CHRISTMAS EVE
By
Carter Swart

    I've always scoffed at practitioners of the metaphysical world, that is until I saw a supernatural phenomenon first hand.  It happened during Christmas week in 1996 while I was vacationing at my mountain retreat near Lake Tahoe.  My only neighbor at the time lived in a rustic mansion a few hundred yards above my place.  We'd never met, but I'd heard he was a recluse--like me.
    On Christmas eve, having tired of the repetitious TV offerings of schmaltz and carols, I trekked up the hill to the creek and sat down on a ledge.  It was a nippy winter's eve, a full moon draping the landscape in a gossamer shroud. The pungent smell of wood smoke spiced the mountain air, and I felt a profound appreciation for nature.
    Idling away the time by tossing pebbles into the creek, I spied a strange phenomenon in the water, a translucent, shimmering glow that flitted here-and-there in the creek's quiet backwater.  Amidst the rotting leaves, tree roots, and rocky detritus, I watched the glowing entity suddenly dim as it reached the bank. To my complete astonishment, something incredible emerged from the glowing diaphanous cocoon, a perfectly proportioned, six-inch replica of a girl, buck naked, and as curious of me as I was of her.
    I gasped and rubbed my eyes. She glanced back at the water, as if to flee, then changed her mind and minced up to where I was seated.  I gawked at her and tried to slow my thumping heart.  Midgets I'd seen, but never anything like this.  She was lovely.  Her breasts bounced in a tantalizing, saucy way, and her long black hair glistened in the moonlight.
    I eased up the ledge, trying to cope with this miraculous vision, waiting for it to dissolve.  But it didn't.
    She smiled boldly and extended her hand.  I didn't know what to say.  But I knew she was not a figment of my imagination, no blot of mustard, nor bit of beef; this lady was real, flesh-and-blood real.
    "I've a great loss to share," she murmured with just a trace of Welsh in her accent.  Her eyes were swollen and red- rimmed.
    I was unable to speak.
    "Please, sir, will you listen to me?"  She had a high, sweet voice, resonant, with a minstrel's timbre.
    I wasn't going anywhere.
    She jumped onto the ledge, briskly invaded my space, and hopped into my lap.  She sat down, shook water from her hair, and attempted to cover herself with her arms.
    I loaned her my hankie, which she coyly draped around her.  Her eyes were a startling shade of pastel green, like that you see near the crest of a wave.
    "What--or who are you?" I finally blurted.
    "He called me Eve."
    "He?"
    "My dear Alan--my lord."
    "Go on, please."
    She saw my problem and patiently explained that she was a water fairy, from Devon, and that she'd been brought to this land by her English gentleman, the man who'd found her.
    Her voice was quite strong and resolute for one so tiny.  She wiped herself dry and asked my name.
    "Rex--Rex Hallendale."
    "A nice name.  Do you live nearby?"
    I nodded, mesmerized by her loveliness, and by the incredible realization that I was actually speaking with a supposedly mythical being.  Could dwarfs, orcs, and hobbits be far behind?  I gazed at her in wonder.
    "Please sir, will you come with me?"
    "Where?"
    "My lord, I fear, is--dying."  Tears appeared, slipping down her cheeks like tiny ribbons of silver.
    "Lord who?"
    "Lord Kensington.  His house is just above us.  Can we hurry?"
    For some reason I felt a brief stab of disquiet, as though something unpleasant were gaining on me.  "What's wrong with him?"
    "An ailment.  We're probably too late.  Please, can we go now."
    She rose, slipped effortlessly into my greatcoat pocket, and pointed upward.
    I took the steep, narrow path up the hill.
    A few minutes later we arrived at Kensington's place, an immense redwood mansion set deep in the trees.  I'd heard that the man was a noted traveler, a folklorist and writer.
    Inside the house it was cold and dark.  The lights were off and so was the heat.  Eve asked me to turn on the lights.  I found a bank of switches by the door.  The place lit up like Disneyland.  It was a huge house, festooned with expensive paintings, Oriental rugs, and heavy dark furniture.
