Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) (11 page)

             
I sometimes wonder about their sanity…and if I’m soon to follow.

I awake earlier than normal. The sky is still a medium shade of blue and the stars a faded shade of cream. I catch movement out the corner of my eye and turn to see a pixie standing beside me at the edge, gazing across the canyon to the other side. Can’t say I blame her really; I do it every morning and night, trying to focus on anywhere but here.

             
She’s one of the blue pixies but I don’t know her name. “Hi,” I say softly, friendly. A few seconds later she looks down to me but I’m not even sure she really sees me. Her face is void of expression and her eyes seem so empty. Without responding, she slowly turns back to the canyon. I rarely get to see the canyon since we’re not here during the daytime. But the early evenings and mornings light up the sky enough to see that a wonderful forest filled with luscious trees and animals lies just on the other side of the canyon,
and a
fast-flowing river rushes just below.

             
The blue pixie steps forward and my heart suddenly pounds in my chest. I know what she’s doing and I try to lunge myself towards her – but it’s too late. In an instant she’s gone. I’m left sitting on my knees, my arms
outstretched
and mouth wide open. I gasp – then scream into my cupped hands. It arouses the attention of the pixies closest to me. My body language speaks louder than words and the few that are still lucid these days jump to their feet and rush over. Those that remain in place look as dazed and lost as the pixie that leapt to her death.

             
I’m choking on my screams and crying uncontrollably by the time Juniper wraps her arms around my heaving body, gently shushing and saying it’ll be alright. Only it won’t. Not for me. Not for her. Certainly not for the poor pixie that’s no longer with us. At some point she had friends, possibly family, and now they’ll never know what became of her. They’re left to worry and wonder about her forever now.

             
And I didn’t even know her name.

             
Juniper holds my head as I wrap my arms around her waist, letting the tears flow freely. The convulsions have calmed but a tremble still remains in my limbs. A bluish blur nears and whispers to Juniper, “It was Orchid.” I’m pretty sure the voice belongs to Willow.

             
Juniper must be nodding her head in acknowledgement because my body bounces softly. “See to it they get breakfast going, will you?”

             
“Yes, mum.” The bluish blur fades into a little dot before disappearing completely from my tear-soaked eyes.

             
Fingers lightly massage my scalp, and my eyes begin to daze. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Rosalie. We lose pixies every once in a while to suicide, but it mostly happens late at night when we’re asleep.”

She leaves me soon after to comfort the less stable pixies. I wrap my arms around my knees and rock back and forth, watching the birds fly around the trees on the opposite side of the canyon. It makes me think of life back home. Is Poppy flitting around the trees like the birds before me? She has cross-pollination this month. Poppy loves pollinating; plucking the pollen from one flower and flying around the forest searching for its match to keep the flowers thriving. Okay, that’s really why I love pollination. Poppy loves it because it means she can fly anywhere she wants in the forest during work hours, which means she’ll be finding the necessary flowers wherever Tin or Mustard is stationed. Did she even worry when she realized I was gone? I think of her each night before I pass out from exhaustion, my lost sister.

             
At some point a bowl of mash is handed to me and I nibble mindlessly.  I can still taste the flavors, today being raspberries and sunflower seeds, but I hardly care anymore. My body is too tired and too stressed. My stomach is grateful for the attention but my taste buds lack the same enthusiasm.

             
After I’m rudely lifted above the pit and placed in line, the spriggans notice we’re down a pixie. Who knew the stinky baboons could count? One walks the line, pausing at each pixie. When he comes to me he grabs my wrist and checks the number with his list. I wonder what number Orchid
is. W
as. How long had she been here, suffering away in this hellhole, repeating the same repetitive nightmare over and over and over again? How much time passed before she gave up hope and thought her best option was to plummet over a cliff? Or was she even lucid enough to think about what she was doing?

             
The question that bothers me the most: will I do
the same thing
one day?

             
I hope not.

My stomach churns and queasiness takes the top spot in my current list of ailments: all-over achiness, headaches, back pains, crankiness, malaise, calf cramps, exhaustion. And it burns when I pee, which is becoming rarer by the day. My skin is itchy and drying out; I know I’m not drinking enough water due to the painful bloating going on in my belly. Lack of water is probably making concentrated waste, which is why it burns coming out. I make a mental note to force several cups down my throat today whether I like it or not.

             
I work through the day the same as all the other mindless pixies. I don’t say a word and hardly look at anything but the mushrooms I’m chopping. I almost laugh when I pick up one of the pieces of flint I’m supposed to slice with. Are they afraid to give us knives? I suppose they’re afraid we’ll try to kill ourselves, but I think…yep, the warm crimson liquid flowing from my wrist proves the flint can nick us.  Well, I know they don’t care too much if
we
die, so I guess the sprigs are afraid we’ll use the knives on them.

