Chapter 6: Skyler discovers the gift has a downside.
Monday.
The fox loomed over me as I backed away. I was only 3-inches tall, naked, and on an exposed rock with no place to hide. She licked her nose as a drop of saliva drooled out of the corner of her mouth. Then she sprang towards me with her mouth open.
I cowered against the rock as her open mouth got closer and closer. I smelled her fetid breath as it warmed my skin. Her teeth looked sharp and menacing and I wondered how much pain I would suffer before her jaws crushed me.
Suddenly, her entire appearance changed, and I saw Vix standing over me.
"Wha-!" I shouted.
My body spasmed and I opened my eyes. The arm around my waist gently touched my chest as the warm breasts against my back shifted away.
"Sky! Are you alright?" Fern asked with a note of concern in her voice.
I blinked and looked around. The fox and Vix were gone; it was only a bad dream. I was in Fern's room in the great oak tree, lying in Fern's bed with Fern beside me.
"Oh," I said, turning towards her, "I'm sorry. I just had the strangest dream. A nightmare, really."
Fern propped herself up on one elbow and faced me with a look of concern on her face.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
"It's silly, really. I was dreaming that I was being attacked by that fox and just as it was about to eat me, it turned into your sister Vix," I responded.
Fern stared at me with her mouth open. She sat up, her green gossamer wings behind her and her blonde hair cascading down across her shoulders and breasts interrupted only by the tips of her pointed ears protruding between the tresses.
"Shit!" she said, "I was stupid not to have thought of that!"
She threw off the rest of the blanket and quickly got to her feet. In the blink of an eye, she was magically dressed in her green frock. She picked up my borrowed frock that was draped across Holly's bed.
"Here," she said, handing me the frock, "Get dressed quickly. We've got to find my mother."
We found Aine sitting at the table alone in the great room. She was sipping a steaming beverage out of a mug.
"Mother, we have to talk with you about Vix," Fern said excitedly.
Aine gave a knowing smile as she looked up from her mug.
"Before we do that," she said, "I'd like to offer Dr. Monroe a cup of this mint tea. Would you like some too, Fern?"
She poured us both a cup and waited until we had our first sip. The tea was delicious! We drank it while eating a breakfast of pieces of nuts and strawberries. I was eating a piece of strawberry that was about the size of half a watermelon when Aine spoke up.
"It's about the fox, isn't it?" Aine asked Fern.
"You knew?" Fern replied, "Why didn't you tell us?"
"I didn't think she would go that far," Aine said, "But when you and Dr. Monroe told me your story, I realized we all had underestimated Vix's reaction."
"Please call me Skyler," I said after another sip of tea, "Everyone in town does."
"I feel so stupid now," Fern said glumly, "Even Skyler figured it out."
"Fern, I don't know what you're talking about," I said, "What did I figure out?"
"Your dream," Fern replied, "Vix hid from us by turning herself into a fox. She does that the same way that Hawke transforms himself into a hawk."
"Vix is actually a nickname," Aine explained further, "It's short for 'Vixen', the name for a female fox. She is my first-born and she used to have fun playing as a little kit when it was just her, but when the other pixies came along, it would frighten them, and she stopped."
"I knew she was only playing," Fern said, "But my younger siblings were all scared to death. The last time she was a fox was over 15 years ago,"
"More like 25," Aine said, "It was before Pan and Sparkle were born. That's why we didn't consider it right away."
"Sparkle's the youngest," Fern said.
"Hold on," I said, "how old is Sparkle?"
"She's 21," Aine said, "She was born 2 years after Pan."
"How old is Vix?" I asked.
"She'll be 52 next month," Aine replied.
I turned and looked at Fern.
"I'm 48," Fern said, smiling, "But you have to understand that pixies live to be over 200 years old. In equivalent human years, I'm almost 25."
"If you're wondering," Aine said, smiling, "I turned 110 last month."
"But what are we going to do about Vix?" Fern asked.
"I have a plan," Aine said, eyeing me, "But we're going to need Dr Mon- I mean Skyler's help."
***
Two hours later, Fern was flying through the woods carrying me towards the trail that leads to town. We got as far as the stream where I first encountered the red fox with Holly, Thelma and Scruffy. There, Fern stopped to rest, and we both drank some water and splashed our feet in the stream.
Fern picked up her head and her pointed ears twitched.
"Did you hear something?" I asked.
"Shh!" Fern whispered, "I'm not sure."
I looked around but didn't see anything.
"Maybe we should keep going," I suggested.
"Quiet," she said, "I thought I heard something."
We were both standing in the water, so I slowly started to move to the edge of the stream. The bank was muddy and when I stepped out of the water, I slipped on the mud and fell backwards into the stream with a loud splash.
"Skyler, look out!" Fern shouted as she quickly took flight and hovered above the stream.
I sat up in the water and saw a reddish-brown streak racing towards me. I got to my feet, but within seconds the fox was upon me. She had a scratch on the side of her nose near her left eye.
"Now I have you!" she said, her nose was less than a yard away.
"Now!" Fern shouted from somewhere above me.
Pixies sprang from every rock, tree, and fern. They were everywhere, with pixie dust falling like snow onto the fox. As it fell, the fox morphed into a pixie with fiery red hair, except her wings were missing.