Immortal Stories: Eve (4 page)

“You’re under no obligation to accept anything I say.”

“Well yeah, but…” He gestured wordlessly to Dee.  “Don’t think I can pretend this isn’t happening here.”

Eve rubbed Dee’s head.  The pixie cooed gently, while continuing to eat.

“It’s been my experience that people are as capable of denying things they experience directly as they are with things they’re only told about.  The perspective of humankind is extremely fragile.  You’re hardly the first person to see a pixie, and I’ve no doubt you know at least a goblin or an elf.  Others are more rare or more regionally common, but all of this is to say you have run across a person or two who was only
somewhat
human.  You only never knew it before now.”

Dee finished eating, and took flight.  She circled the room several times—it was impossible to say how many circuits only because pixies in flight are typically too quick for the eye—and then landed on Eve’s shoulder.

“Doesn’t she have to wait a half hour after eating or something?” Rick asked.

“You come see see now,” the pixie said to Eve.

“Come see what, child?” Eve asked.

“Come see see.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“See sick.  Come see see, see sick.”

“I still…” Eve looked at Rick, who was nodding.

“Cee, like the letter,” Rick said.  “I get it.   Cee is a person, like Dee is.  Or a pixie.  A pixie person.”

“Yes, Cee like Dee,” Dee said.  “But Cee sick, Dee not sick.”

“Hello,” Rick said. 

He held out his hand, the way Eve had, and soon Dee was perched on him.  Eve’s heart broke a little at the idea of this confused man embracing the new strangeness of his world so much more openly than most of those who preceded him.

“Your friend Cee is a pixie like you?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.  Cee sick.”

“Do you want us to bring her food?”

“Uh-huh.”

“All right, we can do that.  Where is she?”

“In the tree.”

“Which tree?”

“Big tree.”

Rick looked up at Eve.  “Any chance we get better directions?”

“No, but she can lead us there.  It’s probably not far.”

“Not far,” Dee said.  “We fly.  Very fast.”

“We can’t fly, little one,” Eve said.

“Oh.  Take longer then.”

Humanity had developed a strong reliance on timekeeping.  It was one of the things she found most curious about the modern world.  Everyone had a watch or another device to track hours, minutes and seconds, and they all agreed that a certain time of day was always that time of day.  In America, sometimes, everybody decided to ignore an hour, or add an extra hour, for no obvious reason.  And there appeared to be a willful ignorance of the circularity of the globe.  Five o’clock simply
was
, somehow.

According to Rick’s cellular phone it was past ten PM when he and Eve and Dee left his home to wander the neighborhood in search of the big tree with the unhealthy pixie.  Eve thought this was probably “late”, but didn’t expect to accustom herself to the regional diurnal schedule soon.  She’d napped in between their sexual forays and had eaten a full meal, so this seemed like the ideal time to travel somewhere on foot.  It was quickly apparent that she was the only one in the area who felt this way.

“The streets are so empty,” she said.

“Dunno what you mean,” Rick said.  Two cars were just then driving past, making his point.

“I mean people, not cars.”

“There’s people
in
the cars.  You know that, right?  We don’t have to have that conversation?”

“I realize they’re machines being operated by people.  I mean only that no one is sharing the sidewalk with us.”

“This time of night, people are where they want to be or far enough away that they have to drive.  Plus, it’s Sunday.  Do they have calendars where you’re from?”

“No.  And time moves much more quickly.  This day has been eternal.”

“Hope that’s not a complaint.”

“It isn’t.”

“Where did she go?”

With only the streetlights and a waning moon to see by, Eve was quickly developing an appreciation for more comprehensive footwear choices than what she currently had.  The combination of sandals and bare feet was perfectly adequate in moderate climates for very nearly all of history, but didn’t quite suffice in a modern urban landscape.  Not when it was dark and the sidewalk was uneven.

They were going slowly, then, because she didn’t dare walk much faster.  Rick had to slow to her pace, as each of his strides was a stride-and-a-half of hers.  The fast-moving pixie they were attempting to follow wasn’t as courteous.

“She should be ahead,” Eve guessed.  She had no more idea than he, but they were approaching the same trees they’d passed earlier, which were in the approximate direction Dee had headed from the front door.

Rick was carrying a box of Chinese food in one hand and trying to keep his hand out to help Eve with the other.  For the second time in the day, she considered how much faster it would be if he just tossed her over his shoulder.

