Mother and grandmother were already waiting for them there. Upon seeing the birthday girl, they started clapping and talking over each other, congratulating Fanyasha and kissing her.
“My sweet girl, we have a present for you! Open it!” said the mother tenderly and brought Fanyasha a large caramel-colored box.
“Wow!” shrieked Fanyasha and started laughing when a flock of colorful butterflies flew out of the box and whirled around in circles through the living room. The wings of the butterflies gleamed in the sun and reflected sunrays, and it seemed that the whole room filled with colorful flying twinkles.
Seeing the delight on her granddaughter’s face, the grandmother folded her hands on her chest and also started to laugh. The mother hugged the father, put her head on his shoulder and they both looked at their daughter with enchantment. Even Bosya smiled and preceded to jump and catch butterflies together with his sister, but they briskly dodged their hands and were constantly landing on Bosya’s and Fanyasha’s shoulders, noses or heads, which amused the whole family even more.
“How I wish for her to be a child for a little longer,” said the mother softly. “Childhood is so amazing. Maybe we let her out of the room too early. She is only six. We wanted to wait until she starts school and shield her against the world. There is so much around us that could interfere with her carefree happiness.”
“Not too early at all,” muttered the father. “You should have seen where I found her today! On the windowsill! Yes, imagine that.”
The mother raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“So that means that in the near future she could fly out of the room herself,” said the father very seriously. “Efania is curious and willful; we cannot keep her locked up anymore. It’s time for her to learn more about this world. And by the way, we should remove our photos with the people from the corridor. They hang pretty high, of course, but it’s better to be on the safe side.”
“How fast she is growing,” sighed the mother. “Dear, let’s not let her out till she starts school. I don’t want her to find out about people for as long as possible. Let her live for herself a little bit more.”
Towards the evening, the butterflies calmed down and sat all over the furniture and walls, turning the living into a beautiful colorful garden.
The father, mother, grandmother, Bosya and Fanyasha settled into the large puffy couch and played the cloud game, guessing the color and size of the next cloud that passed by the window. To everyone’s surprise, grandmother was leading by a large margin, as if she herself sent the clouds of the right color and shape.
Later, the whole family discussed how they should make a new couch and how to better enlarge the living room: to widen it on the side of the front door, or by enlarging the windows across the room. That‘s how it was usually done when a child grew up in an angel family – luckily, houses made out of clouds could easily be enlarged and remodeled in any way you please.
“And now it’s time to thank our beautiful butterflies, say good-bye to them, and let them go,” said the grandmother all of a sudden, and started flying towards the window. “We will open the windows and ask the wind to take care of them.”
“But… why? Why do we need to say good-bye? What happened?” Fanyasha was about to burst into tears. “I thought they would sleep, and tomorrow they would fly again, and we’ll play together again. Why? Why do we need to let them go?”
“Efania, dear, please understand, these butterflies won’t fly anymore. The lived a wonderful day and their time has come,” the father explained in a calm voice. “Everything in this world has its time, everything eventually ends, and we need to accept this with gratitude.”
Fanyasha pressed against her mother, trying to hold back tears but they streamed down her cheeks nonetheless.
This was the first time in her life she found out that everything ends, that we need to be able to bid farewell and let go. It was unbearably painful and sad, but at the same time she felt a quiet joy that she was maturing, and that she was finally trusted with secrets of this extraordinary, mysterious world of adults.
Grandmother flung the windows open, whispered something under her nose, stretched her right hand forward, spread her long fingers and traced three circles in the air. At that time, the room filled with a strong cold wind. The curtains flew up and twisted; the wind lifted and whirled thousands of small colorful butterflies, and then led them outside one after another.
Chapter 5:
A Person will be Born Specially for You
From the moment Fanyasha saw the house, she became more joyful and free in her movements. Now she did not need to spend all of her time in her room, she could easily go out into the corridor and then slide down into the living room.
The world became wider for her and gleamed with new colors. How much she enjoyed helping her mother decorate the renovated living room with new lace curtains and colorful throw pillows. How fun it was to watch Bosya and her father puffing and groaning while widening the corridor, which they did by putting their feet against each other and pushing the walls apart with their bodies. Sometimes her parents were delayed at work, and Fanyasha would fall asleep in her father’s large armchair listening to the magical tales of her grandmother.
Fanyasha also loved to stop half way down to the living room and look at the family photos on the walls, while holding onto the bookshelves.
There was her grandmother in her youth with long loose curly hair and a charming smile holding Fanyasha’s mother in her arms. And there was a photo of her father, taken in flight, against the background of their house, looking so slender, handsome and, as always, serious. On one picture, Fanyasha saw little Bosya on the lap of a tall silver haired man in a blue coat with big brown eyes. So this is what grandfather looked like. She wondered when he was going to return. Fanyasha really wanted him to finally see his good and talented granddaughter grow up. Next to that was an incredibly beautiful shot – the scarlet red sky during sunset, with her mother and father sitting on a cloud hugging each other and looking into the distance.
And here was Fanyasha, so small, wrapped in a golden cloth in the arms of her mother, her father next to her, and Bosya peeking behind his father’s back. And next was the picture of happy grandmother in a wide green dress, holding her hands up and catching a laughing Fanyasha. And next to that she was constructing a new pillow out of clouds in her room.
“Wow!” whispered Fanyasha with a glad smile. “I even have my own baby pictures!”
It was funny that Fanyasha decided to consider herself an adult after her sixth birthday, and the experience with the butterflies.
“I wonder who took all those pictures.” She tried to remember if she saw anybody at the time the photographs were taken, but could not.
“I will need to question Bosya,” she decided, and tried to fly higher in order to study the other pictures.
Alas, it was unbearably difficult. She felt that as she rose higher up the corridor, the air became heavier and the wind became stronger, and it was harder to fly. She could barely reach Bosya’s room and sat down next to the door. She didn’t have the strength to fly higher, but it was probably very interesting up there.
She caught her breath and started to peer upwards with interest. She saw doors to her mother’s and father’s rooms, and a little higher up a green door to her grandmother’s room.
“Hey, and who is that over there? Next to mommy and daddy?”
Unfamiliar people stared at her from the pictures that hung on the walls next to
her parents’ rooms. Moreover, mother and father smiled joyfully, standing behind their backs, and even hugged