The Mothmother and the Forgotten Wish

The Strange Child.

Most fairytales begin with Once upon a time.
Our story began with a silent wish in a little room.

A young girl named Eloise Wren lived alone with her mother, a cold and bitter woman whose illnesses came and went like unwelcome weather. Because of these spells, Wren labored in the coal factories to earn their keep, though she was scarcely more than a child herself.

Each day, beneath the roar of machinery and the choking veil of smog, Wren worked herself to the bone. The hours were long. The pay was meager. Yet there was rarely enough left for her once her mother's "needs" had been met.

Winter arrived early that year.
The wind crept through cracks in the walls and rattled the windows in the night. Determined to keep out the cold, Wren gathered worn scraps of fabric from the rubbish bins behind a fashionable boutique.

Piece by piece, she stitched them together until she had made herself a coat.
Though patched and uneven, it was warm.
Proud of her work, Wren used the remaining scraps to sew another for her mother.
When she presented it, her mother's expression soured.

"This threadbare thing?" she scoffed, holding it between two fingers as though it were something foul. "It will keep nothing from chilling my bones. It's worthless."
The words stung more sharply than the winter wind.

Still, Wren folded the coat carefully and tucked it away. Perhaps, she thought, Mother might change her mind one day.
The next morning dawned cold and dark.
Frost silvered the cobblestones, and a damp chill settled upon Wren's skin as she stepped into the street. Pulling her patched coat tightly around herself, she began the long walk toward the factory to work her mother's shift once more.

Wren walked the same path each day and found comfort in its familiar turns.

Every morning she traveled through the busy streets, past rows of soot-stained buildings and smoking chimneys, until she reached the little schoolhouse that stood along the road to the factory.

Wren was eight years old.

Certainly old enough to attend lessons.

But lessons cost money, and money was a thing that always seemed to vanish before it reached her hands.

As she passed the schoolyard, Wren slowed her steps.

Children chased one another through the frost-covered grass. Their laughter rang clear through the cold morning air. Their coats were clean, their cheeks rosy, and their hands free of coal dust.

Wren watched them for only a moment.

How dearly she wished she could join them.

To run.

To play.

To belong.

But she lowered her gaze and continued walking.

Deep within herself, tucked away in the darker corners of her thoughts, Wren believed she knew why she was never allowed among the other children.

It was because of her peculiarities.

At least, that was what her mother always said.

"You're too strange, child. I don't trust you around the others."

Wren never thought herself strange.

True, she noticed things other people seemed unable to see. And she often drifted into what one of the factory workers kindly called a moon-mind-a place of wandering thoughts and vivid imaginings.

Yet Wren knew there was a difference between imagining a thing and seeing it.

And the things she saw were real.