Emily sighed as she folded another paper airplane. Her straight black hair cut across her forehead was getting long, and it kept falling in her eyes. It was annoying.

Emily lived high up. She had to climb a lot of stairs to get to where she lived. Every time Emily and her mother went to market, she would help her mother carry the food back up. It was hard work, and a long way to climb.

One market day, they didn’t need to go. It made Emily sad, because what she loved about market day more than the feast at the end of her climb was the sights and sounds and smells of the market. Fish hanging from lines, bright-coloured fruit, strange things she didn’t even know the names for, all of it hustling and jostling everything else. All moving. All alive. But since they didn’t go, Emily sat in her room, folding paper airplanes. She made a pile of them and started throwing them out her window. Some would make a sharp turn as soon as she let go and crash on her floor. Some would go straight but hit the wall. Some would go out the window and curl out of sight. With the last one, Emily leaned out the window and threw it as hard as she could. It glided a little ways, then turned and spiraled straight down. Emily watched it go, spinning and twirling. She watched it go faster and faster and she watched it land in the basket of an old woman.

The woman stopped, picked up the airplane, then looked straight up at Emily. Emily ducked inside quickly, but she knew the old woman saw her.

When they went to the market next, Emily kept close to her mother, clutching her hand tight. She was a little scared the old woman would see her and scold her for throwing airplanes down on people who just wanted to get their groceries. Emily soon forgot about the old woman and let go of her mother’s hand so she could wander closer to the stand where people were smiling, picking out their food, talking with the vendors.

A paper airplane appeared in front of her face.

“Is this yours, little one?”

She turned, and it was the old woman. Her hair was white like the clouds. Her eyes were thinner, starting half-closed and ending a line curving around her head. Her eyebrows were raised, making many lines in her forehead.

Emily nodded a little.

“Good. I was hoping so. Do you know why?”

Emily shook her head a little, afraid to move anything else. She wasn’t sure if the old woman was mad at her or not.

“Because I have something for you.”

“What?”

The old woman’s hand disappeared in the the folds of her skirt and reappeared with a small packet of square paper. It wasn’t like the kind that Emily used to make airplanes, which was white and blank and shaped like a rectangle. This paper was prettier. It had patterns on it. The one on top was deep red with small gold birds on it.

The woman held it out for her. “Do you know what you can make with these?”

Emily shook her head.

The woman smiled, not so much in her mouth but in her eyes. “You can make anything.”

From then on, whenever Emily and her mother went to market, Emily would disappear in the crowds and find the old woman, and they would fold paper after paper, making anything they imagined. Emily would make a paper airplane, and the old woman would make a crane. Emily would make a frog, and the old woman would make a fish. Emily would make a swan, and the old woman would make a dragon. Then Emily’s mother would found her, they would go home and Emily would go into her room and practice the things she learned how to make that day.

“Will I be able to make things as good as you someday?” Emily asked as they sat beside each other, folding paper.

“Yes, little one. Someday you will make something more beautiful than anything.”

“Better than what you make?”

“Much better. It will be so beautiful, all of these things we’ve made will blush because they are not as beautiful as it.”

Emily smiled.

“It will be so beautiful, that people all across the city will come to your house and say ‘we heard about this beautiful thing you made and we want to see it because we want to know if it’s true.’”

Emily giggled.

“You think I am lying to you!”

“Yeah,” Emily said through laughter.

“Little one, one day you will make something so beautiful, that it will come alive for you. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Because you ask it to.”

Emily cocked her head sideways, not understanding.

“Do you know why we can fold these things—Why they take the shapes they do?”

Emily shook her head.

“Because we ask them too.” She smiled softly and brushed Emily’s hair from her eyes. “Some day, little one, you will be able to ask the paper to come alive for you.”

“Can you do that?”

She smiled. “I am too old, little one. I do not have enough dreams in my head.” Emily didn’t understand this, and the old woman knew she didn’t, so she picked Emily up and put her on her lap. They sat like that until Emily’s mother found them.

One day when they went to market, Emily couldn’t find the old woman. She wasn’t there the next time either, or the time after that. Emily spent whole days just walking around, looking for the old woman, but she couldn’t find her anywhere. The market seemed to be emptier then, with the moving and bustling people loud and annoying instead of happy and alive. She wanted to yell at them to just be quiet!

One day after looking, Emily went into her room and shut the door. She got to work. She folded and tucked and tore in the right places and made sure the edges were just right. She flipped the paper over and made soft lines with her fingernail to show her where to fold. She teased and moved the paper around itself, folding and refolding.

And then she was finished. Emily leaned out the window and looked up at the sky. The stars were starting to come out, blinking on and off like fireflies, and the people below were lighting paper lanterns that cast the street in warm oranges and reds.

Emily smiled as she held her paper animal. Its body was blues and greens and every vibrant colour of the street below. Its eyes were black like the ocean or the sky. It had wings that were hot and ready to move, red and gold twisting over the feathers.

“Go find her,” Emily whispered. “Go show her what I made.”

Emily drew back her arm, then let it go.