Juniper gives my shoulder a quick squeeze before walking off and calling for Holly, who obediently makes her way to her. I
scarf the mash down as the two pixies clearly discuss me; Holly briefly peeks over Juniper’s shoulder to look at me, confirming my
suspicion. The mash isn’t that bad but it would seem more fulfilling if it were heated. I grab a wooden cup beside the mash pot and
dip it into a bucket of water. I’m drinking my second cup when I eye a bowl of mash on the ground. My stomach grumbles and I long
to take just a little more, but guilt immediately floods my senses. I know that bowl belongs to someone here, but after being starved
for several days, my survival instincts kick in and selfishness tries to take over. I withhold the urge to snag the last dish and try to fill
my stomach with a third cup of water. I feel bloated but even that’s better than starving. If we truly did have unlimited water, I’d fill
myself up until I spewed it back out again just to avoid feeling starved.
I take a few laps around the pit to ease the cramping in my calves, as my legs are still shaky from their ordeal. My eyes sneak a
peek at the food area and I notice the last bowl is gone, and I’m grateful I didn’t give in to temptation. Holly catches up to me on my
third lap, smiling weakly as she approaches. “Hi. I’m Holly.” Her voice is familiar, and I suddenly realize that it was Holly holding me
up last night as Juniper fed me.“Hi. Rosalie,” I reply. Normally pixies would flutter their wings in a manner of respect upon meeting
someone, but with steel clamps weighing us down, we settle for a brief moment of awkwardness. Holly is one of the pixies with a
bluer hue and now up close, I can tell her black hair shimmers with royal blue as well, just like the red naturally found in my chestnut
colored hair that shimmers in the light. Her eyes are cool grey and her eyelashes are still thick and full, despite the lack of nutrition
taking a toll on the rest of her body. I couldn’t help but look at her body with regret and wonder how long it’ll take before I look like
that too.“How long have you been here, Holly?”
She licks her cracked lips and replies, “I was stolen about two years ago, when I was nineteen.”
I withhold the urge to widen my eyes as I am overcome by shock. Twenty-one? She looks at least thirty right now, what with her dried
out skin and stress wrinkles smothering her forehead and the outer edges of her sagging eyes. However, there aren’t any creases
framing her mouth. Guess she hasn’t had a reason to smile these past two years.
And then a horrible revelation occurs to me. “Holly, who’s been here the longest?”“Juniper. She’s our eldest and sort of like a mother
to us all. I think she’s been here fifteen years now.”
I gasp, but catch myself before bursting my thoughts aloud like earlier. With a lot of restraint, I quietly respond, “So she’s probably
really only in her thirties. I thought she was in her fifties at least.”
Holly nods. “That’s what years of working sunrise to sundown without a day off can do to you. Her reality is our future.” With a bleak
look, she adds, “We’re all going to die here.” Overcome by our dire situation, I feel the need to comfort her, to comfort myself. I reach
out and place my hand upon her shoulder and we stand in silence for a moment, both looking at our feet.
I’m not sure what I’m feeling right at this moment. I know I should be angry, and I am. I want to lash out at my captors and inflict the
same pain they’ve inflicted on me. I want to snatch and roughly break their wings. I want to throw them away in a dark pit and let
them starve to death, spending the days that pass thinking they’re going to die. I want them to desperately try to escape and injure
themselves further in the process. But at the same time I feel all this anger, I sort of feel defeated. And I hate myself for that. I don’t
want to be defeated. To be stolen and forced into slavery. I want my fellow pixies to realize I didn’t leave at my own volition and
come look for me. To come save me and all the others taken against their will. But deep down I know that won’t happen. Because
they think I’m flighty and expected me to up and leave one day. And it makes me sad. And makes me wonder about all those pixies
that left our Hollow and never came back. Were they stolen too?
I’m about to ask Holly, but her attention is diverted to the sky. I drop my arm as several spriggans fly into the pit and begin plucking
pixies, taking them topside. I’ve never seen a spriggan before but I recognize them easily. The largest of the faeries, they’re both
taller and bulkier in the muscle department, which is why they’re often used for protection or mercenary-type positions. Their skin is
the color of dried mud and rough like sandpaper, with bulbous spade-shaped heads that seem abnormally large, even for their body
size. These particular spriggans all have the same black hair, cut an inch long and spiked upward.“Rosalie, when we reach the work
line, go all the way to the end. That’s where you and I are working today, okay?” I nod, silently watching the spriggans snag one pixie
after another. “Just stay quiet, don’t fidget when they move you and don’t talk when they’re around. Got it?” I nod again, just as two
spriggans return to the pit to collect us. My captor grabs me under my arms from behind and my feet leave the ground. He holds me
awkwardly away from his body, as if I’m the one that’s disgusting to touch. His hands are sweaty against my skin and I do my best
not to cringe, especially since I could slip out of his grasp so easily. The pit’s walls are about one hundred inches high so it doesn’t
take long to ascend to the top. My skin shivers as we exit the pit. He disposes of me next to the other pixies, who quietly hang their
heads and fall into line. I do the same, fighting the curiosity to scan my surroundings.
