tales. “These are all fruits of the fairies!” Mimi did have a strange piece of fruit in her lap. The birds could have pecked it for a long time, but did not dare. The girl herself had not eaten anything for a long time, but the juicy slice did not wrinkle. It looked like a tongue torn out of someone.
“Eat me!” Didn’t Lotte hear it? When she walked by with a pack of pills for insomnia, a piece of fruit spoke to her? And she jumped on Mimi’s lap straight, as if alive. Yes, and Mimi’s dead eyes for a moment became malicious and meaningful. But Lotte passed by.
The first step is to save your own sister. We’ll deal with Mimi later. In an old fairytale book, she read in childhood a variety of legends about fairies and their fun with mortals. There was a legend “Magic Fruits” about a girl whose sister was seduced by fairies by persuasion to try such fruits. They are sweet, but having tasted them, a person leaves his consciousness captive in the kingdom of fairies, only an empty shell comes home. Or it doesn’t come at all, as is the case with Lida. But a captured person can be saved. In the fairy tale, the victim’s sister went to the fairies and when they, in turn, offered her harmful fruits, she refused them. The fairies tried to force feed her, smeared the juice of the fruit on her skin and closed lips, but the sister’s savior held out until morning. If you hold out until the morning, then the fairies must let your sister go. Is Lotte missing something? She frowned. She didn’t want to resist the fairies all night because of the dubious possibility of freeing her sister. But what if there is no other way out? What if Lida never returns, even unconscious? Everyone will think that she ran away with her lover? Or that a maniac killed her?
But she was definitely captivated by the fairies. Lotta was sure of it. On the night Lida left to dance, she had a dream. A voice called her. Ghostly figures beckoned her from the meadow. There was a whole round dance of them. The moon shone through the winged bodies.
“Let’s dance!” whispered unearthly voices.
Only one voice, rough and old, suddenly said:
“Don’t dance with them without a nettle wreath. On such a wreath, they will burn and will not be able to touch you”.
It was definitely the voice of her late grandmother – a healer, famous for her herbal infusions throughout the village. She would have easily made some kind of decoction to remove the poison of fairies from Mimi’s body. Unfortunately, she died before passing on her skills to her granddaughters. Perhaps, in revenge on her, they dragged her granddaughter away. At one time, Lotte’s grandmother saved not a single captive soul from the net of evil spirits. Recall at least the terrible wound of the lumberjack, who assured that the troll bit off his hand. The stump really began to overgrow with some kind of thorns, which moved like an independent creature and strove to bite someone. If it were not for the ointment of the old healer, the lumberjack would have had to chop off his arm on the shoulder, because she began to mutate.
Now Lotte herself stared in horror at the thicket of burning grass. Even in leather and gloves, tearing it will hurt.
“You should go to a round of fairies exclusively in a wreath of nettles”, the edifying voice of the dead grandmother sounded deep in the subconscious.
Well, if she commanded so. Lotte had no gloves with her. In addition, she recalled that it was necessary to pick nettles for a wreath only with bare hands, otherwise her power against fairies would not work. And she began to tear stem by stem. Unbearable pain immediately burned her fingers, blisters swelled on the delicate skin, but Lotte consoled herself that freeing her sister was worth it. It’s not bad to feel like a brave heroine from a fairy tale, but picking nettles turned out to be an unbearable torture. And yet she did it. And someone curious watched from the thicket as the beauty, now crying, now cursing, tears up the burning young nettles, and then weaves a wreath out of it with her bare hands.
Oddly enough, the wreath turned out to be luxurious. Nettle leaves are very beautiful as a crown. In this wreath, Lotte herself resembled a fairy of spring. Only now the wreath slightly burned the forehead even through the bangs. Blisters will probably remain.
Lotte frowned. Was it not necessary, while she weaved a wreath, to hum some kind of conspiracy that drives away evil forces? It doesn’t matter now. It is done. The nettle wreath is gossip, and you can’t grease the burns until you get your sister out. But where to go to free her? Where do fairies gather to dance? In a birch grove? In the nature reserve? On the bank of a fast river? In the woods? There are so many secluded corners around where you can dance away from prying eyes. Country girls, eager for fun, easily found a place where fairies dance. Only now their problem was that they were invited to these dances, but she was not. And no adorable strangers with flowers sprouting right in the skin have yet met on her way. There is no one to call her.
Lotte followed the path at random. All around there was a smell of wormwood, oak bark and pine needles. So she went into that part of the forest where no one went. The path here was barely trodden, and there was no one around. No people, no animals, not even singing birds. Only an ugly, gnarled tree stands at a fork. Lotte moved towards it. Probably, her eyesight became ill because of something, because it was worth reaching the tree, and this is no longer a tree, but a funny guy in fancy green clothes. The cut is similar to an antique camisole.
“You escaped from the museum window?” Lotte stared at him, discouraged. Usually she never behaved so brazenly with people, but the boy turned out to be so cute. I wanted to tease him.
He gazed at her with no less surprise than hers. And his eyes are so huge, bright green, like two sparkling emeralds. And the freckles on the cheeks for some reason are not brown, but golden. And shoulder-length hair is also millet color. Well, just a prince from a fairy tale. Probably an actor from the traveling troupe. Just what is he doing in the deep forest? Hunt girls? Or looking for trouble?
“How did you get here?” He asked curiously. “Until now, no one has come here”.
Lotte opened her mouth in amazement. What is he saying? As if he imagined himself to be the master of the thicket. She wanted to answer something harsh, but stopped short, noticing how sharp the tips of his ears were. He just pulled a lock of wheat behind his ear. And his fingers have long emerald nails. Is it really an elf? She tried to look behind him to check if the wings were fluttering behind her. All that was visible from the front was an elegant if old-fashioned outfit.
“Your hands are all burned,” the guy whistled suddenly.
How does he know about the burn? She hides her hands behind her back. How did he see?
The elf, meanwhile, carefully took her hand just above the elbow, so as not to touch the injuries.
“Such delicate skin and blisters,” he drawled sadly, as if he himself had been offended by something. “If you want, I will heal you. I know one source…”
“No thanks!”
He suddenly became even sadder, as if she had hit him. Lotte stared at his sunny eyelashes. It seemed that now a tear would flash under them.
“Do you want to dance at this intersection. With me?”
“Not with you!”
“Well, if you don’t want anything from me, then we will have to part. I will ask for the last time…”
“You’ll help me in something,” it occurred to her.
“Yes?” the elf was clearly delighted. Behind him, real
