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 wings suddenly fluttered. “Take me to the dance of the local fairies”.
He whistled again in surprise.
“And you are still a surprise. Do you want to burn yourself again? Fairy dancing is a dangerous place for someone like you”.
“Never mind!”
“Next time you might get your face burned, not just your hands”.
“Let’s go anyway!”
“But it’s really dangerous. I’m not lying to you”.
“Aren’t you at the same time with them?”
The elf smiled enigmatically.
“Everybody sometimes has disagreements”.
Is it true that elves are fairies? Some sources did not agree on this. And in general, it seems that the fairies have long quarreled with all their gentlemen, otherwise why would they invite someone from the village to dance. So Lotte decided to trust the elf, but still kept her guard. They walked through the thicket, where a narrow path suddenly appeared. The elf walked ahead. Everywhere there was a smell of not forest plants at all: honeysuckle, jasmine, even roses. More like garden scents
“By the way, your outfit doesn’t fit at all,” the elf turned to cast a disdainful glance at her long, flowered sundress. And suddenly the dress was different. Green as snakeskin, lush, fitted, with long sleeves so wide that they almost swept the ground. It looks like a medieval outfit.
“What for?”
“What do you think? In a country dress, no fairy will mistake you for hers”.
“I don’t need it!”
“Soon