What did we find?

It was a hot summer night and the two girls were enjoying the cool breeze that came across the field and caused the fireflies to dance in the air. The eldest sister held the jar as the youngest ran after a particularly bright firefly. The two girls were nearly different almost all ways. Annabelle was twelve and though she wasn't quite a woman yet, she still had a child-like aura to her. She had been more interested in magic and the worlds unseen in her fantasy books. She had long brown hair that her mother had braided for her. She had glasses and she currently wore a halter top and shorts. She chose to wear shoes where her sister Mary wasn't wearing any at all. Mary wasn't like her sister. Her hair was cut short and kept back with a handful of barrettes that she chose for herself and clipped in meticulously each morning. She was wearing a pair of overall shorts. She had a button nose and freckles across her face that multiplied each summer. Her hair was a darker brown than her sisters and her eyes were a coppery brown.

She had been chasing after fireflies since when the sky began to turn orange. She enjoyed the fun of chasing down the bugs and putting them in the jar to watch for some time before they let them all go each night. She loved spending time with her sister and watching the dancing bugs but what she didn't like was how slow her sister was. She wanted to run through the grass and kick up her heels. She didn't want to wait. 

"Wait for me!" Annabelle called to her sister. "Wait!" She cried out louder as her sister continued to run after the firefly. 

The younger sister continued to run, her feet thudding against the soft soil as she determinedly chased the firefly. It was so pretty and she could swear she had seen it change colors. Her head turned slightly as she heard her sister calling after her. 

"Keep up Bella!" She called back to her sister. Mary had never been slow in her life, her parents often complained about her to their family. 

Mary didn't mind the things they said, she knew she was a good runner and had been for quite some time. Her mother often joked that she was had started running long before she was walking. She was quickly catching up to the firefly as it darted towards the ground. She leapt out towards it, pouncing it. She cupped her hands around the firefly and laughed as she felt it flicking around in her hand. She turned to look back to for her sister. She found herself in the woods that they weren't supposed to go in. 

Mary gulped some as she remembered her grandfather's stern warning. She didn't want to get in trouble for chasing down a firefly! She ran back out of the woods, seeing the flashlight where Annabelle stood standing outside the forest. 

"Mary!" Annabelle called to her. "Mary! You better hurry up and come out of there before you get caught!" She cried out louder and looked around with her flashlight. She looked around the woods, searching for her sister. She could hear the sound something towards her and though she didn't like it. Her heart began to race as she worried that the sound coming towards her wasn't her sister. She took a step back as she tried not to panic. She looked to the forest. "Is that you Mary?" She called out, her voice high and panicky. Her eyes looked over the forest, it was too dark to see more than a foot or so inside. "Mary!" She called out again, she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. Her body began to shake. 

Mary burst through the underbrush and Annabelle let out a frightened shriek. She stumbled backwards and hit the ground. Mary couldn't help but laugh as she noticed her sister on the ground. She looked down to her and looked for the jar. 

"Don't just lay there Annabelle, I need that jar!" She held out her cupped hands. "I don't want to kill the poor thing" She giggled more as she moved towards her sister. She couldn't believe that her sister had been so terrified of her coming through the forest. Annabelle began to stand up and looked to Mary with a grin. She scowled at her younger sister. She couldn't believe that Mary was laughing at her. She moved to pick up the jar and unscrewed the lid. She looked down to the grass in the jar and made sure there was plenty of holes in the lid. 

"Here!" She held it out to her. "Put the dumb bug in the jar and lets go home!" She was feeling rather angry now that she had been laughed at.

"Don't be so angry, Bella." She moved to put her hands over the jar and watched as the bug fell into the grass below. Annabelle closed the jar up and she turned towards the barn house. It seemed so far away now that they were near the forest. Mary moved up beside her sister as they started to walk towards the house. There was nothing they didn't do together. Annabelle ran her hand over her braid as she looked to her sister.

"You are too fast! I can't ever keep up with you!" She grumbled at Mary as she walked through the grass back towards the house. The light was on guiding them towards the porch where they would sit and look over the bugs before they let them go. Annabelle let out a sigh as she continued to walk. "There's no reason to run like you do!" She looked over to her sister. She was annoyed now, her heart was still racing from losing track of her sister and the fear that she would never come back out of the forest. 

Mary looked to her sister and reached over to pat her on the back. "Don't be upset, Bella" She smiled to her. "I didn't mean to scare you." She looked to her then looked back to the house. They continued to walk as Mary tried to comfort her sister. She grinned some as they walked and looked up to the sky. There were plenty of stars in the sky on a night like this. 

There was a soft noise that broke the summer noises. Annabelle looked around some. "Do you hear that too?" She asked as she looked to her sister then looked around curiously. The noise was almost like a soft clinking noise. They looked around some. "What is that?" Mary asked as she looked to Annabelle who shrugged. "I'm not sure, I don't see anything." 

Annabelle looked to Mary then a thought dawned on her. She moved to lift the jar up and looked into it. "Oh my gosh!" She gasped as she looked to Mary. Her eyes widened. "Mary! You have to look at this!" She held the jar out to Mary. Mary took the jar and began to look it over, it didn't look any different to her. She blinked and looked to Annabelle. "What? I don't see anything" Mary started to hold the jar back out to her. She didn't know why her sister was freaking out over a jar full of lightning bugs. 

"No! Look again, Mary! It's really important!" She pushed the jar back towards her younger sister. She could hardly believe it herself. Had she actually seen what she thought she saw? There was no way. There was no way that there was a...She shook her head. It couldn't have been. She looked backwards for a moment, looking towards the forest they weren't even supposed to step foot inside of and yet Mary had gone quite deep in the forest. She bit her bottom lip nervously and looked to Mary once again. She looked into the jar and squinted some to try to see if the thing was in there. 

Mary lifted the jar up close to her face and looked over it curiously. "I just see lightning bugs and the leaves we put in earlier." She looked back to Annabelle. "Are you losing your mind?" She asked teasing her sister as she looked over the jar once again. She ran her fingers over the jar as she tried to figure out what Annabelle had seen in the jar. She looked over it curiously and tilted it slightly, upsetting the leaves and causing one of the bugs to hit the side of the jar. She looked over it some. "I don't see anything, Bella....Just bugs and leaves" 

"No! I mean, there was something else in it! I know there was!" She snatched the jar away from Mary and began to look it over. She opened the jar slightly and pulled out some of the leaves, dumping some of the bugs out as well. She looked inside the jar again. She reached inside with a delicate hand and cupped a single hand around something in the jar as Mary watched. 

"What did you find?" Mary asked as she looked over the jar. She looked to her sisters hand as Annabelle dropped the jar on the ground. 

"I'm not sure" She looked over to her sister. She looked down to her hand. "It's....something.....I think....I mean...I don't know" She whispered, her voice taking on that fearful tone again. She looked to her sister then back to her hand. She began to slowly open her hand. She moved her other hand over to cup the small creature between her hands. 

Mary inched closer to her sister and looked down into her hands. She gasped and looked over to Annabelle, she could hardly believe what she was seeing. There was no way that she had caught that. It wasn't, it couldn't be. She looked to Annabelle and then they looked back down to Annabelle's hands. 

How had they caught a fairy? They didn't really exist, did they?