________After Frances and the Leaping Fairy, 1920

In the photograph, Frances, age twelve now, looks
________at the fairy leaning back against the branch next
_______________to her. Frances is young, ethereal. Dark ringlets

twist past her shoulders, pulled back by a large,
________white bow, its silhouette mirroring the fairy’s wings.
_______________ While the fairy appears sharp, motionless as the branches

and leaves around them, Frances must not have held
________ perfectly still, must have shifted ever so slightly
_______________ as her cousin, Elsie, now nineteen, shuttered the Kodak

lent to them with twenty-four plates. It has been three
________ years since they borrowed their first camera—a Midg
_______________ quarter-plate belonging to Elsie’s father—and took it

to the stream where they first saw the fairies, returned
________ with their proof: glass plate negatives; entirely genuine,
_______________ unfaked photographs, the photography expert vouched.

Katharine Johnsen