Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) - By Devon Ashley Page 0,28

desolate forest. Holly mentions the mushrooms thrive easily here, and it makes me wonder if a faerie doesn’t come along each day and sprinkle a little pixie dust to maintain the number of mushrooms.

I spot the mushroom patch easily from a distance. The ones we collect for pixie dust have a white stalk and a red cap with several white circular patches. Call me crazy, but I seem to be the only pixie that finds it odd that the only thing growing in this wasteland is the one thing these spriggan jerks have us processing. We collect our bounty in silence while a spriggan hovers above us. Thank Mother Nature there’s no wind – otherwise we’d be downwind of his stench. Before we return to the cave, we dip the mushrooms into a fresh pail of water to rinse the dirt off. I use the term rinse pretty loosely. If we were making the mushroom powder for our own use, we’d take the time to thoroughly clean them. However, since we don’t give a crap about the purity of their dust, we only dip to make the spriggans believe we’re doing our job properly.

By sundown I’m utterly exhausted; more so than on previous days of slave labor. I’ve never been so wiped out, so drained of energy in my life. When the spriggan drops me onto the pit floor, I practically collapse right there. I lay there so long Juniper brings me a cup of water and my share of crappy mash. She tries to soothe me with her positive words, but my mind can’t process anything more than hello.

I’m just about to rise and be the last person to take a shower when something in the sky catches my attention. I’m not the only one to notice, and soon most pairs of eyes are watching two spriggans fly overhead. But it’s not the spriggans we’re really looking at. It’s the unconscious pixie they carry between them, feet dangling lifelessly in the air.

Oh, no. My heart sinks deeper in my chest. They’ve already replaced Orchid.

I feel pity for that pixie. Those first days of isolation still weigh heavy on my mind; some of the scars still faintly line my skin. I can only hope what happened to me doesn’t happen to her, and they remember to get her after three days.

Yesterday I got to catch up on some desperately needed rest so today wasn’t too bad working the back station. I sort of envy Holly. Tonight the new recruit – er, slave – should arrive, so she’ll be back at the end of the line again tomorrow and get another day of rest. From what I understand, newbies don’t come that often; two of us entering within a few weeks of one another is rare. But still, that’s two more days of rest Holly gets over the rest of us this month. There are definite perks to being the tour guide around here.

I’m finishing up my nightly mash, waiting for my turn at the shower, like always. I’m not even sure what dinner is tonight. My taste buds are practically nonexistent now, so it all tastes pretty much the same these days. I’m still swirling half my mash around in my bowl when two spriggans appear and unceremoniously dump the new pixie into the pit.

Juniper rushes towards her; her right leg seems to limp a little. “Rosalie,” she calls. “Come help me.”

I automatically do as she asks, taking my mash and grabbing a cup of water on my way. Good thing I have little desire to eat my mash because we probably don’t have provisions to cover her. I lay the cup and bowl on the ground and gently lift the pixie to support her at an incline from behind. She’s a sage green pixie, not too unlike one of the quiet ones we have here. Perhaps they’re from the same Hollow, but good luck to her finding that out. The mind of that particular pixie seems long gone.

She looks younger than me, maybe fifteen. Why must they steal ones so young? Her sienna-colored hair is chopped short and probably looks cute when it’s not all matted down with sweat. She’ll have to learn to deal with long hair because she’s had her last official haircut. Whimsical swirls made of henna cover her skin and the inflamed scratches all over her body bring an eerie orange glow to the effect. A blackish bruise paints the right side of her forehead.