The Water Nixies Summer Home by Summer Fey Foovay
The nixie sat on her doorstep, enjoying the sun and the warm breeze, her tail dangling in the river. She was idly watching the ripples roll down the bright blue river, the swallows diving and swooping, and some kids sliding down the bank on a big piece of cardboard.
The swallows chattered, the children whooped for joy and the river lapped happily at her banks. The nixie swished her tail idly in the water. She could tell that someone was coming down the river in a boat. In fact, she knew who it probably was by the rhythm of the paddling and the feel of the boat in the water.
A nixie tail is as sensitive as the tail of a fish. She can feel vibrations in the water, and energy, like those deep-water fish who find their prey by feeling their electrical fields. This nixie had a tail just like the big carp who lived in the river, wide and flat, her scales a beautiful deep olive green and the fin big, square and golden green in color. Unlike all the pictures you’ve probably seen of nixies and water sprites and mermaids, her tail fits on her just like a fish. That is to say, the tail fin is aligned with her spine, up and down, not a sideways tail like a dolphin.
This means that it moved side to side, not up and down, but nixies bone structure is different from humans. In fact, she thought the children moved oddly, all up and down like a bird. And, like a bird, their arms (instead of wings of course) moved up and down to the side. Yes, they were like birds. Those rowers who skimmed along the surface in their fast little white boats moved their oars just like the Great Blue Heron moved his wings to row through the air.
But the boat coming towards her now was different. It was one human in a little kayak and she rowed side to side, rather like humans walk. Left, right, left right, with adjustments to allow for the waters rhythm. It seemed so awkward, and at the same time, the kayaker seemed far more attuned to the rivers own motion than the rowers. She was coming closer all the time; the nixie could feel her in the river.
Watching the human children slide down the bank the nixie wondered if she could do that, too. She was sure her friend the tree nymph was up in the leaves watching with interest. Perhaps if she would throw down a couple of those big maple leaves, they could try sliding down the bank, too. She thought it would be a lot of fun.
Such are the idle thoughts of a nixie sitting on her front porch enjoying the sun on a warm early spring afternoon.
The kayaker came closer and closer, eventually going a bit past the Nixies front porch. She had stopped paddling and the current turned the little boat gently and nudged it towards the bank. The nixie paid her little mind. Most people can’t see the fey folk, and those who can are usually not the sort who would do them any harm. She had not met this particular human, but other of the river nixies had and they had told her all about her.
This human loved the river, and the plants and animals and fey who shared her. Some nixies thought that she was a nixie who had lost her tail. There were stories. If a nixie stayed dry long enough, sunning on a rock perhaps, their tail would transform into legs. That’s why you usually see them sunning with their tail dangling in the water. Sometimes, it was said, a nixie would fall in love with a human and stay dry on purpose. Once they had legs they could stay with the human on land, even have babies with them. Always, the water called them back someday. No one really knew what happened to the babies.
Some nixies thought that the humans who loved the river, the trees, the magical things were babies from those fey who joined humankinds for a while. There were stories, too, that if those humans spent enough time in the river, or in the trees, they could transform from their human form to the sprite they were within. No one knew if that was true though.
Nixies had tried to get this human woman to stay in the river with them. Sometimes she swam or waded, or just sat, dangling her feet in the water and they would gather around and watch to see if they transformed into a tail. The human just laughed and said she didn’t think it would happen. They tried to get her to dive underwater and stay, too, but she told them she couldn’t breathe underwater as they did. It was all very mystifying, really.
But this human was a known friend of the fey folk, and so it wasn’t very surprising when the little blue kayak bumped against the Nixies home and the human in it said “oh, hello. I’m sorry. Am I disturbing you?”
“No, not at all.”
“What a lovely home you have here!” she complimented the nixie.
The nixies summer home was once one of those big cinder blocks with two big square holes that you see on construction sites. By the time it was tossed into the river for bank fill, it had a large blob of cement or something on one side so that the holes were quite closed on that side, but still open on the other. It came to rest on its end, far down the bank. Over the years the river added soil to the crevices of the rock. Algae began to grow along the sides and more soil clung until the block didn’t look like a block at all, but a little natural grotto, just the right size for a nixie.
The bottom chamber was below water almost all the time. The top was sometimes under, sometimes, like today, just above the surface. Perfect for a nixie to sit on the soft mud floor and dangle her tail in the river. The openings faced north-northeast and the river runs south, so the river brought all sorts of treasures right to the nixies door. All she had to do was sort through them and decide what she wanted to keep. Perhaps that would be a bit disturbing for a human, an open door with all sorts of things floating through it at any time, but it was a source of endless wonder for a nixie.
“Thank you” the nixie responded to the compliment, eyeing the bright blue boat and wondering if a bit of it would rub off on her home. A nice little blue streak at water level would be quite decorative.
The human had noticed that the door faced north. “Doesn’t it get cold in the winter though? What do you do then?
The nixie shrugged, “It is really far more snug than you would think. Especially under the water.” (Her bedroom was in the lower chamber, but she felt that was a bit too intimate of a detail to be sharing with a human) “If it does get too cold, I just swim down to the deepest waters. You know, this river almost never freezes over, and the deeper waters are always warmer. Then, if it gets too cold there, I just snuggle down in the mud and sleep until it warms up, just like the turtles and fish”
The human nodded. They sat in quiet companionship for a few minutes, watching the children still sliding down the bank, whooping with joy, and the swallows as they swooped and dived and chattered.
“You must have a very slow metabolism then, like the fish and reptiles” the human murmured, almost to herself.
The nixie swished her tail in the water, her head tilted contemplatively. “Slower than yours. But not as slow as the kayaks.” She could feel the human’s big, slow heartbeat in the water, faintly through the shell of the kayak. The boat itself was a bit of an enigma to her. It seemed both very very old, and very new, and had a life of it’s own that was more than the sum of it’s materials. Well, most living things do, of course. She decided it must be made of that material humans use that comes from the fossils of things long dead, thus the very oldness of it. Their magic transformed it into a new shape – the boat, and then the human who paddled and spent time in it shared her own life force with the boat, and made it more.
It was the humans turn to sit, head tilted, contemplating. “You say PJ, my kayak, is alive?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
The human nodded. “Yes, she seems that way to me. But it seems to me that she has a higher energy than that.” She laughed, “she sure gets lively skipping over these little waves at times.”
The nixie smiled in agreement, “Yes, but she borrows life from you, and from the river and fills herself with it. She isn’t so lively when you drag her out and leave her to sleep in your living room.”
The human raised her eyebrows. “You’re right of course. I suppose she told you where she sleeps?”
“Of course” the nixie replied. She sighed. It really was sad to think these humans were so blind in a way, unable to communicate with so many things that the fey found perfectly capable of communication. Although she had heard this human was different from most. After all, here they were having a conversation!
The children tired of their game, picked up the cardboard and started to walk away down the bank. The nixie watched them go, and then looked up into the trees for her friend, the tree nymph. The human sensed the conversation was over. She took a long drink from her water bottle.
“Well, nice meeting you. Have a good day.” Carefully she nudged the kayak away from the nixies summer home and back out into the current.
The nixie waved goodbye as she slipped into the water to swim over to the bank. She could see the wood nymph peeking out of the leaves and already scampering down the tree trunk to meet her, as two big maple leaves floated slowly down to the bank.
© Summer Fey Foovay