The Dust Between the Cracks
The Ticking Lab – March 1826
The snow still clung to the edges of rooftops, though the days were lengthening and the bright gleam of spring sun on frozen eaves foretold the changing of seasons. In the North Pole, spring came slowly—cautiously. The icicles above the lab windows dripped in quiet rhythm, and patches of stubborn frost lingered beneath the eaves like old secrets. Within the quiet hum of the Ticking Lab, however, time moved differently.
Santa Chris Kringle had returned not long ago from what had felt like sixty long days of magical deliveries compressed into a single Christmas Eve. Elves had rejoiced, cider had been shared, and Rudy had personally given every reindeer an extra day of oats and nuzzles. Thistle Lemmabean had declared a holiday and passed out peppermint tarts. But even celebration gives way to curiosity when you’re Chris Kringle—and curiosity had begun to whisper once more.
The lab, nestled just beneath the eastern gable of Hearth Hall, was alive with the sound of ticking gears and whispering pendulums. Long glass tubes rotated slowly in warming racks. Clock springs twitched and clicked. And against the far wall, a dozen enchanted timepieces—some accurate to the breath—charted seconds like falling snowflakes. The room always smelled faintly of cinnamon wax, cold iron, and whatever powder had most recently exploded.
His workbench still bore faint rings from where mugs of cider had been left during frantic experiments in the development of the Messenger Elves. Blue fairy dust still lingered faintly on the side shelf, drifting in gentle ripples near a cooling coil. But now, those projects were behind him. The trays had been cleaned and rearranged. The sifter had been polished. All focus now lay on the dust that no one had yet named.
Most of the fairy dust had already been harvested, separated, and stored: Red for flight, Yellow for teleportation, and Blue for time. Each had proven miraculous. Each had changed the world. The experiments had filled journals, reshaped the Workshop, and launched entire teams of elves into new roles and responsibilities.
And yet…
Santa squinted through his spectacles at the faintest dusting of other colors—specks that clung to the edges of trays, or shimmered faintly between particles, as if they were trying not to be seen. They weren’t red. Not quite. Nor yellow. Nor blue. They were something else, something more difficult to pin down.
“I know you’re in there,” he muttered to no one in particular. Then, with great care, he brought over his sifter: a mesh so fine it could divide a whisper in two. Day after day, he ran samples through the sieve, watching how the fragments fell. The process was slow, hypnotic, and filled with tiny disappointments.
Sometimes, he left a tray uncovered beside the open window, hoping the winter sunlight would reveal a hint. Other times he stirred the particles with a silver thread, whispering old words he’d learned from the Fairies of Dondavar—soft syllables not heard by mortal ears in centuries.
He even brewed a cup of Red-Yellow blend one morning and sprinkled a single drop into the dust pile, hoping for a reaction. Nothing. The dust merely settled back into stillness.
Bernard stopped by occasionally with sandwiches and updates. Rudy Winters came once to drop off a stray antler Santa had left in the Sleigh Yard. Wink hovered in the rafters for an hour or two one afternoon, watching in silence before giving a tiny nod and zipping away. But for the most part, Santa worked alone.
He spoke to the dust as he sifted it. “You don’t like being seen, do you? Too small for glory, too strange for comfort. But I see you. I do.”
And then it happened.
A thin, shimmering spiral of green drifted down from the mesh one afternoon as the spring winds shook the lab windows. Not yellow-green, not blue-green. Just… green.
It didn’t pulse with energy like Red or shift space like Yellow. It didn’t hum like Blue.
No, this dust wobbled.
The flecks shimmered and trembled faintly, as if uncertain of their shape even while sitting still. Santa leaned in close. One particle of toy wood he’d dropped nearby had become blurry at the edge, its carved star now sagging slightly into a circle. He blinked. The shape returned.
Santa straightened. “You’re not just between colors,” he said aloud. “You’re between forms.”
He swept a sample onto his stabilizing tray and watched. The tray’s enchanted grid captured vibrations, wavelengths, and magical oscillations. Where Red danced in high arcs and Blue rippled with temporal pulse, Green wavered, subtly changing its own shape in rhythm with its surroundings.
Santa’s brow furrowed. The dust did not assert itself. It responded. He waved a finger above it, and the shimmer below softened. He leaned close and whispered, and the specks flickered faster. When he stood up and turned away, they calmed.
“I think you make things… malleable,” Santa whispered.
To test it, he retrieved a small wooden train from his gift shelf. It was carved from pine, sturdy, cheerful, with candy-striped wheels. He set it next to a shallow bowl of the green dust and used a thin candycane-tipped wand to lift a few granules onto its roof.
At first, nothing happened. Then the roof… slumped. The edges of the toy curled as if softening, though the wood itself remained intact. Santa nudged it. The train gently sagged sideways, wheels folding in. The toy hadn’t melted—but it had stopped resisting shape.
"It's not destruction," he murmured. "It's… permission. Permission for matter to forget what it was."
And just as quickly as it had begun, the effect faded. The toy’s roof firmed, the wheels reformed, and it clicked gently back into place.
This dust didn’t force change. It allowed it.
Santa leaned back, heart racing. There were uses here—careful, potent uses. In the hands of a sculptor or a repair elf, this could be revolutionary. In the wrong hands? Disturbing.
He scribbled furiously into his leather-bound journal, labeling the tray:
Green Fairy Dust: Unlocks potential. Enables transformation. Stable, but unpredictable.
And beneath it, in smaller script:
Use with intent. Never in haste.
He leaned back, letting the quill drop. The tickers continued their chorus behind him, steady as breath.
A knock sounded at the stairwell door. It creaked open, and Bernard stepped in, blinking against the dusty light.
“I brought apple bread. And you forgot to sleep again.”
Santa smiled, still scribbling. “I think we’ve found the fourth.”
Bernard peered at the tray and squinted. “Green, huh? It’s always the leftovers that surprise us.”
He set the bread down beside a cracked mug and turned to leave. “Just don’t use it on the candy canes. We had enough wobbly lollipops last winter.”
The clocks on the wall gave a soft chime, a coocoo, and a bong. It was half past five. Outside, the snow began to melt in earnest. Somewhere far above, a bird sang for the first time in weeks.