Sun Dust

A short tale for you, inspired by a rather good story by VS Pearson, itself inspired by Miranda Kate’s Midweek Flash. Sort of a chain inspiration thing going on here. You may wish to read V’s tale first, since mine weaves around it.

I watched the woman aimlessly wander the shelves, while her husband dozed in the refreshment alcove, his glass of lemonade warming, untouched, on the small table to his right. She glanced at him, smiled, and continued to entertain herself.

Our emporium is built into the cliff, and therefore offers sunbeaten tourists a cool respite from the summer sun. We have three floors of second-hand junk, curiosities, gew-gaws, knick-knacks and what-yer-call-its, along with works from local artists. This woman spent a long time poking around porcelain dolls with cracked faces, antique cameras, and dusty books. She kept stealing glances at me as I tidied the till area.

She stopped by a shelf that held a single item – a little glass bottle, full of a fine, goldish powder. It bore a label, designed to look like old parchment, that said ‘Sun Dust.’ A little gimmick, she thought, to get tourists to spend a couple of pounds on a cheap mixture of sand and glitter.

Once again, she looked at me. I lit a new incense cone. This day I was wearing my pastel-pink top and pastel-blue skirt and pastel-green trainers, and pale-yellow ribbons that held my hair in cute high bunches. I could tell what she was thinking.

“I’m exactly what you think I am,” I said, with a grin.

She hurriedly looked away, a small frown wrinkling her brow. She stared at the bottle in front of her while her mind turned, confused. The woman was wondering how I could possibly know what she was thinking? That she thought I looked like a vampire in disguise? No, that was silly … unless vampires can read minds.

“Which we can,” I said.

She took a sharp breath, hurriedly grabbed the nearest thing – the bottle of ‘Sun Dust’ – and gave me a fiver, jabbering “Keep the change.”

As she roused her husband, I felt compelled to warn her. “Do be careful to use this sparingly. It’s really potent magic.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and dragged her bewildered husband away.

That was years ago, now, and I’d honestly thought she’d taken my words to heart and hidden the bottle away, like the scarce few others I had been able to make, never to actually be opened. For after all, who wants a handful of sand and glitter when they could have a fun faux-magic bottle?

Last week, though, I think she must have opened it. You see, I wasn’t lying about the potency of ‘Sun Dust’. I made it from the dusted remains of several vampires, my sires, who were turned to ash by the direct rays of the sun. You’ve seen Buffy, right? Vampire wanders out into sunlight and POOF. Well, the dust that remains has properties if mixed with certain powdered crystals. One of those properties is that, if it gets high enough in the atmosphere, it destroys cloud-cover. That in turn heralds dawn-to-dusk sunlight and an intense heatwave. Somehow my customer must have scattered her Sun Dust far enough, high enough, maybe using a fan or something, that it took hold and its magic was unleashed.

Looking into your own mind now, dear reader, I see you wondering ‘Why on earth would a vampire want eternal sunshine?’

As I said, ‘Sun Dust’ has potent magic. Yes, it brings bright sunshine and an end to rainfall, but that’s not all it does. It also drains away the sun’s luminosity, the sun’s light, though not its heat. Have you noticed the dimming of the day yet? It’s already started. In a few weeks there will be little left, and the earth will be doomed to eternal darkness.

Now, can you think of any reason why a vampire might desire that?