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 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 fellow pixies. Truth is, I’m happiest when I’m out
on my own, getting lost in nature.
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 needs 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 nearing, my
terrified heart beating in painful bursts against its cage, more so as my vision slowly fades to black.
I wake up on my stomach 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 seconds, 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.
Something warm drips down my nose and then falls 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.