We walk for at least ten minutes, but I don’t mind. After being trapped in a hole for several days, it just feels good to be out stretching
my legs, even with my muscles twitching and cramping in protest. It seems our pit is on the outskirts of a forest because we
immediately step onto a path and venture inward. The trail we’re following is well worn and I know it’s because these pixies have
trampled it for an endless amount of days. Do they stomp on purpose? Maybe hoping some pixie or decent-hearted faerie will
follow it out of curiosity and discover this unlawful prison? I stomp a little harder than necessary myself, ignoring the aching in my
knees. Our steps fall in sync and the repetitive steps are both rhythmic and hypnotic. It’s almost soothing – at least for me – and it’s
possible nature agrees. The forest is eerily silent. I’m not sure if all the living things are quietly watching as we pass by or if they’ve
bailed on this area completely.
As we march, I keep my head forward but push my eyes as far outward as possible, sweeping the forest. There’s literally no brush
or weeds or flowers or anything around the trunks. The forest appears desolate, almost like a fire rolled through once and nature
never recovered. There are a lot of trees still standing, but without wings to fly, there was nowhere to hide from the spriggans that
would give chase. And right now is my best time to run, before I get any weaker from starvation and begin to look like my fellow
prisoners. I feel a little more defeated inside. I realize with each passing second how difficult it’ll be to escape this nightmare. But
still, the temptation to run is great.
The line stalls and I lightly bump into the pixie in front of me. She doesn’t turn or react in any way. I brave a peek above her shoulder
and see the opening to a cave. At first I wonder if it’s the one I was kept in, but I don’t see any water dripping over the entrance or
collecting on the ground, so it couldn’t be. Two spriggans stand guard as pixies begin to disappear into the cave, collecting a glass
lantern as they enter. Two of the pixies collect a basket made of dried out vines and head off into the forest. A third spriggan follows
closely behind. My head follows them, then to the surrounding forest. Still nothing to hide behind if I run. No wonder the faeries chose
this place for a slave camp.
I hear a quiet, “Uh-uh,” from the pixie behind me but don’t dare turn to face her. She continues with a hushed, yet harsh, “Don’t. It’s
been tried before. Don’t”. The way her words came off all mumbled, no way she opened her mouth to say any of that. I turn my head
forward again and catch the black, beady eye of one of the guards. It startles me, and I drop my head and stare at the ground,
refusing to look upward again. As I near the entrance, I too collect a lantern and step through, fighting the incredible urge to take a
closer look at the guards. Of course it doesn’t keep me from smelling them though, and the sourness makes the water in my
stomach churn.
The line moves slowly as I step into the cave. Probably because each pixie is waiting for her eyes to adjust like I am. Once we’re
advancing again I take a peek at the stations I pass. The first has a couple of square holes recessed in the cave wall. Two pixies
are piling wood from the log stacks into the lower holes. My best guess as I continue on is the heat is used for drying the
mushrooms, an absolute must when powderizing mushrooms we use for dust.
The rest of the work line is one wood table after another, with each section descending in height ever so slightly. Since each section
has its own hand-cranked conveyor belt, the slight decrease allows room for the mushrooms to be dumped at the next station
without affecting the rest of the line. Some pixies are already in position, but since the line hasn’t officially begun, I’m not quite sure
what all the steps are. I make my way to the back of the line, which happens to be the end of the cave itself. Holly is already there,
waiting patiently. She reaches for my lantern, and surprisingly, sets it down on the front end of the table. Without it, our spot in the
back of the cave is incredibly dim.
I look forward at the entire line. The cave is long and skinny and I can barely see the fire glowing from the pits up front. Two other
pixies, both sage in color, share our station and begin sifting through the dust on the table without even acknowledging our
presence. Holly just stands there watching the line intently, leaving me utterly confused, not knowing what to do.“Alright,” she says.
