The Christmas Fairy Tale in three parts or the case of little green men by Red Ellen
Translation: MrsSpooky nick55-60
Classification: case-file, MSR, a Christmas fairy tale (pre-x-files in the first two parts)
Rating: R (by a long stretch of the imagination)
Summary: a semi-fairy tale, a semi-parable, semi-nonsense. The Romantic Christmas Investigation. How do we know how it really was? What if little green men truly exist?
Timeline: Christmas, 1973; Christmas, 1999 (7th season)
Warning: a little bit of magic – after all, it's Christmas and a fairy tale as well. A little bit of musing about love and no angst. Well, almost none of it. It seems even the canon hasn't suffer.
Disclaimer: for God's sake, they aren't mine and I don't have a claim on them. (All heroes and the idea belong to Chris Charter personally and Fox Broadcast Television. Also great thanks to T. Pratchett for an inspiration)
By the way, I forgot to mention: I congratulate the remarkable agent Dana Scully with her birthday! This story is a gift for her and the X-files fandom.
A translator's note: English isn't my native language so I apologize to the readers for possible mistakes.
Feedback is hiiiiighly appreciated :)
PART 1 CHRISTMAS IN ANNAPOLIS OR A FAIRY TALE FOR DANA.
"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
The White Queen
Alice in Wonderland by L. Carroll
December 24th, 1973
4:25 p.m.
"It's nonsense," says Billy with great confidence. "Just stupid girlish nonsense! Nothing of the kind truly exists!"
"Of course, it's nonsense," Charlie agrees with his elder brother. Billy is his idol so he always agrees with him no matter what.
"It's not nonsense, it's not!" Offended Melissa reaches out and pulls an old tattered book out of her brother's hands.
Dana keeps silent. Billy certainly is the eldest and knows more than any of them; after all, he is fourteen years old, but at the same time he is such a smarty-pants! And an awful pain in the neck, too. He really thinks that he knows more than daddy himself, but it's definitely not true.
"Billy, let's go play snowballs," suggests Charlie, pulling on the sleeve of Bill's sweater. "Drop it. Let them sit here alone if they want."
It has been snowing since early morning what happens quite rarely in Annapolis, so the brothers put on their gloves and leave. Dana and Melissa stay in.
"You don't believe me, too, do you?" Melissa is staring at her sister with reproach and Dana feel embarrassed.
"I don't know," she shrugs. "What if Billy is right? Nothing of the kind truly exists."
Melissa pouts, turns her back on her sister, and looks out the window. Dana signs. She'd rather enjoy playing snowballs with her brothers because snow Christmas in Annapolis happens once in a blue moon, but she doesn't want to hurt her sister's feelings. However, mommy won't allow Melissa, who has caught a cold, to go outside. So Dana stays at home out of solidarity with her.
Missy puts a pillow on the windowsill and sits on it. She wears the variegated scarf, belonged to their mother, her red hair is tousled, her nose is swollen and red so freckles are hidden from sight and her eyes are full of tears. Dana is feeling really sorry for her elder sister.
"Well, maybe exists," she hastily adds and then specifies, "but very rarely. And, Missy, nobody has ever seen them!"
"Why are you so sure about it?"
"Because daddy says so."
"But if daddy hasn't seen them, it doesn't mean they don't exist!" Missy is leafing through pages of the book and finally finds an illustration. "See?"
It's dark because an overhead lamp is turned off, and the room is illuminated only by the light, coming through the window. The attic, which the girls occupy, is poorly heated so it's barely warm here, and window glasses are covered with snow patterns. Air smells like old things, dust, and unsolved mysteries. Warm air, scents of cinnamon, ginger, and mixture for cough rise from a kitchen below.
Dana screws up her eyes and stares at the picture on a yellowed page. A short, narrow, light elf with thin semitransparent wings is drawn there.
"See?" Melissa repeats and sniffs.
"Missy, somebody just made it up," Dana's voice is full of doubt. "There aren't such things in biology textbooks!"
"How do you know?" protests Melissa heatedly. "You haven't begun to study it at school yet!"
"I looked through Bill's textbooks," replies Dana. "Elves don't exist."
"Then go away," snaps Melissa, her cheeks is flushing with anger. "I'm going to read fortune and I don't care whether you want to do it or not! I'll do it alone!
In spite of her sister's words Dana keeps on sitting on an old sagging pouffe, resting her sharp elbows on the windowsill, and stubbornly refuses to leave.
"Don't get angry, Missy. You know that fortune telling isn't true. What can paper pictures tell about future?
"You are wrong if you don't believe me." Melissa frowns and loudly blows her nose. "Because I'm really able to read fortunes. I've already checked and got evidence that all predictions come true."
