Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) - By Devon Ashley Page 0,6
the contrary. I am completely content with my surroundings. With my little tree house all to myself, the small watering hole at the edge of the Hollow that only I seem to know about, with all the types of bugs sharing the resources around me. I’m happy here. I like simplicity.
But I certainly never knew the pixies that left before me had wings that developed a yellowish glow like mine.
“Do you think the reason none of those pixies have ever returned is ‘cause they’re dead?” I ask, the whistling wind competing for Tracker’s attention.
“Some of them, yeah. But not all of them. No, I think they just found something this place lacked for them. What that something is though, I don’t know.”
“And you think I may know what that something is?”
He turns and scans my body with his eyes, like he’s trying to analyze me, like I’m some weird creature he’s never seen before. “I don’t know. No one really knows you that well. Not even Poppy. We sometimes wonder if you’re the next to take flight.”
My neck snaps faster than one of those snapping turtles I came across in the river bed last week. “Just ‘cause I like to keep to myself and stay in a different stratosphere of the forest doesn’t mean I’m itching to get out of the Hollow anytime soon.”
“See? Right there!” he bursts.
Surprised, I stammer, “See what?”
“You just said anytime soon. No other pixie in the Hollow would have said that.”
Flabbergasted, I’m left speechless and just stare at him in disbelief. Not that he notices…it seems his attention is more interested in the impending storm. I had no idea I came off that way to the others. I have no desire to the leave the Hollow. I’m happy here and I know what I really want, so I’m not going to start doubting myself over two little words now.
I sit up and curl my arms tightly around my legs, resting my chin on my knees. We sit in silence for a few moments, rocking back and forth with the breeze, listening to the harmonic hums of the hissing winds, before Poppy pops up beside Tracker. She’s as surprised as I am that he made his way up to my special little place in the canopy.
“Oh, I’m sorry you guys. Did you want to be alone?” she asks with a suggestive, hopeful, smile.
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 swept 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, don’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