For some reason, she doesn’t begin working on the pile of dust before us, but steps back and sits against the back wall. She pats
the ground beside her and I willingly join her. “Rosalie, I’m guessing you have a lot of questions. Scratch that. I know you do. But
today you and I have the back end of the line, which means we get to rest. Every day we advance the line in pairs, or threes,
depending on our numbers. Which basically means you’ll complete the line in about ten days. As I’m sure you’ve probably figured
out on your own, we don’t get days off. We work sunrise to sundown every day. That’s why we’ve given structure to the line. If we
didn’t we’d all be dead on the floor by now. The back end is our day off,” she says, adding air quotations around the last two words.“
Once an hour the spriggans will walk through the cave to check on us. When they do, those working the fires up front will pretend to
cough over the smoke. That’s our warning to get up on our feet and begin sifting through the dust on the table. Any other time during
the day, we’re meant to rest our bodies.”
I look apprehensively to the pixies nearest us. They all seem so exhausted. Yeah, I’m tired, but my problem is more starvation than
exhaustion. “I feel so bad, Holly. So many of these pixies look like they’re ready to drop dead on their feet.”“That’s because they are.
” Those words disturb me. I cringe and drop my head. Holly lays her hand softly below my neck. “Don’t feel guilty, Rosalie. You just
spent four days in the hole without food or water. You’ve earned this spot. Anyways, every new pixie starts here on day one. No one
in that line will have ill thoughts over you being here today. So just sit back and try to relax. Sleep if you can. Ivy and Lily will wake us
if we’re asleep when the spriggans come through.”
I nod my head and her hand disappears from my back. I lean into the wall, squirming until I find a comfortable spot. I have so many
questions but can’t deny I’m sleepy too. I roll my head sideways, thinking I’ll get in a quick question or two, but Holly has already
closed her eyes. In fact, by the sound of her breathing, I think she’s already asleep. Dang. Only utter exhaustion could get me to fall
asleep upon impact.
I close my eyes too, wishing that when I awake, I’ll be blinded by the sunlight seeping in through the thatch of my tree house.“Get up!”
a voice yells in a hushed tone, hands grasping my arms and shaking me violently. Scared out of my wits, I jump to my feet,
completely freaking out. My breaths are fast and panicky, and it takes a second to remember where I am. Holly pushes me toward
the table and immediately sifts through the dust.“Rosalie,” she says quietly, “be meticulous as you go through the dust. Literally
make it look like we examine each particle before we bag it.”
I nod, examining the brown powder on the table. I’m not quite sure what it is I’m supposed to be separating, but I don’t dare ask
since our corner of the cave is quickly becoming illuminated with additional light. I keep my head down and sift the dust with my
fingertips, dividing the dust based on shades of brown. Luckily, Ivy or Lily moved our lanterns to our side of the table during my panic
attack so I can actually see what I’m examining. My heart pounds so hard and loud, just like those hide-covered drums the male
pixies beat on during celebrations back home in the Hollow. I’m sure the noise will give me away and the spriggan will beat my guilty
conscience-self silly for not working this last hour. But the light begins to fade, and my heart slows down the dimmer it gets.
Holly releases a long sigh and stands erect, rubbing her eyebrows. I follow her lead and the other two pixies relax a bit as well,
relocating the lanterns to their end of the table again. We fall to the floor and transfer the burden of our weight to the cave wall.
I suddenly realize how hot it is in here. I can only imagine the heat coming off the fires and the poor pixies working beside it. Tiny
beads of sweat are seeping out my skin and reflecting what little light we have. “Holly, is there any water?”
Her head rolls toward me with closed eyes. She nods and murmurs, “Mmm-hmm. Someone should have left us a bucket in the
corner.” I search our tiny back area and find the bucket. I gulp several times and splash a bit on my face and neck. It barely lowers
my body temperature but I do feel a little cooler. Unfortunately, adding more water to my system backfires on me. My bladder
suddenly becomes aware how full it is. All the water I drank this morning has finally gone through my system.“Holly?”
Her eyes bolt open and she jumps to her feet. I reach to pull her back, apologizing for scaring her. She returns to the floor and
releases a long yawn, stretching her arms. “Where do we go to pee?”“There’s a fissure in the wall about half way down.” I stare in
disbelief at her for a moment. She’s kidding, right? “What?” she asks.“You don’t go outside? You go right here in the cave? Doesn’t
it smell in there?”
She shakes her head. “It’s really not that bad. It rarely gets used.” Another yawn.“Why’s that? Does everyone hold it in all day?”“No.
Truth is, once you’ve been here a while, you really don’t go all that often.” I scrunch my eyebrows, trying to figure out how that could
possibly be true. “Look. We’re all skin and bones here. What food goes in, our bodies tend to keep. And what water we drink
typically sweats out through the day. Yes, we all go sometime, but honestly, it’s few and far between.”“That’s awful.”“You can go
outside if you want, but a spriggan is going to go with you. Personally, I don’t want one of them watching me go.”