Dana doesn't want to argue with her sister.
"Let's try to read future or learn who we'll marry!" exclaims Melissa and jumps down from the windowsill. "It's Christmas Eve now, so time is just perfect!"
"Missy, now that's really stupid." Almost ten-years-old Dana finds talking about potential future husbands ridiculous. "All boys are fools. Maybe I'll never get married. I'm going to be a captain in the navy!" The girl announces and proudly turns up her nose, covered with golden sunny freckles – the same as her sister's.
"They don't accept girls there," replies Melissa revengefully and screws up her piercing green eyes. "And what about daddy?"
"Daddy is daddy. And boys are still fools," says Dana and enviously sighs when she sees through the window how her brothers happily punch each other and throw snowballs, made of fresh wet snow, at the wall, so Christmas holly garland above the door swings dangerously. "How are you planning to tell fortune? I don't believe in card reading."
"We'll use wax, not cards," explains Melissa. "I have several pieces of it. It's real, magic wax."
"There is no such thing like magic wax." Dana loves her sister very much, but she can't stand to agree with something she doesn't believe in.
"You just chicken out!" Melissa teases her. "You're chicken!"
"I am not!" Dana jumps as if she has been stung.
"Chicken," repeats Melissa with satisfaction, knowing her sore spot perfectly well. "If you don't want to tell fortune so you are chicken. You're afraid!"
Again Dana wants to say that it's not true, but clear voice from below interrupts her:
"Dana, Missy!" calls their mother from the kitchen. "Let's make cookies. Missy, have you taken your medicine?"
The sisters walk down the stairs. Dana isn't really fond of baking cookies and Missy doesn't want to drink a nasty mixture, but it's unacceptable to argue with mother in Scully's family.
It's warm, light, and a little fussy in the kitchen. Melissa winces, but obediently swallows what her mother poured in a spoon. The girls are making Christmas cookies in stubborn silence, sulking at each other, but when they're done, and mother puts a baking tray into the oven, Melissa asks again, "Are you coming?"
Dana silently nods, choosing lesser evil – she'd rather melt wax than endure even a slightest suspicion of cowardice. Because she, Dana, is not a chicken at all. She is even able to shoot a gun. Besides, she is as good at it as Billy.
They walk up the stairs to the attic. It's dark outside now, and warm dusty darkness reigns in the room. The girls sit down on the floor by the window and Melissa takes out a big bowl, a thick wax candle, and a small sauceboat, which she has stolen from the kitchen, from an old cabinet. The flame is bright and even, and melting candle smells of warm wax. Melissa gets out several cubes of dark wax from the purple velvet bag, embroidered with colored glass beads, and put one of them in the sauceboat. Dana sighs heavily and leaves to get water. When she is back, Melissa holds the sauceboat above the candle with great concentration and murmurs something unintelligible, making some strange motions with her hand. It is smelled warm metal and burning dust. Melissa murmurs something about guys and their intended ones and, in Dana's opinion, talks nonsense.
"Take it," says Missy to her sister and holds out hot sauceboat. "Pour it out."
Dana hesitates for a moment, but Melissa's hurried question, "Are you chicken again?" prompts her to empty the contents of the sauceboat in the bowl with water.
For a long time the sisters are studying the result of their manipulations in the weak light of the candle.
"What is it?" asks puzzled Dana. "Maybe it's some sort of a letter? How do we suppose to understand it? It looks like a dog. What does a dog have to do with all of that nonsense?"
"I don't know," replies Melissa uncertainly. "But it's not a dog, it's a fox. Have you noticed its tail? Oh, I see," she laughs. "Your guy is going to be red-headed just like us! Probably, it's Steve McGraw whose father owns a drugstore. He likes you!"
"It's rubbish." Dana is getting angry. She can't stand that show-off Steve who immediately runs to complain to his father if she fights with him or something else. But at any moment he can whether trip her up or tug on her hair. "And Steve is a complete idiot. Never in my life I'll marry him!"
"Let's try again," suggests Melissa and puts another piece of wax in the sauceboat. "Melt it yourself."
"And what is it?" The sisters twist the bowl, trying to understand what kind of figure they get this time.
"It's even more unclear than before," snorts Dana. "I don't understand it at all."
"It looks like Casper," giggles Melissa. "You know that cartoon ghost. It's definitely Steve; he is as pale as it and has a similar voice!"
"The same to you! Melt it yourself now." With these words Dana pushes the sauceboat to her sister. "I'll never get married. And Steve is a dork!"
Melissa melts wax, and the sisters bend their red-haired heads over the bowl with water.
"I don't understand." Melissa turns the bowl around. "What is it?"
"It looks like the ace of spades," says Dana. "Will your guy be a gambler?"
