Now, Lou felt for a small silver lighthouse undershirt that hung on a cord around her neck, squeezed it, and then removed it and put it next to the nightlight.
“Traded me for Alice,” Lou whispered, turned off the night light and laid her head back on the pillow.
Unhappy, lonely green witch.
Although it’s time to already admit to herself that she would never have become a green witch. Lou is not the seventh daughter of her seventh sister (her mother has only brother Artair), she is not an orphan, and, of course, her family does not have a single skeleton in the closet, not even the smallest, even the black spider’s corpse.
Maybe run away from home? Just like that, for no reason? In the forest. Suddenly then someone magical will find and shelter her. But probably only maniacs roam in the forest. It's time to grow up, Lou: magic is not for you.
The pillowcase under her cheek became wet. The fox crawled closer and licked the mistress in the ear. Lou waved it off, but, unable to resist, giggled. She pressed the dog to her and buried her nose in the ginger withers.
It seems that the moon has already fallen asleep when she heard a soft knock on the window, and then the rattle as if passed through the glass with claws.
Lou sat in bed. The chanterelle grunted softly nearby.
- What it is? Whispered Lou.
The knock and rattle ceased, then began again.
Lou could not stand it, went to the window and opened the sash.
Suddenly the room filled with fog, and the darkness dissipated. Lou recoiled and saw that at the level of the window sill there was ... some kind of creature that looked like a little girl.
She was about half the height of Lou, with large black almond-shaped eyes without proteins. And it seemed light, fluffy and as if dusty, like a night moth. She was wearing a simple dress with a light collar made of thin feathers, and two shaggy tendrils protruded from her short white hair. The guest wrapped herself in moth wings, as if in a cloak, and looked more touching than scary.
- Who are you? She asked.
“I'm the princess of the moths,” the girl introduced herself.
Her voice was like the rustle of leaves.
- You call a princess? She asked.
The strange guest smiled slightly.
- Call me Halo.
- Halo?
- Look here. - The princess turned away and raised a small head.
Lou looked out the window and saw a full moon, around which a large luminous ring flickered.
“This light around the moon is the halo,” the princess explained. “And my name is also.”
She turned back to Lou and pulled out a grass diary from under the folded wing.
“I live in the well of an abandoned garden and found this,” Galo explained and handed the notebook to the hostess.
The princess's hand was thin and black, like a tree twig.
- Oh, you found him! Thank you very much! - Rejoiced Lou, taking his notebook.
She looked at the girl again and asked:
“But I live on the fourth floor, and you stand by my window and don’t even wave your ... hmm ... wings.”
“I am standing on the back of a friend,” the princess rustled.
- Friend? - got interested in Lou.
- If you invite us to visit, you will see him.
Lou thought for a second. It was a little scary, but how could she afford to miss such a chance! Someone mysterious and magical came to her herself to return the lost diary! Probably, this strange little girl read on the first page of a notebook that he belongs to a green witch, and realized: here are her own, and decided not to lurk. Lou smiled affably and walked away from the window.
- Come in, please!
The fox growled menacingly.
- Quiet, Fox! - laughed Lou. - These are our guests!
The princess stepped on the windowsill and jumped onto the table, and ... a dragon appeared in the window opening ... Just a little one. True, Lou had never met real dragons before, but she still represented them more solidly, perhaps ... The size of a house, for example, but this one turned out to be no bigger than Chanterelle. The lizard was green, but instead of scales it covered it ... it seems to be moss, and from this, the dragon seemed plush.
- Mossy dragon! - Luna screeched and immediately clamped her hand over her mouth so as not to wake her mother.
The black-eyed princess smiled.
- Yes. With his back, he closes the entrance to my underground kingdom.
“Oh, that means that I see him in the well when I walk in an abandoned garden.” I knew it! - Luna said joyfully and clapped her hands softly with delight.
“The garden is not abandoned at all,” objected Halo. - This is a garden of mosses.
- A garden of mosses? - surprised Lou. - There are only old apple trees and pears.
“Have you looked at their trunks?” Yellow and silver lichens, and closer to the ground, on the bark, are green moss and protruding brown antennae, similar to tiny snakeheads. This is my garden of mosses. I thought you knew about it, as well as about the dragon.
“Now I know,” Lou said conciliatory. “But how did you find me?”
“For a long time, I have heard on the autumn webphone how people walking in the mornings with dogs in the wasteland talk about the princess of the moths.” I was curious because the princess is me.