Nettle wreath

“I’m going to dance with the fairies tonight,” Lida said with a conspiratorial look. After that, she did not return. The pharmacist’s daughter, who went to the same dances under the moonlight, did not disappear, but she was now sitting in her father’s shop motionless and deaf, like a doll. She was not even able to open the door to customers or serve potion. And what is most surprising, her father was unable to help her with any medicine. The girl fell into a stupor. Everyone thought that she had been abandoned by the guy she met at dusk, but Lotte knew for sure that the girls from the village went to dance with fairies at night. Not all! Only those who met strange strangers on deserted roads and invited them to dance. Lida talked and, apparently, now found herself in captivity of the fairies. Is it worth trying to rescue her from there, or upon returning back to the people, she will become stiff and indifferent to life, like Mimi, the pharmacist’s daughter. Lotta deliberately went to the pharmacy to look at her again, inventing a stupid excuse that she needed capsules for insomnia. As the pharmacist looked for them, she stared at Mimi, sitting motionless in the rocking chair at the entrance. The window beside her was curtained. For some reason the girls were hurting from the sunlight. And now a burn, not red, but black, was burning on her cheek. The skin itself disintegrated like ash.

“A rare skin disease,” the pharmacist explained.

From what disease can the skin become thin like a spider web, acquire a deathly porcelain color and disintegrate as ash from the rays of the sun? Having become ill, Mimi miraculously became a beautiful woman, but she could neither move nor speak.

“Her will is in captivity,” Lotta remembered an expression from an old book of fairy 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 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 you will see what you need! By the way, I like you”. He tried to hug her. It turned out to be strangely gratifying. Much nicer than the hugs of a simple guy. “You are beautiful! But the wreath spoils you”.

Lotte realized that he was afraid of getting burned. If a wreath of nettles burns fairies, then elves, probably, too.

Soon they came. It was not yet dark, but melodic laughter was already ringing in the meadow. Beauties danced there. They all had bare feet. Clawed hands. The backs are winged. They moved so fast that they seemed dangerous. They can knock them off their feet if you approach them. The whole picture resembled Polovtsian dances, and if you consider that some fairies still grew horns or thorns made of skin, like living roses.

“So go!” the elf pushed her.

With a wingless back, Lotte felt stupid. In vain her new acquaintance tried. They will understand at first glance who she is.

And the fairies understood. Barely a dry branch crunched under her foot, as dozens of pairs of surprised eyes rushed at her.

“She came herself,” the fairy with branchy antlers, like a deer’s, disbelieved.

“Come here, dear”, almost affectionately called her fairy with the bindweed growing from the skin. “Treat yourself to the gifts of our land”.

It was just beginning to get dark, and a festive table with baskets of ripe fruits suddenly appeared in the meadow. Lotte looked him over. These are neither plums, nor peaches, nor apples, nor apricots, not even mangoes or quince. All fruits here simply do not have a name in humans. But how seductive they are.

“Eat me! Eat it up! Take a bite! Take a sip of our juice! Bite through the skin!” squeaked thin voices from the table.

Is this fruit talking to her? Doesn’t she dream? Lotte looked at the fairies. No, don’t dream.

“I do not want!” She said firmly.

The horned fairy snapped her fingers, and the table disappeared, and the fruits from it scattered across the grass in vile colorful creatures. Well! Well to be sure. And she almost bit off of this!

“Don’t break!” one of the fairies approached her, holding out a red fruit. Lotte suddenly felt that she could not move, as if the whole body was tied with ropes. This is how the magic of the fairies is chained. The elf stood behind a meadow under the shade of an elm tree and watched everything from a safe distance. He definitely won’t help. Most likely, he amuses himself at the sight of her helplessness. The fairy thrust the fruit directly into the lips of the motionless Lotte.

“Take a bite!”

A little more and would have to. But then the fairy screamed herself – burned herself, accidentally hitting the wreath.

“Leave her!” the horned fairy took its bearings first. “She doesn’t want to eat, let her not eat. Let’s better dance with her”.

Everyone giggled at once, as if it meant: let’s push her off the cliff. The music started playing. Lotte felt that she was free. She could move, but she could not get out of the fairies’ round dance. The legs began to dance themselves. That’s the fairies’ joke. She won’t be able to stop until they let her. So you can dance for centuries. She will grow old and die, unable to stop. Something needs to be done.

The moonlight was just silvery over the meadow. Lotte plucked some nettle leaves from her wreath and tossed them at the faces of the fairies dancing alongside.

“It burns! Bastard!” Several fairies tried to shove and scratch her, but each burned again on her wreath. How does this come out? Their clawed hands reach out to her shoulders and face, and invariably attack the nettle wreath. It attracts them like a magnet.

The horned fairy tried to cling to her throat, and burned the most. The burns did not go away instantly, which was especially surprising for the fairies.

“What do you want?”

“Let my sister go”.

The fairies didn’t want to agree, but the burns were blistering on their skin more and more.

“Okay. This is a little”, they finally decided.

“You have to be defeated by the village healer,” they lamented as they left.

Didn’t they give up too easily? Lotte stared after them in disbelief. The motley winged flock quickly disappeared. Instead of them, Lida stood in the meadow, pale and speechless, in the same heavy old dress as hers, only of a burgundy hue.

“She cannot leave if you don’t give her your wreath,” the elf said.

Lotte obediently took off the wreath and put it on her sister’s head.

“That’s good!” the elf was already standing nearby. He changed somehow. Dressed up. He became taller. And much prettier. His eyes were just shining.

“What happened to you?”

“You defeated them!”

“But what is to you?”

“That means I’m in charge now”.

“So what?”

“You helped me. I myself could not handle it”.

“I’m glad, but will you take me back. I myself can hardly find my way”.

“Oh, yes…” the elf hesitated slightly. “You see, the problem is I can’t let you go”.

Well, at least Lida has already left. No, she didn’t. She just disappeared. Only a wreath of nettles lay in the meadow where she had recently stood.

“What have you done to her?”

“Nothing, you only saw a ghost from the moonlight. The real Lida has already found herself a mate in my domain. She does not even remember that she came to us from people”.

“But I remember,” Lotte darted for the wreath, but the elf intercepted her. “You know, I’ve also been looking for a couple for a long time. But not a resigned old maid, but a clever dancer who will be able to plug even a flock of fairies into her belt”.

There was a red light in his eyes, like a fire in a meadow. He was no longer handsome, the features of a monster woke up in him. As she hadn’t noticed before, elves can be even more terrifying than vampires.

“You will not be able to intoxicate me with your fruit”.

“My kiss is no less dangerous than fruit.” He closed his long fingers around her burned wrists.