labor and delivery after graduating. While she loves nursing, she also has a passion for painting, ballet, music, and her cat Wyatt.