“You know, this whole idea made a lot more sense inside.  Now I’m just taking my leftovers for a walk.”

They both picked up a familiar buzz.  Dee hovered in front of Rick’s face.

“You should learn to fly,” she said.  “Much faster.”

“You’re not wrong, little lady.”

She humphed and flew off.  Based on her departure trajectory, they appeared to be traveling in the correct direction.

“You think she’s mad I called her little lady?” he asked.  “It’s kind of old-school sexist.  Didn’t mean it like that, it just came out.”

“Pixies are mostly literal when they speak in the common tongue, so I doubt it.  They have metaphors in their own, but I’ve never been able to understand their meanings.  I think she likes you.”

“Cool.  Think she’ll let me call her Tinkerbell?”

“You can ask.  Pixies tend to prefer shorter names.”

“Well I was joking anyway.  Says her name’s Dee, I’ll call her that.”

“Maybe she’ll let you adopt her after I’ve left.”

He laughed.  “Number one, I didn’t know that was a thing, so thank you, maybe I will.  Number two, who said you’re going anywhere?”

“This feels like the wrong place to have this conversation,” she said.

“Why, because my neighbors can hear us?  Look, I know what this is, but I also know you don’t have another place to go right now, or a job, or more than three days of clothing, so I’m saying you can stick around.”

Eve thought of all the ways she could respond, but nothing sounded both honest and kind, so she kept her silence.  It was all right, because they’d reached the trees.

It was the sort of place that passed as a park for a heavily populated area, but it was really nothing more than a half-dozen trees, a curated lawn, and two wood benches.  It was comically inadequate. 

“I know this isn’t true,” she said, “but if you told me this was the last evidence of a continental forest, I might believe you.”

“Nah, this is new.  Used to be a public lot, they decided to put the trees in a couple years ago.  It’s not a forest, but it’s not nothing.”

“No.  But it’s close to nothing.  I don’t know if you know what a forest really is.”

“Yeah, kids these days, don’t even know what a real forest is.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

Dee returned. 

“Big tree!”

She buzzed around their heads until they made it off the sidewalk, down the manicured lawn, and to the third of six trees.  It didn’t look particularly large in comparison to the rest.  It was tall, but they were all tall.

“Okay, we’re here, Dee,” Rick said.  “Where’s your friend?”

“Top,” Dee said.

Rick had a function on his cellular phone that turned it into a flashlight, which he used to assess the height of the tree.

“Oh dear,” he said.  “Been a long time since I climbed a tree.”

“I’ll do it,” Eve said.

“No, no, I can do it, I’m just figuring out the best way to start.”

“I used to have to scale trees much larger and less accommodating, with a predator bearing down.  I promise, I am a better climber than you.”

He turned the light on her.

“We’re really doing this?  The whole
older than mankind
thing, we’re sticking with that story?”

“It’s my life story.  I only have one.”

“Right.  Okay, sure.  How can I help?”

“You can save us time by lifting me to that lower bough, and keeping the light trained on the upper branches.”

“Fine.” 

He seemed put out to be ceding the tree duties to her.  She imagined it was some artifact of chivalry he was answering to.  But it didn’t make sense for him to risk his own health at something she could perform more efficiently, especially for a tree this small.  His weight might bring down a branch that could support her.

She kicked off her sandals.  He put his hands under her arms.  “Okay, we’ll do this like a dance move, right?  Count of three, I’ll lift you over my head.”

A three-count, and then he essentially threw her straight up.  She had no trouble grabbing hold of the lowermost narrow limb, and in fact nearly missed it because she overshot slightly.  The tree complained with a tiny crackling sound, but otherwise held her.

She swung up and onto the branch, then began feeling her way higher, the familiar sense of bark between her toes and—in spots where there was no branch strong enough—between her thighs.

We came from the trees,
she thought. 
To the trees we always return.

Dee buzzed by her ear at a little more than halfway up.

“How close are we?”

“Higher,” she said.  “Almost.”

It didn’t occur to Eve until she had nearly reached the highest point that what she was doing made no sense.  She’d never known a pixie to get sick, so what was probably happening was that Dee’s friend Cee was expiring from old age, not suffering from some kind of ailment.  That being the case, there wasn’t anything Eve, or Rick, or anyone could do aside from bury her politely once she was gone.  Food wasn’t going to help.

