The Dragonfly Fairy (a story)

New York, 1865

Never let yourself be seen by humans.  That is what Luvia's mother always told her growing up.  “Never let a human see your true fairy form.  If they do, you will have no choice but to grant them whatever wish they choose.”
When fairies are nearby humans and do not wish to be seen, they can take a blade of grass and tie it around their neck, and say “I will pass unseen”.  If they do this, and a human does happen to come across a fairy, their eyes will be tricked into seeing nothing but a regular butterfly, or dragonfly, or whichever insect the fairy's wings are from.  But when fairies don't do this little trick, they are plain and exposed for all men to see, and are vulnerable to being spotted and having to grant a wish.  Children, however, can always see the fairies for what they really are, even when one wears a blade of grass around its neck.  But fairies do not mind granting wishes to children because they like children. But still they keep themselves hidden because humans are never supposed to see fairies at all.

Now there was once a dragonfly-catcher who owned a shop full of them in little woven cages.  One day he came home with a fairy that he'd come across, and had caught, and he was so happy with himself because he hoped to have it grant him all these wishes to make him rich.
He kept the fairy behind the counter of his shop, and covered the cage with a cloth so no one could see in.  And at night when all the people had gone from his shop, and it was only him, he would take a stick and poke it through the wooden bars of the cage and say, 'Come on, now, fairy, grant me this wish, or that wish.' And he was very mean to the poor creature.

One day a mother and her young boy came into the shop to buy a dragonfly, and the boy had a small dog with him.  As the mother was talking with the shop owner, the dog wandered over behind the counter and knocked the cage down, although the shop owner was too busy talking to the lady to notice what happened.  The boy was ten years old, and he was playing with the dog, crawling on the floor behind it, and he was right there when the cage got knocked over.  The cloth fell away from the cage and the boy saw the fairy: a tiny girl with long brown hair, and shiny gossamer wings like dragonflies'.  She was lying flat due to the fall, and when she saw the boy she did something fairies are advised to never, ever do unless they absolutely must.  She spoke to him.
“If you free me from this prison,” she said, “I will grant you any wish you desire in return.”
The boy couldn't believe what he was seeing, and he was so fascinated that he opened the cage, and immediately the fairy came flying out at high speed and took off like a scared bird, out of the shop and into the sky.  Naturally, this left the boy wondering where was the wish he had been promised, and he got upset, thinking he'd been tricked.

Then the boy's mother called him over and said that she found a dragonfly to get. So the boy got up and went to her, and they left...