Dust

A soft spattering of notes; piano strings plucked with the hammers held back. A frozen breath. A crystal cloud. And, appearing in the center, Juniper Brandywine.

Her pink teardrop slippers sink into the thick hand-knitted comfort warming five-year-old Emily Spears whose face is so close, the wind from her lips flutters Junipers wings. No longer a nuisance, time has promoted Emily to Scourge, to Bane, Opponent, Nemesis… 

And soon, Juniper thinks, Assassin. She shivers, equal parts fear and withdrawal.

Emily giggles. The vacuity between her Lateral Incisors grips Juniper’s attention. Non-stop service straight to Hell’s Kitchen. Emily’s brother’s boot unintentionally opened the milk-tooth passage seventeen days ago (Christopher Spears, age thirteen, fully-vested last Christmas).

Emily drones. Garbled nonsense, to Juniper, anyway. Prosaic banality without redemption. Just… grey.

Then Emily laughs. An empty laugh. But Juniper seizes the opportunity to make a hopeful appraisal.

Alas, her heart sinks. Random chance extracted Emily’s Central Incisors early. Months wait for her others.

With a sigh, Juniper unties a purple sack from her belt. Inside, no surprise; a day, maybe two, and Juniper dies.

She wretches and wobbles. Shaking, convulsing, she licks and dips her fingertip into the bag. It comes out sparkling.

Dust 

Juniper snorts most and licks the rest. Remembering young, naïve days with her friends; her clique; her cabal; her camarilla. They were invincible, flying through the Hollow and laughing at Faders both secretly and openly.

Faders had no excuses, with such work aplenty and a market growing bullish faster than inflation in Emily’s world. At least no excuses that mattered. Two bits, three bits, even ten-dollar checks Juniper would happily sign. Baby teeth brought a hundred times more, even unrefined. And turned into Pixie Dust? Triple that value again.

No excuses in this economy, Juniper thought. Well, at least she did back then.

Her blood saturates and Juniper’s legs stabilize, making her feel normal again, but she’s marked and constantly reminded she’s not normal by her faded skin. Four fixes left she estimates and reties the bag to her waist.

She sings. Her voice, unlike her body, still perfect; blue bells and glass bottles; waves, wind and wooden chimes. Although much falls beyond human ears, and Emily cannot understand the tongue, the child’s eyes grow heavy, until quiet snores blow back Juniper’s wings. 

Hopefully, Emily sleeps till daybreak; a wish Juniper knows futile, for tomorrow when Emily summons, Juniper will die.

She needs something she stopped believing in seventeen days ago, when she came to harvest Emily’s Central Incisors one year ahead of schedule.

Easy work. Standard operation.

Take two teeth, leave four quarters.

Piece of cake.

Admittedly, Juniper had limited experience in multi-tooth transactions, and this doubled her standard currency load, but she wasn’t worried. She had tenure. Years of service without a single problem on the books.

She appeared after midnight, easily procuring each tooth without even needing to enlist the help of her Pillow-Jack.

Quarters one and two slipped under the case, quietly and quickly. Three required more force, but it went. Oh, how she wishes she’d stopped at seventy-five cents. How different her life would be.