I moan. I don’t want an audience for this either. I snatch my lantern and follow the cave until I reach the fissure. It’s a skinny opening,
and I have to enter sideways and leave the lantern behind, but it widens once I get in. Like Holly said, the smell isn’t bad. I tiptoe
along the edge and crouch in a spot in the back. I relieve my bladder, trying not to think about how many times this fissure has been
used without cleaning it. I wish I had some leaves to wipe with, but no way was I going to actually search the floor blindly. I tiptoe
again to get out, determined to touch the floor as little as possible.
When I get back to my station, Holly is already asleep. I’m quick to drift off again, and when the pixies awake me a second time, I
manage to react without panicking. We do this over and over again through the day. Like Holly said, pretty much every hour.
Towards the end, I think my internal timer kicks in because I begin to wake up on my own, expecting the spriggans to be making
their rounds again.
As the end of the day nears, I haven’t really had any questions answered, but I do feel a little more refreshed. My muscles aren’t
complaining as much, though my stomach sure is.
A whistle pierces the air. “Come on,” Holly says, pushing herself to her feet. “Day’s over.”
Thank Mother Nature! Now I can eat something. I follow her lead, grabbing my lantern and disposing of it just outside the cave. I’m
the last to fall in line so I have a spriggan practically up my backside. There’s no wind as we progress and my skin feels slick and
grimy. I feel the spriggan’s hot, sticky breath heat the backside of my neck and it sickens me. How does someone who does nothing
but sit outside all day smell so badly by day’s end?
When the line stops I figure we’re back at the pit. The spriggan behind me stands guard as the others carry my fellow pixies to the
bottom. Once the line disappears, a set of rough hands snags my arms. As we rise into the air, I realize I’m not being taken to the
pit. I see nothing but a burned out wasteland with nothing but a stark skeleton buried halfway under the sand. I see no plants, no
water, and no pixies. Where did all the pixies go before me? Juniper, Holly? Lily and Ivy? The violet-headed pixie, whoever she is?
I prepare my feet for an impact that never comes. We descend beyond the wasteland, into air that ripples like waves in water and
tickles my skin, and I suddenly see the pit and all the pixies scattered about. I look to the sky and I still see sky. They’ve glamoured
our prison! No wonder these pixies have never been rescued. No one could see them even if they flew overhead. And who would
stop on a bare wasteland with nothing more to offer than a bare-boned skeleton? No one.
The spriggan drops me several inches before my feet can touch the ground, and I fall forward on my hands and knees upon impact.
Jerk.
Some of the pixies are lining up to take a shower. What’s odd is they line up like they’re set to march, standing lifelessly and not
turning to speak to one another. Others are working on our dinner, breaking nutshells and using a mortar and pestle to grind them
up. They too work in silence. Tonight’s meal looks like a banana and some peanuts, which is slightly comical to watch them peel,
since bananas are as tall as us pixies. I moan internally, wishing we had just a smidgen of pixie dust to make the food a little bigger.
The molecular structure of living organisms can only be stretched a little, but in this case, a little goes a long way. How I would love to
use the dust on myself and make myself larger than the spriggans themselves, but I know it could never happen. Even if I still had my
satchel, the more complicated the molecular structure, the more difficult it is to will the dust to do your bidding. As weak as I am, I’d
never get it to work properly. And I’d only be able to grow an inch or two anyway, which would still put me at a disadvantage next to a
spriggan.
The pixies begin to segregate to their spots in the pit. Why didn’t they ever speak to one another? It’s bad enough I’m stuck here for
the moment, a prisoner in some desolate wasteland. Must I go through this alone even with two dozen pixies by my side?
As if she can read my thoughts, Juniper brings me my dinner. She presses her hand to my forehead to check my temperature and
asks, “How are you holding up, dear?”“I don’t know, Juniper. It’s not right. Us being here. We shouldn’t be prisoners. We’ve done
nothing wrong to deserve this. I want to…I want to…I don’t know. I want to go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning in my
tree house and breathe a sigh of relief because it was all just a dream. And rest easy because I know this kind of thing doesn’t
happen in the real world. I mean, how did this happen, Juniper? How can all of these pixies go missing and no one comes looking?”
“I don’t know.” Great. As if it were even possible, I think I just made her feel worse. But she lifts her head and curves her lips enough
to smile, albeit forced. “Maybe you’ll be the pixie someone comes looking for.”“It only takes one. Right?”
She pats me softly on the shoulder. “Right.”
