Natalie Yacobson - Tamlane – Prisoner of the queen of the fairies

«Rainbow,» said Janet, the nickname given to it. Rainbow was too different from the black bird that had been pecking at her window at night. It flared its tail, and it mottled on the branches of the willow tree in all seven bright hues. The impression was as if a seven-colored rainbow, which appeared after the rain, descended from the sky and became feathered.

«Come with me, you coward!» The bird sang it as it flew down from the branch.

«Did you call me a coward?» Janet was used to referring to the talking bird as a girlfriend. «Well, wait!»

And she followed the bird, completely oblivious to the dangers and warnings that were regularly given to all the inhabitants of the castle not to go into the woods.

It might be dangerous to go there at night, but the sun was shining brightly now. The green of the trees gave rest to the eyes. The forest looked like a fairytale kingdom, not a dangerous place where something could threaten a human life.

Janet even enjoyed being all alone on the forest path. The bird flew a little ahead. Its bright tail was clearly visible among the green crowns of trees. Janet followed it, stepping over fallen trunks and moss, and eventually stepped off the path.

She had to hold on to her hem, walking through driftwood and thistles, jumping over streams. She noticed a rainbow stream in her path. The water in it shimmered with seven bands of different colors, like the plumage of a bird. How beautiful! Sunbeams danced on the water with golden highlights. It was probably just the play of light that made the creek seem like a water replica of a sky rainbow.

Janet would have thought so, but there was a blood-red stream ahead of her. It happens! It looked as if the water in it was soaked with red clay. How could that be? Janet had never seen thick red water before. It felt as if it was blood.

«Is it a blood stream?» Janet looked questioningly at the bird flying ahead, as if it could give her a satisfactory answer. But it only flew forward even faster.

«Wait for me!» Janet suddenly realized that she couldn’t find her own way back. She had gone too deep into the thicket. Should she call for help? But who would hear her here? Now the bird is her only hope of getting out of the forest, she just needs to talk to it and convince it to fly back. It knows the way, for it has flown to the castle so many times before.

«It is Dead Water!» The bird chirped as it descended over a spring. No, it was no longer a spring. As she came closer, Janet spotted a well. Was it a well in the woods? She’d never seen anything like it before. Who would think of digging a well in the woods? There was probably a woodsman’s or lumberjack’s hut nearby. But no matter how much she looked around, Janet saw no sign of habitation.

«Look inside!» The bird advised. Janet struggled to pull the wooden lid off the well hole and involuntarily squeezed her eyes shut. The water at the bottom of the well glistened too dazzling.

«Don’t look too closely, or you’ll go blind. The water is dead,» the bird chanted again, circling at a distance from the well.

So why look at it at all? Janet noticed a round object floating in the water. It looked like a head, cut off from a statue and gilded. The thing was quite beautiful. Janet even wondered if she should fish it out of the water, when suddenly the lips of the head moved. They were trying to say something.

«Turn back around!»

Did the head really say it? Janet recoiled from the well.

«It is the boundary! You will overstep the boundary if you go any further!» The head’s words became muffled.

«He’s supposed to warn anyone who came near here, but you didn’t listen. Then we can go on,» the bird exulted. Janet, grudgingly, followed her. It would probably be better to turn back.

What kind of place was this, where severed heads floated in wells and were able to speak.

The well was left behind. The girl passed a thicket of centuries-old pines that somehow reminded her of a troop of sleeping giants. Then she passed a thicket of shrubbery. And then a wall of white and scarlet roses rose before her. Right in the woods! What a miracle! The roses somehow surprised her even more than the bloody brook and the head in the well.

Janet walked over and touched one of them. It looked more like garden roses than wild roses. But who is here to tend them? Was there a castle in the woods that had been destroyed by enemies? The hulk of the wall she noticed to the left of the roses might have been preserved from it. Apparently, it had happened years ago. There had been some kind of war going on here. The kingdom might have been destroyed. All that was left of it were ruins. But the roses had not withered away.

She plucked one of them and hurt herself, her blood settling on the thorns and as if awakening someone. A dark whirlwind swept nearby. The roses whispered.

«Go away, or you will be caught like him!» A scarlet rose whispered.

«The nets are spread,» the white ones echoed.

Can roses whisper? She’s just imagining it. Janet turned and stumbled right into him. The knight from her dreams was standing in front of her.

She was dumbfounded. He didn’t move either, making him look like a statue in armor. Janet gazed avidly at the helmet with dragon horns and jaws, the cuirass with inlays of shiny scales, and the hilt of the sword made in the shape of a two-headed dragon. What marvelous craftsmen could make such armor and such a sword?! Janet stared enchanted at the hero of her dreams. Could it be that now she sees him in reality, and not in a dream. And all around are not those harmful creepy creatures that each time accompanied him in his dreams. And there is no wall of fire, either. Even the mirror frame through which they were seen is gone. It is worth reaching out and she will touch him. Nothing separates them.

But the knight intercepted her hand before she could do anything. Janet even cried out in pain. His hand felt as iron as his armor.

«You can’t tear those roses!» A whisper from beneath his visor gave off a steely hardness, too, a fiery fury.

«But I didn’t!» Janet tried to justify herself. «I only touched it.»

«Didn’t you?» He let go of her arm, but the scales set into his gauntlets marked her skin. The knight walked slowly around the wall of roses. For a moment she lost sight of him, and suddenly a young man without armor, dressed in a smart green camisole, fair-haired and unbelievably handsome, stepped toward her. Janet almost gasped in admiration. His hair! It reminded her of dawn! Only the morning sun shone like that. His eyes were blue. The green velvet of his camisole set off his very pale skin. Were his ears pointed, like Quentin’s? For some reason that was what bothered Janet the most right now.

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