Her new playmate resides in a... moderately run down apartment building, just on the edge of the bad part of town. The elevator has a positively 70s wood panel interior that hasn't weathered the intervening decades well, though, it does have less of a urine reek than the stairwells. On their way to the apartment, they pass a man sitting against a door, rocking, head clutched in his hands as he mutters to himself, on the verge of weeping.

"What a lovely place," Zanna says sweetly.

"It's got character," her mother admits. "I tried not to read into the address... well, he'll still need friends."

They ascend and knock on the door of the Goldman apartment. 

Sarah Goldman opens the door, smiling warmly. "Zanna! Mrs Richardson! Lovely to see you!" She bends down, not quite to Zanna's eye-level, but enough to make it clear who she's addressing:

"It's wonderful of you to come play with Eric, sweetie. A new school is so much easier with a familar face." 

Zanna smiles back not unlike a cornered animal. "Y-yeah. Exciting stuff."

Sarah flashes Zanna a pinched smile. "Oh, you don't have to pretend, honey, Eric probably feels just the same." She straightens, quirking a shoulder. "So, let's do the introductions and then we can have some peace and coffee?" Sarah asks Mrs Richardson. 

Mrs. Richardson laughs genially and pats Zanna on the head. "Let's! I could certainly use a cup."

Sarah leads the Richardsons through her apartment. Its very substance is shabby, but it's been cared for diligently. There might be mold in one corner of the ceiling, but there isn't a spec of dust. The appliances are second hand, but better maintained than a car in Cuba. Dotted throughout is evidence of mild Judaism: a menorah on the mantle, a flier on the fridge for some kind of Temple social event, a Hebrew blessing in tacky "Live, Laugh, Love" script framed on the wall. All throughout are photos of Sarah's son. He's almost always dressed in somwhat oversized hand-me-downs. He has a narrow face with a slightly elfin, upturned nose, whose unformed features promise he'll either be handsome or interesting looking.

They reach the two bedrooms doors, facing each other in a hall that's more of an alcove. Sarah knocks. "Eric! It's Zanna!"

"Ah, come in!" calls a shaky, but shockingly pleasant boyish voice. 

Sarah opens the door onto a cluttered little bedroom, mostly dominated by an old race-car bed that looks like it's been in a few YouTube crash compliations. A naked, milk skinned boy with wings like a giant northern birdwing butterfly edged with iron is laying on his belly and idly kicking the air as he draws. He tries to look up at Zanna, but fails. "Ah, hi."

"Ah-" Zanna half-consciously looks to her mother for an appropriate reaction to the naked boy with wings.

"What a nice little racecar bed," Mrs. Richardson says, looking like she might yawn at any moment. "If we had a boy we thought about getting one like that."

Zanna... turns back to Eric. "...hi," she says. "Zanna. Nice... wings."

Mrs. Richardson looks fondly at her daughter. "You have such an odd way with words."

Now Eric is staring at Zanna. 

Sarah tilts her head. “Right… we’ll leave you two to it, then.”

She closes the door behind Zanna.

Eric sits up on his bed, revealing his lack of a certain marker of Jewish identity. The strangeness goes deeper than his wings or nudity. His irises are black, with two white stars where his pupils should be. He’s beautiful, in a way utterly unlike the boy in the photos Zanna has seen. The only thing to mar him a few miscellaneous rashes, or maybe the mildest of burns?

”Ahh… what did you mean about ‘wings’?”

Said wings beat the air nervously.

Zanna puts the fact of this being her first time seeing boy parts in person firmly to one side. "Don't be ridiculous, I was talking about your wings. - why are none of the pictures of you? Is that boy your - no - are you an alien? Did you replace him?" She pauses. "Not that I care if you did. I didn't know him."

Eric vanishes. Before Zanna can even register this, he’s clutching her hands. “You gotta promise you’ll never, ever tell!”

"I'll promise not to tell our moms, that'd be stupid, and I don't really care about telling, like, cops or reporters or scientists, screw them, but I don't wanna promise not to tell anyone. Too limiting. Who are you afraid of finding out, I won't tell them."

Eric sighs and lets go of her hands. “I’m a fairy,” he says glumly. “I got left here when I was tiny because I’m boring.”

"Well, that's shitty of them. I used to pretend I was secretly demon-spawn or something, just because my parents suck and I wanted powers, but you sure have me beat on evidence. - how come I can see your wings and stuff when Mom can't? Am I maybe actually something?"

Eric clutches his head and wails, “I don't know! Humans aren’t supposed to see through my glamours! Not even Sarah can do that! And she’s my milk mother!”

Zanna claps a hand over his mouth and drags him into a rather forceful hug which might be better termed a headlock. "Hey, it's okay! I'm probably just that cool! Don't cry so loud or they'll think I'm bullying you!"

Eric half-heartedly slips from Zanna’s grip like smoke. “They won’t. The glamour.”

"...does that mean I could actually bully you and you couldn't do anything about it?" Zanna asks. "Academic curiosity."

Eric tilts his head. “I guess. Don’t know why you would. Sounds silly.”

She shrugs. "I mostly just do it if somebody's real boring and I'm stuck with them - some people are more fun crying than talking. You're not that boring."

"Also, I could just make the glamour not hide that. When I have baths I don't hide that I'm not wearing anything."