«Go beyond the line; there’s someone waiting for you,» Quentin asked in a low, hopeful tone.
For some reason she remembered the knight from her dreams. The line was a brook that gurgled near the edge of the forest. It was as if it separated the Earl’s lands from the dense woods. Perhaps Quentin was referring to some other magical line besides it. He speaks of a realm of fairies.
«He’s been waiting a long time, and he needs you,» the young man whispered quietly. «Because no one else can help him.»
A bird with a red spot on its forehead was circling the tower, croaking strangely, with a hoarse caw. Hearing it, Quentin beckoned Janet to be quiet, and began to descend slowly. This time the twigs of the roses hurt his palms, but it was as if he didn’t notice. There was blood on the thorns.
«It’s Blackness!» He whispered goodbye, evidently referring to the restless bird. «Beware of it!»
Beware of some bird? Janet couldn’t understand why. Birds can’t hurt people, unless they swoop down in a flock and strangle them to death.
Still, the girl decided to close the window tightly, and did the right thing. A bird’s beak immediately began pounding on the window frame. It was very insistently. The bird was clearly angry that it was not allowed in, but Janet, paying no attention to it, just tightly closed the curtains.
Already in the morning Janet remembered the night visit and the bird. Blackness! If that was the bird’s nickname, then the bird itself belonged to someone. Like a hunting falcon released after its prey and then lured back. Is her assumption correct? How she could to check.
Her friends were still playing ball in the garden, as if there was nothing else to do in the castle. Janet herself was sitting by the fountain in the courtyard of the castle. She did not even notice how someone sank down on the stone bench beside her.
«Are you pensive, young mistress?»
Janet looked up. It was the old knight Ambrose. Unlike her father, he had grown old with years, not from grief, and he still maintained a dignified, proud look. He must have been handsome in his youth. The gray hair and wrinkles seemed like a mask which, when scraped away, revealed a pleasant young face. It probably seems that way because of his young mischievous eyes.
«I’m thinking of the fairies kingdom,» Janet admitted.
«That’s a very serious thought!» He said with a chuckle in his elderly voice. «I knew a young lady who used to fill her head with thoughts of fairies.»
«And what became of her?»
«She withered and died in the prime of her life. Like a rose wilted.»
Janet looked at the wattles of scarlet and white roses growing ever larger around the castle wall. They crawled upward like magnificent snakes with thorns. One rose had indeed wilted.
«A drop of blood on it and it will bloom again!» The knight caught her gaze. «These flowers are like leeches.»
«What do you mean?» Janet looked astounded.
«I just want to warn you not to think too much about the realm of elves and fairies, or you’ll be lost, like so many before you, or you’ll wither away with black ennui.»
«Are thoughts of fairies really that dangerous?»
She did not have time to hear the old man’s answer because young knights, her father’s vassals, were already walking toward her. Many of them tried to woo the daughter of the earl they served. They often brought Janet some small gift. Now a handsome-looking knight, named Howard, brought her a fine mother-of-pearl comb. Janet accepted the gift, but her heart did not waver. A strange emptiness settled in her heart. She wanted neither to be friends with girls, nor to accept signs of attention from knights. Perhaps the rainbow bird had flown in from the realm of the fairies and bewitched her. It had not appeared over the castle for two days, and Janet longed.
Waiting until she was alone, she quietly ran away from the castle and made her way to the creek, where she found the keys. There were no more keys at the bottom, apparently she had collected all of them last time, but the colored pebbles remained. As she bent down to retrieve them, someone’s sharp claws suddenly scratched the back of her head. Janet felt the mother-of-pearl comb she’d just given her slip out of her hair.
The rainbow bird flew up to her suddenly and visibly. Stealing the scallop, it clutched it in its beak and fluttered up on a branch.
«Wrong one!» She sang. In a human voice?! Janet was still amazed that there were birds that could speak human. She had heard from one of the merchants from across the sea that there were rare gifted people who could understand the language of animals and birds. Could she really understand it?
The bird managed to sing without letting the teeth of the comb out of her beak. Well, isn’t she magical? The sun played highlights in its iridescent plumage.
«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