Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) (4 page)

             
To her utter disappointment,
I quickly shake my head. Tracker has the same thought and tries to stand
the moment a rough breeze
whips
through
. He and Poppy avoid being swep
t away by snatching nearby stems, most likely receiving a few painful stings for their effort as the tree’s tendrils lash about
. “No, it’s alright
,” he replies, once grounded
.
“
It’s a little windy up here for my taste.” He looks to me and softly says, “Bye, Rosalie.” I force a smile as his body descends from my view.

             
Poppy’s expression is the opposite of mine. She flops down on the leaf Tracker
abandoned
and looks at me all wild-eyed and giddy. “So…” she says, cocking her eyebrows suggestively, “Tracker, huh? Is that who you meet every time you disappear into the forest?”

             
Her eyes, the shade of darkened bark, are greedy with the idea of me having a secret lover.
“No. I have no idea why he followed me up here.”

             
She waves me off and puffs a burst of air through her thick, sunset red lips.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Rosalie. If you’d just spare some time from your nature flights and get to know some of your fellow pixies, you’d find that several may be interested in courting you.”

             
I look to her curiously. Not likely. Not if there’s any truth
to
what Tracker just said.
I always
figured my loner ways made me a bit
of an outcast, but I never realized the others
thought that too
.

             
“Oh, d
on’t look so surprised. You’re
cute and you know it
. You seem to be good at all the tasks our elders ask us to do. You connect with the creatures on a level beyond any pixie in the Hollow. And you’re smart. But I won’t lie
, Rosalie
. You’re a little standoffish, so it’ll be hard finding someone willing to break down
these barriers you’ve constructed
.
You’ve got to learn to let a few pixies in.
”

             
I release a long, deep sigh but the wind
howls over it
. I choose not to ask Poppy
about
her opinion on the subject, as I’m already a little depressed that
my fellow pixies may think I’d
up and bail on the village. If Poppy thought that way about me too, I’d really be depressed. Maybe this is why she gets annoyed when I don’t come home to sleep sometimes. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll awake one morning, come to look for me and I won’t be there anymore. We’re closer than most pixies think. She’s always been kind to me, even though I do seem to be a little different than the rest. But I have no interest in changing who I am or how I live. I always thought she got that about me, even when
the others didn’t, but now Tracker
has me wondering.

             
“Assignments for this month went up,” she says, breaking the lull between us.

             
Grateful for the change in thought, I say, “Oh yeah? What did we get?”

             
“You got seeding. I got
cross-
pollination, thank Mother Nature. Four weeks of fertilizing has
totally
singed my nose hairs, but the stench
did keep
me from eating so I dropped a quarter of an ounce.” That last part makes her scrunch her nose playfully and smile brightly.

             
I’m happy I got seeding. I enjoy plucking seeds from plentiful areas and replanting them in the more desolate areas of the forest. Not only do I get the satisfaction of knowing a seedling that wouldn’t have had room to grow in one area will grow abundantly in an area that really needs life, I also get to spend time in areas that are pixie-free. There’s nothing but bugs and small creatures to observe and learn from. I find the solitude peaceful.

             
Hmm…
Maybe Tracker and Poppy are right about me being standoffish
towards
my
fell
ow pixies. Truth is, I’m happiest when I’m out on my own, getting lost in
n
ature.

             
Poppy shivers as the wind blows a fine mist our way
, and little bumps speckle across her pale reddish-orange glow
. The storm is approaching fast and her eyes fill with concern. She stands and shakes the miniscule drops of moisture from her wings. “I’m going back to the forest floor. Will you come with me?” There’s doubt in her
voice
because
she already
knows my answer.

             
“Nah. Think I’ll stay up here a little longer.”

             
The wind blows harder, bringing more mist this time. Poppy doesn’t wait. She drops beneath the canopy and the sound of her wings is lost instantaneously in competition with the howling wind. I inhale deeply and savor the smells of wet earth. Tiny specks of rain fall diagonally in the air and splash against my
skin
. Most pixies hate being caught in the rain because of the way it clings to our wings. Taking a bath and shaking the water out is one thing, but constant rainfall makes it nearly impossible to dry our wings. Just a single drop landing on
a wing is enough to throw off our
sense of balance. Saturated wings can weigh us down and make it nearly impossible to
keep
flight, stranding us where we
land
until the weather clears.

             
Me? I love the rain. And I don’t mind if my wings get a little wet. It’s not too hard to navigate once you learn how to compensate
the weight of
an unexpected raindrop. But for some reason
,
most pixies refuse to allow themselves to be put in that position to
begin
with. I know I’m not the only pixie in the Hollow that can fly in the rain, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that intentionally gets caught in it. Practice makes perfect, and I can fly with quite a bit of water on my wings
, if need
s
be
.