    "Upstairs.  Hurry," she cried from my pocket.
    I ran across the room and up the broad staircase to the second of three floors.  We arrived in Kensington's bedroom suite and, after I'd turned on the lights, we knelt to examine the old man's corpse.  He was lying under the covers on an immense bed, his face composed, his eyes closed, as if in sleep.
    Eve climbed from my pocket onto the bed, walked over to Kensington, and lay down in the hollow between his neck and the pillow.  "Poor, dear Alan," she sobbed, gently stroking the withered flesh.
    He was quite elderly, with thinning hair of purest white.
    I looked around the gargantuan room.  One wall was lined with book cases, floor to ceiling.  I walked over and peered at the titles.  Most were related to folklore, mysticism, and the occult in one way or another.  I chose a small dark green ancient tome entitled, Water Fairies, Fact and Fiction, and absently thrust it into my jacket pocket.
    I suggested we phone the police, but she vehemently shook her head, arguing that her discovery would shock the globe and create problems for the few Little Folk left in the world.  I had to agree with the notion that she'd cause quite a stir.
    We talked it over.  And after a few minutes reflection, she offered to be my life's companion--if I would promise to care for her and never divulge her existence to anyone.  I readily agreed to her terms.  After all, I was lonely and one doesn't often run across a bona fide water fairy.
    Before I called the police, she led me to a large closet.  I pulled back the louvered doors and entered a room containing a vast number of women's clothes and accessories.  Eve then directed me to a built-in drawer stuffed with frilly lingerie, slips, bras, panties and the like.  She asked me to fill a suitcase with these items and with a dozen or so dresses, skirts, and Levi's.  I asked her why she'd want these things, considering her Lilliputian size.  She laughed merrily and winked.
    On Christmas morning I took Eve to my cabin, then called the sheriff's department.  By noon it was all over but the shouting.  The officers informed me that the coroner had preliminarily labeled Kensington's death as due to natural causes.  They thanked me for my trouble, saying the old man's son was on his way out from Boston to take care of the arrangements.  I bid them farewell with an overpowering sense of excitement and anticipation I'd never felt before.
    Once I'd gotten over the initial shock, I found that relating to a water fairy was not as difficult as one might think. She was intelligent, articulate, and fascinating.  She spoke of her early life in the woods and the Tors of Devon, of her family and relatives, of her dying breed, her discovery by Kensington, his devotion to her, and his love of folklore.  She genuinely grieved for the man, though it was hard to believe they'd had much in common.  Yet she said, in an unguarded moment, that Kensington had been a passionate lover.
    Say what?
    The days passed rapidly; it was the happiest time I've ever known.  We laughed, wined and dined on all sorts of delicacies, and spent hours talking--a voyage of incredible discovery.  She loved opera and watching videos.  She was full of fun; romping in the nude, playing tricks on me, and laughing all the time.
    Though a splendid companion, she had a precocious, sometimes irritating side to her personality.  Willful and capricious, she often teased me and played jokes on me.  Sometimes there was a harsh bent to her merriment.  I could forgive her anything, though, because she was so beautiful, so alive.  How many times I willed her to be life-sized.
    I questioned  her about the women's' clothes we'd brought over from Kensington's.  Her answer was an arcane series of indecipherable riddles.  Thus, a clever game of seduction began.  I became its willing participant.  For after a few days of being with her, mere companionship wasn't enough.  I hungered at sight of her nakedness, her perfection.  I was consumed with an unholy passion, a lust obviously irreconcilable to the  situation.  And she encouraged me in this, playing the sly coquette.
    One afternoon, shortly before I had to return to work in San Francisco, she hopped up beside me on the sofa, posed seductively and crooned a lilting tune.  She touched my hand and stared into my eyes.  "Do you want me, Rex?  Sexually?"
    The blood thrumming in my neck, and I stuttered, "H--hell, yes. But--"
    "Shush, dear.  You can have me," she said huskily.  "I've the ability to--uh--change shape.  But you must be a part of the symbiosis.  It's called corporeal transfer.  Have you heard of it?"