             
Heck yeah, I would. Every last one of them.

             
The day ends faster than I expect. I guess there’s something to being mindless after all. When we’re being carried back to the pit floor, I can’t help but notice the pixie being carried by the sprig ahead of me. The sun is setting so the light is dimming, but somehow I catch a glimmer shimmering off her wings. It’s weak, but the magic seems to be returning. I gasp because I didn’t think it was possible. None of the pixies I’ve seen here have any magic in their wings. They’re all thin, pale and really dried out. This little green pixie’s wings actually look like they’re recovering, at the beginning stages of becoming healthy and nourished once more. Weird her body looks the complete opposite.

             
Once we land I can’t help but catch up and reach out to touch her wings. A slight tingle zaps my fingertips. I don’t know why I touch them. Healthy wings always zap another’s touch, though does nothing if the wing-bearer herself touches them. I guess I do it to confirm my suspicions – that her wings are healing, though there’s only a smidgen of magic in them so far. A healthy set of wings would have zapped me hard. Surprisingly, she whips around in fear but eases when she sees me. I don’t know her name because she’s one of the ones that rarely speak.

             
“Your wings,” I say. “They’re healing.”

             
My words make her do something I never see coming. She screams in terror and curls up in a ball on the ground. Shaking, I step back, not knowing what to do. My eyes scan the sky but the spriggans could care less that one of our kind is having a total meltdown in the middle of the pit. The last of the pixies are dropping and the sprigs vacate for the evening.

             
The way Juniper’s rushing toward us makes me panic. My hands snap to the air before my shoulders in surrender. “I didn’t do anything,” I blurt.

             
“Elma, what’s wrong?” Juniper asks. When Elma continues to scream and cry into her rocking body, Juniper looks
to
me
for the answer
. “What happened?”

             
“All I did was tell Elma her wings were healing and she completely flipped out.” I left out the part where I stupidly touched her wings and got a tiny zap for it.

             
Juniper sighs knowingly. “It’s alright. You didn’t do anything wrong, Rosalie.” Juniper searches the pit with her eyes, then calls, “Willow!” I turn just as the powdery blue pixie appears beside me. “I’m going to need your help with Elma here. I’ll hold.”

             
Hold? Hold what?

             
Willow nods and falls to her knees.

             
“Elma?”
Juniper asks.
“Tuck into a ball, honey.
It’ll hurt less.”

             
“Hurt? What’s going to hurt?” I ask quickly, but no one pays me any mind. Elma rolls tight. Juniper hugs her shoulders and allows Elma to grasp her free hand, and Willow braces her hands on the edge of Elma’s right wing, which she has to be getting zapped for. It comes to my attention what Willow’s about to do and I hear a deafening crack. A horrible scream escapes Elma’s contorting body. Willow’s fast to snap the second wing, and even though I know it’s coming, a violent tremor rushes through my body upon breakage. Elma’s cries are heart-wrenching, and every nerve in my wings is screaming right along with her. Why would they do that? My head shakes in confusion as Willow rises, leaving Juniper to rock the crying, trembling pixie.

             
Willow walks away, ignoring me completely, but my disgusted gaze forces Juniper to answer the question I have yet to ask. “If we hadn’t done it, the spriggans would have, and they’re far less kind.”

             
Dumbfounded, I whisper, “Why?”

             
“To keep us grounded. The steel weighs us down but it’s the broken wings that truly keep us from taking flight.”

             
I groan. “How long does it take for our wings to heal?”

             
“When we break them, we do small breaks so we can return to work the next day, and they’ll begin healing in a matter of weeks. If the sprigs get a hold of you, they’re more aggressive and it’ll be painful for several days. And your wings will probably take about six weeks before the magic begins to return.

             
Elma’s screams reduce to a whimper as Juniper continues to rock her soothingly. I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach. I truly feel for Elma, but what’s mostly eating at me is the realization that in several weeks, Willow will have the pleasure of snapping mine.

Oh my Mother Nature this sucks!
The heat from the fires
suck
every bit of moisture from my skin, literally sucking the life out of me. I’ve endured the heat all day long, my first time at the fire pit station, and my body is just shy of collapsing right here, right now. The only relief I get is when it’s my turn to go mushroom picking. It’s probably not the best idea to combine dazed-out pixies suffering from heat-exhaustion with touching hallucinogenic mushrooms, but there’s no way any of us
will
make it without the chance to cool off outside. And being
at
the station right up front under the spriggans’ noses means we can’t take several bathroom breaks to rest without drawing unwanted attention.