The river current beat against May, and the silt obscured her view of the Fae. Beneath the Mississippi, Nikkon, her father, didn’t rule the court, but his word swayed opinion as surely as the mighty river carved a path to the sea. And he had announced her unfit.

He’d ignored her presence among the mayfly until her thirteenth year, when dawn had broken and the nymphs rose to the river’s surface to warm themselves in the morning light. There, they transformed into sub-imago with iridescent wings sprouting from their backs and gloried in their imminent debut. All but May, who remained a wingless nymph.

Unsure of her status, May followed them back to court, where the Fae guard barred her way. “Nikkon’s orders: henceforth, no mutts may enter.”

Stricken, May fell back as a vagrant alligator passed too close to the court. The guard turned it away, inadvertently covering her departure.

May witnessed the ensuing ball and swore she’d learn to fly, somehow, someway. Then her father must accept her.

“A mutt,” she muttered. “Whose fault was that?” He’d lain with a human, not her. Yet he held her liable for being half-Fae.

At the bottom of the Mississippi, May held firm as the current buffeted her and stole her tears. Years passed filled with failures until one day she emerged to find a young man on the river banks flying a mechanical falcon.

“How does a human make a metal bird fly?” she asked, and a shimmering idea unfurled.

Compilation Photo