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I paced across the room, my boots pounding on the wooden tiles. "But I just don't understand...if they abandoned the place, why did they leave all their belongings here?" 
	"For old times sake, I suppose..." whispered Delilah. "It is strange though, i'll admit. I wonder why that could be?" Delilah breathed. 
	I stood at the back corner of the room, afraid to touch a thing. 
	"I searched this place a couple times...lots of interesting findings." But what I wanted to show you was this. She knelt down, leaning towards a back shelf. She carefully removed a small box and knelt on the ground, placing it between the three of us. We formed a circle around the item, all of us equally curious. Like an intricate music box, it was detailed with fine images of angels, some hovering over a river bank, others sitting prettily on the face of the moon, their faces seeming to gaze back at us. 
	She used the same key to unlock the treasure. My eyes widened at the sight of hundreds of small glassy orbs each containing an even smaller red core, one that seemed to electrify at the exposure to starlight, tiny red tendrils seeming to reach towards the membrane of its cloudy enclosure. 
	"I snagged this key from the headmistresses office while she was searching through files for my 'rule breaching record'. I'm not one to follow the rules. But this key is a spare, I doubt she'll notice it's missing." Delilah tucked the key safely into her pocket. 
	My jaw dropped. "You stole that?" I demanded. The situation suddenly began to dawn on me- we were trespassers in a renowned family's old house using a stolen key to rummage through their valuables. 
	Delilah simply rolled her eyes. She was quite good at that. "Relax. The headmistress is old and senile. She has so much crap stuffed in that office of hers, she'll hardly notice one tiny little key out of her hundreds is missing." 
	"Melody! You're okay with your sister doing this?" 
	"I'm used to it. Delilah usually knows what she's down." Melody winked. 
	"If you insist..." I grumbled, returning my focus to the millions of orbs that bubbled in the box below me, casting a silvery sheen over our faces. 
	Without warning, Delilah pinched one of the orbs between her spindly fingers, watching as it squirmed in her grasp, as if it had a mind of its own. She popped it into her mouth and gulped it down. 
	"What...did you just do?" I said, my voice quiet. 
	"Just watch," said Melody with a small smile. 
	Delilah's body contorted, her fingers flexing across the wooden floors, her spine bending in jerking motions, her neck pointed towards the voluminous moon. Delilah's red hair twisted around her body with some sort of electrifying force. Her wings quivered and shook, slowly beginning to cave into her back. 
	"Delilah are you okay?" I grabbed her face, now glistening with sweat, and pulled her towards me. She didn't respond, her mouth only hung open, filling with a swells of drool that dribbled down her chin. 
	Faster now, her wings drew themselves into her back, before finally they had vanished beneath her gown. She fell backwards, bracing herself against the floor. Her chest swelled with air before she steadied herself again, a smile drawing slowly across her face. "They're called sun orbs. They're the unfertilized eggs of fairies, but they're used to make your wings curl into your body. It's useful for everyday life in the human world, without being recognized as an angel." 
	I realized that if I had quicker access to these, my summer days cooped up in doors could be evaded. The hours I had spent with my wrists bound tight to the posters of my bed, soaking in my own sweat and waste, or suffering in middle school with my wings chained to my back, an oversized shirt covering them, suddenly seemed like such a waste. All my suffering could've been avoided with these. I remembered the time in elementary school when I had pulled my shirt into a bunch over my shoulders, showing my best friend my mangled wings. She burst into tears, horror pulling across her face. I made her swear not to tell anyone. When I returned home, I told my aunt and uncle this story. They locked me in the cupboard for this. I could still feel the crawl of the ants that had found refuge in this cupboard, picking at the wounds on my wings. 
	My eyes began to glisten with tears, the little orbs beginning to blur. I lowered my gaze, fighting the pull of the tears at my eyes. Melody placed her hand on mine. "Vivian, what's wrong?" My eyes darted towards Delilah, whose eyebrows were knotted together, her eyes searching me for the root of my distress. 
	I shook my head, blocking out the images of my aunt and uncle's hateful faces and clammy hands as I was forced again and again into the confines of the cupboard. With a trembling hand, I plucked one of the eggs out and gulped it down. It had a vile flavor. As it slid down my esophagus, I felt the sting of bile rise in my throat. Within seconds my body began to burn and tingle. My veins stung as if they would burst. I felt a rush of liquid travel through them. My bones grew brittle, cracking and contorting, my flesh merely bending with every twist. My throat burned to scream, but no sound came out. I could only clamp my teeth tightly together. This was worse than any pain I had ever endured. My back tore in two parallel lines, the fibers of my flesh parting to form two caves. The plates of my wings began to drop into these newly formed caves, their feathers beginning to gel over with the blood that flooded these areas. I clamped my eyes shut, digging my nails into the slick floor as my wings finished their transition into my back and my flesh began to return to its initial position, this time forming two gentle hills over the areas where my wings were folded into my back. 
	The sudden flames that tore through my lungs signaled to me that I had stopped breathing for the 30 seconds that this process had lasted for. I let the air rush into my parched throat, my chest rising with a start. 
	My breathing was labored, but I was steady again. "And there's no anesthesia that I can take while doing this?" I asked wittily.