Suddenly Melissa pales; it shows even in the almost complete darkness.
"What's the matter?" asks Dana.
"Nothing." Melissa takes another wax cube. "I'll try again."
And she pours wax into the water.
This time it happens to be a cross. The sisters keep silent for a moment.
"Missy, I've told you it's nonsense," says Dana with confidence.
"Yeah, probably," replies Melissa after slight hesitation, but her voice trembles. "It's really nonsense."
She quickly breaks her solidified wax figure.
"Girls, are you there?" calls their mother from below. "Dana! Melissa! Daddy is home!"
"It's mom". Melissa hurriedly blows out the candle. "Let's go downstairs."
She grabs her younger sister's hand and pulls her behind herself.
Before going to bed, Dana puts the flat wax figures in an envelope and hides it in her small black notebook. Just in case.
The Christmas feast is over, and tomorrow she and Melissa will run downstairs to get their stocking-stuffer. Of course, they will thank Santa Claus even if they know perfectly well that, in reality, gifts are from their parents. Melissa and Billy will argue themselves hoarse again. They almost fought with each other at the holiday dinner when Billy was insisting that elves didn't exist. However, elder brothers are awfully mean people. Melissa was telling that at Christmas little green men came to houses together with Santa. These men are Santa's aids; they sit in his bag with presents and help him to dispense it to all kids. She also said that they could fly so they arrived to us from another world. Bill laughed at her and repeated that it was girlish nonsense. Mom ordered them not to start a quarrel, and dad said that everybody decided for himself what to believe in.
"Dana, are you asleep?" Wrapped in the blanket and barefooted Melissa approaches and sits on her sister's bed.
"No. Missy, if you go on walking barefoot you will get worse and mom is gonna be mad at you," points out Dana, but pulls her legs up to make place on the bed for Melissa.
"Look, why don't you believe?" Her sister turns a deaf ear to Dana's words.
"Because nobody has ever seen elves, Missy," she replies with very serious expression on her face as if she answers in class. "There is no proves that they truly exist."
Melissa sighs.
"Don't you even want to believe in it?" she asks wistfully. "Why are you so boring? You are always going by the book-"
"I'm not boring," protests Dana, pushing Bill's physics textbook under the pillow. She doesn't understand all science terms, but nevertheless it fascinates her. "If you show me an elf in the flesh, of course, I'll believe you."
The door of their room is slightly ajar, and narrow band of dim light from a night lamp in the hall slides on the floor. Obscure shadows jump around, indistinct parents' voices and some strange rustle are heard from the living-room downstairs.
Suddenly Melissa cries out and quickly raises her legs up on the bed.
"What's the matter?" asks puzzled Dana.
"Look!"
Something small pushes through the open door. A small, green, shining creature slides on the floor and they hear ringing metal rattle.
"Look, look, it's an elf!" yelps Melissa.
Dana pushes the blanket aside, jumps to her feet and run to the door.
Loud burst of laughter from the hall reaches their ears when Bill and Charlie run along the corridor to their room, screaming something like, "Here is your elf!" Then Mom loudly orders all kids to go to bed immediately.
Dana reaches out and picks up an old plush toy monkey from the floor. It wears two green socks and is wrapped in some kind of green cloth with foil stars, shining in the darkness. A small toy timer is tied to its back. The monkey has hurt expression on its face; it looks like the plush animal is deeply offended by one of the socks, which the boys have put on its head.
"You are right," sighs Melissa, taking off the socks. "Boys are really fools. And pain in the neck."
Then the girls go to sleep.
Gradually, stillness descends on the house and only fresh wind rustles on the windows, covers the driveway with snow, swings the garlands above the front door, and bursts into kids' dreams, bringing with itself a fairy tale that they don't believe in…
The book on the floor opens wide on its own and the picture on its page starts to stir. The little green man straightens out his silk coat. Weightless dust pours from his golden wings and he makes several cautious steps, his feet in funny striped stockings are moving without even slightest sound.
He pours golden dust of dreams on kids' red heads then flies up and makes his way toward the first floor. The pair – a balding, but physically fit man and a dark-haired small woman – was taking a nap on the sofa in the living-room. He embraces her shoulders. The elf spills magic dust on their faces because he can't let them wake up.
Then he flies round the Christmas tree once and after he flaps his wings, a few new bundles suddenly appear under it. There is a big clear crystal in one of them, and tomorrow Margaret will decide that one present has come from Elizabeth, cousin of her parent, and another one from her cousin Christopher and kids won't think about it at all. There are so many bundles so it shouldn't wonder they won't be able to remember who exactly has sent all of them.
The elf turns around and looks at sleeping people one last time.
They won't be capable of seeing him unless they have believed.