             
The wind picks up and swirls around me dramatically, whipping my hair loose from the
strands of braided moss securing
it back
in a ponytail
. The rain is heavier now, and stings when it strikes my delicately thin wings. Now is the time to go, before the storm escalates into something even I don’t want to
get caught
in. I stand upright, fighting the force of the wind smacking against me, trying to
throw
me
around
involuntarily. I startle as a group of birds take sudden flight just three trees away. Curiously, they head directly towards the storm instead of my way
, towards safety
. I watch in wonderment for a moment, then analyze their tree, seeking the reason of their quick abandonment. The storm makes it impossible to hear anything
,
and the erratic swishing and
swaying of the tree limbs make
it just as difficult to spot any anomalies within the trees. 

             
I decide the reason isn’t worth getting caught in the
storm
for. I redirect my gaze
to
the
sky
and bend my knees, preparing to bail on the canopy myself. I feel a sharp prick against the back of my neck and instinctively smack it, thinking it’s a mosquito. They’re the only bug in the forest I have no scruples over killing. All they do is take and never give back (unless you count disease). But what I feel against my hand isn’t the squashed, broken body of a mosquito. It’s a splinter, or a stinger, and it’s embedded deep inside my skin. So far in I dare not pull it out without help.

             
A move I instantly regret.

             
My eyes begin to blur and my body collapses as it’s flooded with extreme exhaustion.
All my facial muscles slacken, and now
I can’t speak. All my mouth can do is separate my lips slightly and release a moan. I lose complete control
as the numbness spreads
over my limbs
and
now lay lifeless, leaving me completely at the mercy of the storm. I’m powerless when
a large raindrop splashes
on my face
,
invading my throat and choking
my lungs. I lay there, spasms thrusting my chest in a desperate effort to expel the water. 
Fighting the drowsiness with all my might, I force my aching eyelids open.
Everything blurs
, but I see a dark shadow near
ing
, my terrified heart beating in painful bursts against its cage, more so
as my vision slowly
fades to black.

I wake up on my s
tomach gasping. I can’t breathe,
my inhalation so rough and deep and painful. It takes me a split second to realize the pain I’m feeling isn’t because of the water that was in my lungs. It’s my wings! It feels as if they’ve been
cruelly
ripped from my body. And there’s something heavy digging into my back. I reach around and feel something cold: steel. I feel to assess its size and a sharp pain shoots through my spine.  I scream with all my might but only a mere whisper makes it
past the constricting muscles in my throat
. It’s not until I finally manage to gasp a deep breath does sound come out and echo through the cold
, eerie
darkness.

             
“Oh-my-Mother! Oh-my-Mother! OH-MY-MOTHER-NATURE!” I scream. And gasp. And scream. And gasp. “Please Mother! My wings!” My breaths quicken
as I panic, and my heart pounds against my chest, desperate to break free from its prison of ribs
.

             
It’s pitch black and I can’t see a thing, and there’s something heavy weighing down on my wings, which almost feel broken. It’s cold. And dark. “Somebody? Anybody?” I call out.
My echo repeats the words back at me, almost mocking me as they fade away and escape this place
without me
.

             
I reach for my pixie dust but feel nothing. I
frantically
pat myself down, inflicting more unnecessary pain, but my satchel of pixie dust is nowhere to be found. I panic and crawl across the cold floor, searching for my lost satchel. Stone? It feels natural, like a cave. I think I’m deep within a cave. The jagged rock cuts into my flesh with each step I make on my hands and knees. My wings burn, my chest burns, and a spot on the outside of my left wrist burns, but I feel nothing except grit and grime upon my skin. My heart speeds up with each second that passes, because with each
of those
second
s
, I grow more aware that something very bad has happened. Very, very bad.

             
I scream again – part
for
pain, part
for
terror
. The next crawling step runs me into a wall, which unfortunately my forehead finds first.
S
omething warm drip
s
down
my nose and then fall
s
lost to the floor. It’s at this moment I realize my face is dewy, saturated with tears that probably ran while I was still unconscious. My knees and legs shake as I use the wall to pull myself into a standing position. I reach as high as my arms will allow but feel nothing overhead, and the stretch activates the unbearable pain in my spine
once more
. I hunch over and follow the wall in the darkness, crying all the way, trying to stifle the screams within. I’m so cautious with my steps
, edging my feet around the protrusions,
that it takes me forever. It feels like the wall curves slightly to the left…and keeps on curving. My will to continue begins to diminish. I’m tired, my back is killing me and I have this horrible feeling that I may have come full circle, which means I’m most likely trapped in a hole.