“Is she too weak to fly?” Eve asked.

“Too weak.”

You could have carried her down,
she thought. 

That was the other part of why what Eve was doing didn’t make sense.  Pixies could carry things heavier than other pixies.  There was no reason Dee couldn’t have brought her friend to the base of the tree.

“How are you doing?” Rick asked.

“I think I’m almost there.”

“Okay.  You want me to throw the food to you or something?”

“I’ll bring her down.”

“Okay.  So you know, watching you climb a tree is maybe the sexiest thing I’ve seen all day.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Also, someone just walked by and probably thought I was saying that to a squirrel, so I appreciate you answering.”

She laughed.

The nest was in a Y-shaped split near the very top.  It was made of leaves from the tree, and woven twigs.  In many ways it looked no different than a bird’s nest, but there was a complexity in the detail that indicated this was something crafted by a being with fingers and thumbs.

Inside the nest was a brown-haired pixie.

“Hello,” Eve said.  “You must be Cee.”

Cee didn’t speak.  She moved her little head in recognition of having been spoken to, but that was all.

There was definitely something wrong with Cee. 

Eve had seen pixies die of old age on several occasions.  It was sad, but rather dignified.  Mostly, they put their heads down and went to sleep and didn’t ever wake up again.

Whatever was happening to Cee wasn’t at all like that.  She looked like she was trapped in a spider’s web, but there was no spider.

“Child, where have you been flying?”

*   *   *

Taking Cee down took some time.  Before seeing the pixie’s condition Eve thought it might be possible to slip her into a pocket prior to descending, but as soon as she laid eyes on the poor thing she knew that wasn’t going to work.  Cee was in a fragile condition, and she was also attached to the nest somehow.  So instead, Eve took the entire nest with her and descended one-handed.

“Here, hand it down,” Rick said when she was within arm’s reach.

“I don’t want you to touch her,” she said.

“I won’t hurt her.”

“That isn’t my concern.”

She and the nest jumped down together instead, sort-of caught by Rick before hitting the ground.

“How is she?” he asked.  “Should we give her the food?”

“Not here.  We have to bring her back.  I need better light.”

“Something’s wrong,” he guessed.

“I think so.”

A short walk later, Cee and the nest were resting on the little-used dining table in Rick’s home.  Dee was flying around Rick’s head at an unseemly velocity—an indication of worry. 

“I take it this isn’t what they look like when they die,” he said.  He was leaning too close.

“Please, don’t touch her,” Eve said.

“Yeah, I get that.  I won’t hurt her.”

“My concern is for you.  She’s sick, but I don’t know what with.”

Cee appeared to be melting.  No other description seemed fully adequate to the task.  The web it looked like she was caught in was part of her body, and it was sticky.  She was adhered to the nest.

“You’re worried I’m gonna catch whatever this is?  What about you?”

“I don’t respond to diseases,” she said.  “I never have.”

He laughed.  “Sure, okay.  Makes sense.  Must be nice.”

Eve touched the stringy part of Cee with the end of a pencil.  Something
did
seem a little familiar about this.  She’d never witnessed a pixie melt—ostensibly because pixies didn’t melt—but maybe she’d seen it happen to something else. 

“It’s not at all nice,” she said.  “I’ve seen every plague this world ever imagined and every manner of deliberate suffering conceivable.  Knowing it would not befall me doesn’t mean I had no direct participation in the ensuing suffering, only that it didn’t end my life as well.  On many occasions I wished it had.”

“Cee sick,” Dee said, buzzing past Eve’s ear.  The pixie was little more than a rush of wind with a voice.

“I agree, child.  But of what I don’t know.”

“You’ve seen every plague in history,” Rick said, “and you don’t recognize this one?”

“No, which is why you should stand away.”

“Maybe you don’t understand how germs work.  If that’s contagious enough, you brought it in the condo and put it on my table. I may already be exposed.”

“I appreciate your point, but you told me you never eat at this table.”

“Not really what I meant.”

It was almost elastic, the string leading from Cee.  Pulling on it didn’t cause her any visible pain, but she was close to passing and may not have been positioned to offer comprehensive feedback. 

Eve put the pencil down.

“I know what you meant, Rick.  I understand that some sicknesses can pass through the air and others require touch.  A few are only passed if one eats the thing that is sick.”