I wish I could believe she meant that. Juniper lifts my chin with her finger and says, “Goodnight, Rosalie. I sincerely do hope you
wake up in your tree house tomorrow morning and find this was all just a very bad dream.”“Goodnight, Juniper.”
On my own again, I devour my food in five heaping spoonfuls and fill my stomach with three cups of water. Since I didn’t work the line
today, I decide to wait for all the pixies to take their shower first, including Holly, who goes right before me. She offers a small wave
and forces a smile as she passes, sweeping the lingering drops off her skin. Now finally my turn, I take my sweet time dumping
waves of water onto my head, washing away the sweat and dirt that clings to me.
I choose a spot by the edge overlooking the drop off to make my own and gaze up at the night sky. How can the stars do this to me?
Just a few nights ago they performed their show for me from the safety of my Hollow. Now, they twinkle and soar, carrying on above
me in rhythmic fashion, like nothing’s different. But I’m not in my Hollow. And I’m certainly not safe.
The next morning I eat my mash, fill my stomach with water and hold my tongue as the spriggan’s sweaty hands remove me from the
pit. I fall in line once again and observe my surroundings from the corners of my eyes. Still nothing. No birds, no insects, no signs of
life. Feeling defeated, I take one last breath of fresh air before entering the cave and beginning my first (and hopefully last) day of
slave labor.
I meet Holly at the back and place my lantern on the table. Two other lanterns are there and I take a peek at the pixie lying against
the wall. The darkness makes it difficult, but I believe she’s got a bluish tint to her skin. I jump when a fourth lantern clunks on the
table beside me, and I turn to meet the pixie with the gorgeous violet hair. Unfortunately, her grey eyes are ice cold and diminish the
beauty of her other facial features.“I’m a heavy sleeper. Don’t fail me, newbie,” she snaps, shocking me with her rudeness.
Willow. Of course the pixie with the alluring features is the one pixie who suggested I be left to die so I wouldn’t diminish her share of
mash. Of all the pixies to be responsible for… She’s quick to turn her back and settle on the floor. I look to Holly with disbelief,
wondering what it is I’ve done to offend this pixie, but she just shrugs it off.
Holly whispers, “Forget it. She’s…dramatic.”
You think?“Alright. All we do at this station is sort the dirt from the dried mushroom powder.”“What’s the difference?”“No idea. Quite
frankly, we don’t give a crap about the purity of their pixie dust.” My eyebrows lift and my forehead creases in amusement. Way to
go pixies. “We just make it look like we’re meticulous.” The only table without a conveyer belt, Holly takes the pile of powder at the
beginning and sweeps her forearm over it, spreading it into a thin layer before us. “If you see anything obvious, great. Otherwise, I
don’t care which particles make it to your good and bad piles.”
I laugh internally, thinking the faeries deserve as much. “The sprigs don’t ask or check?”“They wouldn’t know the difference either
way. And the faeries obviously haven’t noticed the pixie dust isn’t as strong as it should be. Even if they did, these mushrooms are
just one component they’d have to look in to.”“That’s what they get for slave labor,” I add bitterly.“Exactly. Anyways, the good will go
into the sacks beneath the table. The bad will go into a bucket that we’ll dump on our way out of here.”
Holly begins sifting through the powder and I soon follow her lead. Taking a quick peek at the two against the back wall, I note that
Willow and the other pixie, whose name I don’t know, are already asleep. The sleeping version of Willow is far more likeable, with
features that aren’t taut with stress and anger.“Holly?” I ask, waiting for her to murmur in acknowledgement. “Do you still believe you’
ll be rescued?”“No.” An invisible weight suddenly suffocates my chest. “I hope I’ll be rescued one day but I no longer believe anyone’
s looking for me. I’m sure my family has come to terms with my death by now.”“What’s a family?” I ask curiously.
She pauses to give me the weirdest look. “Seriously? Mother and father? Sometimes siblings, either a brother or a sister?” Now it’s
my turn to give the weird look. I’ve never heard these terms before. “Wow. Okay. Your mother and father would be the female and
male that came together to make your egg. That makes you their pixling. If they had any other pixlings, the females would be called
your sisters and the males your brothers. Together they make up your family and they’re the ones that are there for you, no matter
what. You take care of each other, have each other’s backs.”“Oh. Interesting.” Weird, actually. I play with the pile of dirt before me,
pinching bits here and there and letting them float carelessly to the ground.“So you didn’t have a mother and a father raising you?”
“No. We’re raised by our village. When the eggs are laid, they’re taken to the nursery to be housed. When they’re born, the entire
village raises the pixlings.”