Marsha delicately shut the bedroom door and tip-toed down the winding staircase. Nicholas was still out on the porch, speaking to the police. She heard fragments of their conversation through an open window.

“Thank you again for your trouble, officers,” Nicholas said. He closed the door behind him and looked up at his wife. “Second time this week,” he said, shaking his head.

“Third,” Marsha said. “It’s the third time, dear.”

“I need a drink.” Nicholas disappeared into his office, returning with a bottle of scotch and two glasses. Marsha followed him into the kitchen.

“What did they say it was this time?” she asked as he poured out the liquor.

“She got her self tangled up in a tree,” he said. “A tall one, too. I think she was too scared to get down and someone saw her up there. I wish they hadn’t called….”

Marsha downed the scotch. “The other kids get stuck in trees too, right? This thing happens a lot. It must.”

He shrugged. “The daring climber kids, sure. But they don’t end up in the real tall trees she finds. The officer said she was in the tree on the corner of Homer and Maple Street.”

“That tree? The one that’s forty feet high?”

“Yes,” he said, filling the glasses. “She was always ahead of the other children.” He glanced up at a photograph on the wall. Their daughter, at age five, was perched atop the highest playground in town, very proud of herself. The other children were below, obviously discouraged by her athletic ease.

Nicholas turned back to his wife. “Today was the second time this week, Marsha. Not the third.”

She swished the copper-colored liquor around in her glass. “Her principal called yesterday…apparently she’s getting to be a huge distraction in class.” Marsha sneezed. “But it’s not like she can help it. She’s always drawn attention to herself.”

He handed her a tissue. “What do they want us to do? Pull her out and home school her?”

“That’s what” – a sneeze – “they recommended.”

“What good will that do? It’s just make her more defiant.” He swallowed the rest of his scotch and then topped off the glasses.

“She’ll just leave at dawn and return before supper,” Marsha said with a sniffle. “There’s no way we’ll be able to control her.”

“The police were aggravated today. I think when they realized it was our daughter again…”

Marsha sneezed once more. “They weren’t too happy on Monday when she was out all night, dropping things down our neighbors’ chimneys. Alana Walker was so distressed when she woke up and found all those rocks in her fireplace.”

Nicholas laughed dryly. “Only our daughter could pull that off.” His wife sneezed again. “Are you alright, dear?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I think she dragged pollen in the house from the flowers on that tree.”

“The tree on the corner of Homer and Maple doesn’t have flowers.”

Marsha froze and looked up at her husband. “Do you think I’m –”

“No, not at all,” he said, immediately defensive. “That’s a brash assumption I don’t intend on making.”

“It’s impossible,” she said quietly.

“What’s impossible?”

Marsha and Nicholas snapped their heads to the kitchen door. Their daughter was leaning on the door frame, her white-feather wings glowing in the low light.

Her voice startled Marsha. “Oh, nothing, sweetheart,” said Marsha.

“Do you need something, honey?” Nicholas asked.

“Just water,” the 16-year-old said, trudging over to the fridge. Her parents watched her take out the pitcher and fill a tall glass. “Well, I’m going to bed,” she said. “Goodnight, you guys.”

“Goodnight,” they said.

Once her daughter’s back was turned, Marsha covered her mouth with her hand. She waited for the sound of her daughter’s door. When it clicked shut, she sneezed nine times in rapid succession.

“You need to see the doctor tomorrow,” Nicholas said, fear spread across his face.

Marsha nodded quickly, thoughts spinning in her head like a car on overdrive. Things couldn’t get much worse for Marsha. Sixteen years before, she bore a child with a set of perfectly operational wings; one of only a few in existence. She spent years convincing the world to let her daughter live like everybody else. Now a teenager, she wreaks havoc on the small town they live in. The family lived under a constant threat from the federal government to take her away. And to top it all off, Marsha was now allergic to her.