The girl put the bag on a low table in the hallway and began to shoe. Chanterelle put her front legs on him, took a bag in her teeth and tried to go into the nursery, but for some reason, she did not succeed, although the door to the room was open and nothing interfered. She ran around the threshold back and forth, softly whining.
Lou thought that the Corgi was already impatient to go outside because she was rushing along the corridor, and, quickly throwing a windbreaker and pulling a long striped “dwarf” hat over her head, hastened the dog:
- Come, come, Fox!
Corgi left the bag and ran after the mistress.
There was thick fog on the street again. Lou remembered that the night visitor invited her into an abandoned garden.
- Visit our new friends? She asked the little fox.
Corgi wagged her tail: “Wherever you say, man, we’ll go there!”
“Then, probably, to the garden,” Lou said hesitantly.
She slowly crossed the bridge. It seemed that the trees overnight seemed to have stepped and now stamped at the very edge of the ravine. Still, the fog has an amazing feature - to turn ordinary things into mysteriously awesome.
Lou went down the forest tunnel. Chanterelle was also kind of quiet today. She almost did not run and only sluggishly sniffed at the rusty-brown autumn grass. I didn’t even take the ball with me today!
The moon stopped and looked at the rubber bands of socks sticking out of boots. Blue and pink stripes. Well, at least now she knows what socks are on her, otherwise, it already seemed to have fog in her head.
Lou stepped into the fork, stomped on and went to the garden, looking at the wasteland. The fog swirled so low that it seemed like white lambs of clouds grazing in a wild field. On fluffy, tail-like foxes spikelets along the path were thin strings of cobwebs. “The telephone of spirits,” Luna recalled the words of Halo.
The tall stalks of valerian were decorated with small neat ones - just with a palm! - cobwebs. For some reason, it was precisely in the fall that there suddenly became a lot of them around. I wanted to take it off and take it with me, but Lou knew that it was an untouchable beauty: if you touch it with your finger, and in a moment this natural lace would not become.
The garden was quiet and calm.
And then the moon saw the Mosses. The little dragon sat on the edge of a dilapidated well and blew smoke rings from his nostrils that merged with the fog. The moon even wondered if these white clubs weren't his tricks, and was he really blowing smoke out of his nostrils? Mshi bowed his head and looked with a golden eye at the aliens.
The chanterelle wagged its tail weakly. Mossy did the same. Its tail was very long, about two times longer than its body. Therefore, when he tried to wag them, it seemed that a snake was crawling in the grass.
- Vav! - said the Chanterelle.
“Ursh shh,” the dragon hissed.
Suddenly, he flew off the wall and ran into the depths of the garden. The fox with a joyful bark rushed after a friend and instantly disappeared into the fog.
Lou was afraid that she would lose the Corgi and ran after him to bark. She walked under an old wooden arch entwined with girl's grapes in reddening leaves and ended up in a small garden.
Here pumpkins grew and ripened. Some were smoky gray, others almost white. Some are completely with a cam, and some are already with a human head and more.
“You came,” rustled above her head as if a gust of wind stroked the grass. A princess of moths suddenly appeared in front of Lou. - I am so glad!
“I wanted to make sure you didn't dream of me,” Lou said.
“Yes, I'm really, as far as real spirit can be,” Halo parted with black handles, twigs.
She stood on a stump, so her head was almost at the level of the face of the moon.
- Can I touch you? - said Lou and was embarrassed. Halo will probably think this is a strange request.
The princess giggled and held out a pen. Lou took her in hers. Cold but tangible.
“I will melt when the fog clears,” Halo sighed. “I'll be back in the well, and Mshi will guard the peace of my kingdom.”
Lou had so many questions that she did not know where to start. I wanted to ask immediately about everything.
“I thought all the dragons died out,” Lou said. - How did Mshi survive, and even near people?
“Yes, dragons died out when people began to store gold in banks.” No more treasure caves in which dragons hatched eggs. But the mossy dragons are different. They, like jays and chipmunks, harvest nuts, acorns, cones for the winter, and they hatch eggs in hollows and other secluded places. Rather, one egg every fifty years. In dry years, when there is no rain for a long time, fires often break out from an accidental dragon spark. Moreover, mossy dragons like to tear each other's nests, steal nuts and acorns. Dragons do not particularly like their own kind. And people, again, oppress the forest. And the mossy dragons are getting smaller.
Chanterelle and Mice frolic in the garden among pumpkins.
- Where does the garden come from? - asked the next exciting question to her moon. “It seems I haven’t seen him here before.”
“This is mine,” said Halo. - Once a year, in the fall, I have to feed the subjects with pumpkin soup so that they can survive the