The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Pixie Dust
by Kim Richards 

Ailette lay on her back, atop the crisp autumn leaves littering the forest floor. She stretched her silvery wings and arms outward. Cirene joined her, settling down on her back and smoothing her silky pink pinafore dress.

Overhead the trees, half bare of their foliage, reached upward as if to touch the azure sky above them. The clouds hid their faces today. Both pixies knew they would blot out everything soon—when the rains and snow came to the forest. They knew other ‘things’ would arrive then as well. Neither wanted to think about it this warm afternoon.

“I absolutely adore this time of year,” Cirene exclaimed. She picked up a burgundy oak leaf and turned it around and around. It danced between her slender fingers like a dying ballerina. Then, with a swift turn of her wrist, she closed her fist around the leaf and crushed it. She opened her hand and let the broken pieces fall like confetti among other leaves on the ground.

“Well, I prefer spring. Everything new and unsuspecting pops up with bright, young bodies,” Ailette said with a shrug. “There’s less dust floating around then too.”

“That’s true enough. I do not mind the dust so much. It is just inhaling the decay. The dusky scent of failing life.”

Cirene’s eyes widened. She sat up and turned to her friend. Her lips curled into a wicked smile. “I have decided I will not barricade myself inside the tree this year.”

“What?” Ailette also sat up. She placed one hand gently on Cirene’s shoulder. “They will come. What if they see you?”

“I hope they do! For once, I’m going to stand my ground.” Seeing her friend’s aghast expression, she continued, “Besides, I’ve never actually seen anyone hurt by them. We all just throw our hands in the air and go hide, trembling and huddling like mice.”

A light breeze picked up, sending more leaves cascading down. Laughing, Cirene stood and twirled among them. Her pinafore swished around her bare knees as she danced. Twigs snapped beneath her feet.

Stopping, she held out her hand to Ailette. “I want you to join me.”

Her friend nodded and half smiled as she climbed to her feet.

“I will join you dancing but I won’t join you in your foolishness,” she said. “I will snuggle inside the belly of an aspen and sleep away the cold time.”

“You are a coward,” Cirene said. She leaped into the air, flitted in a circle, and then darted off between the pine trees.

The corners of Ailette’s mouth turned down and her brow wrinkled with her concern. She kicked at the dead leaves and sighed. Down in the depths of her heart she had an awful premonition she would never dance among the leaves with her friend again.

* * * *

The dark things arrived in November, a month sooner than expected. Ailette watched their grey lumbering shapes move among the trees like thick shadows. Occasionally one would turn its round, hairless head her direction. Slowly she crept deeper among the branches of the pine tree she perched on, hoping none of those flickering red eyes saw her. Perhaps the fragrant pine needles would mask her pixie scent.

The dark things wailed, long and low. Not a mournful sound exactly because it contained a tinge of pain. Ailette clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Please be gone. Please be gone,” she whispered.

The whir of fluttering wings drew her attention. When she opened her eyes she saw Cirene, moved swiftly through the cool air, bobbing lightly around the grey head of the nearest dark thing.

“No!” Ailette screamed.

Several of the dark things stopped moving and turned their faces her direction. Their eyes glowed like embers. Ailette felt the hot stares upon her. She drew back as if burned.

Her cry out caught her friend’s attention as well. Cirene hovered in place like a humming bird. Focused on Ailette, she did not see the dark thing below her reach up towards her with its massive arms.

It slammed its hands together with the pixie caught between its palms. Her body crushed like the dry leaves around, the bits of Cirene silently floated to the ground.

Ailette took flight, heading towards the towering tree tops. She found her hole inside the Aspen and crawled inside. Then she wept until the storms came and her tears simply added to the rain drops. It would be a long winter.

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Fiction © Copyright Kim Richards
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com