    "No.  What do I have to do?"  I'd gladly have committed murder to get her in the sack--and damn her, she knew it.
    Smiling shyly, she said, "You must desire me without reservation.  It must come from within.  You must be totally committed to it and to me or else it won't work.  Are you?"
    I felt lightheaded.  "You mean, you can--grow?"
    "Rex, do you want me without reservation?"
    "Oh my God, yes!"
    "Touch my breasts then and repeat after me."
    I reached out a finger and touched her perfect breasts.  She murmured a string of esoteric sentences--containing words I couldn't fathom--in a sing-song voice that I haltingly repeated as best I could.
     The transference process was shockingly swift.  There was a shattering burst of violet light, a dreadful sense of deep enervation, then a long slide into a restless slumber.
    I woke a few minutes later, feeling exhausted.
    Eve was sitting next to me.  Full sized, enchantingly lovely, fragrant--and naked.  She laughed coolly and came into my arms.  We made love with abandon.  Never had there been such perfection in the act of love, such incredible ecstasy.
    In the morning we had breakfast together, while she more fully explained the rules of the game.  Through the process of corporeal transfer we could be together like this roughly two weeks out of every month.  For both our sakes we had to keep it at that.  The metamorphosis would not affect me in any harmful way, nor could she be injured by it, so long as we did not abuse it.  She and Kensington had lived for years like this without ill effect.
    And so we up housekeeping in my Bay Area home.  We were so very happy.  It was like an eternal honeymoon.  She had an inexhaustible desire for ribald, kinky, and ingenious sex.  I must admit, though, that the episodes of lassitude which followed each transfer seemed to grow exponentially.  Eve explained that this was normal.
    A nettlesome problem surfaced a few weeks after we'd returned to San Francisco.  One night I got out Kensington's green tome and idly riffled through it.  It was fascinating.  But in a chapter on water fairies, Kensington had underlined this paragraph:
     Although water fairies are beautiful and sensuous, one  should be warned that they often possess a darker side.  Capricious and fun loving, they can present a false face  to the gullible.  Frequently, they use treachery to gain their ends.
    Kensington had also underlined another paragraph later in the chapter:
     Water fairies have the power to change shape.  This  requires the accommodation of a willing, loving human subject.  The process, known as corporeal transfer,  may contain the risk of--"   Here, the page had been ripped from the book.
    The next day I asked Eve about these passages.  She peered at the book and frowned.  I read the words to her, but she refused to discuss it.  The somewhat unflattering description of water fairies darkened her mood for days, and so we agreed to lay the matter to rest.  But I continued to have this nagging feeling that all was not well.  I even had my doctor give me a complete medical checkup.  He found nothing wrong.  But still the illogical sense of unease lingered.
    A year later, while waiting for a dental exam, I flipped through the pages of West Coast magazine.  In the last section I found an article detailing prominent Californians who had died during the previous year.
Lord Alan Mandrake Kensington was among the dear departed.  The picture of him depicted a much younger man than the one I'd seen at the Tahoe house.  Possibly they'd used an earlier photo.  But closer inspection of his lengthy obituary gave cause for wonderment.  It stated Kensington's age at death to be fifty-seven years.  Impossible!  The corpse I saw was that of a decrepit, ancient man.
    I shivered in the quick chill of a dark premonition.  Had Kensington's premature aging anything to do with Eve, with corporeal transfer?  Could it be a deadly thing for the male, like mating with a black widow?
I fled the office and went straight home to confront Eve, describing my oft felt fear that something lethal was in following in my slipstream.  I was very upset.  In fact,  demanded answers.
    At first she laughed, claiming the magazine had made a mistake.  When I didn't respond in kind, she threw a tantrum, threatening to leave me.  Then she changed course and shed copious tears, hugging me fiercely, promising that I would come to no harm.
    I desperately wanted to believe her because I couldn't imagine life without her.  In the end, I found it convenient to smother my fear.  That was last month, and things have been uneasy between us ever since..

Copyright, Carter Swart

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Christmas Eve first appeared in "Dark Infinity" magazine, 1995