Page 21 of Enchanted By a Pirate
The fairy and Anna wanted to object — after all, she was an adult and could safely look after herself. However, she recalled the pirates and they exchanged an uncertain look until Anna made a dismissive gesture.
"The pirates have no idea where the source is." She waved confidently at Anton, who only managed a half-hearted smile. His forehead wrinkled with worry. She patted his rock-like feet soothingly. "Nothing will happen to me."
The giant nodded and waved at her. Margerite led her back into the forest, and a little while later, she could no longersee Anton. A feeling of abandonment overwhelmed her and she looked forward to seeing her good friend again soon.
9
As expected, Margerite hadn't accounted for the fact that Anna was on foot. Quick as lightning, she flew over bushes and streams without bothering to look back. So she didn't see that Anna was unable to jump the river the fairy had flown over in the blink of an eye.
"Stop!" Anna paused on the bank, put her hands on her knees, and panted. "Break."
The fairy flew back, shoulders hunched. As she hovered in front of Anna's face, she glanced uneasily between the trees. "Then transform."
"I don't know how."
"Remember and feel your true form. Then it's easy."
"So you think…" Anna gasped again, "…running me through the forest will help me recall who I once was?"
"Exactly."
Anna wiped the sweat from her temples with the back of her hand and stood up. Her voice became sharper than intended. "Then I'll tell you something: it doesn't work that way. If you keep flying through the forest at jet speed, either I'll get hurt or lose you. You can't expect anything else from your actions."
Shocked, Margerite hung her head. When she raised it again, her gaze had softened. "I'm merely trying to help. Many people are angry with you. If you flounder before them as a clumsy human, they won't hesitate to vent their anger — not to mention the captain. If he gets his hands on you, you must at least have the opportunity to fly away. How else are you going to escape him? Besides, who knows if this time he'll let you live…"
"You want to help me? Then tell me more about that time. When Toni recalled how we met, I started to remember things. I think that way we'll accomplish our objective faster."
Margerite nodded. "Only if you promise not to dawdle. I absolutely have to be in our fairy tree before dusk, and not just because I'm anxious by nature. You heard what Iris threatened me with."
Anna refrained from asking how she was going to return before dusk, given that the journey on foot was a day's walk. Maybe the little fairy flew so fast that she could succeed — but then Anna would be left alone in the forest or rather, at the source. However, since she didn't want to give Margerite a reason to fly faster again, she kept her concerns to herself. Instead, she searched the river for a few stones above the water and jumped from one to the next. Meanwhile, Margerite buzzed around her, blocking her view more than once. Anna almost fell into the river on several occasions, but she always managed to catch herself in time. Not only did she hate snow and cold, but she also hated water. Showering and washing were fine. Drinking? Sure. But it would never cross her mind to go for a swim or take a long bath.
She focused intently and made it to the other bank with dry feet, then hurried after Margerite at a brisk pace to demonstrate her goodwill. Since they weren't following a path, Anna would have been hopelessly lost without Margerite, though she did have the wide river as a reference point.
After they had covered a considerable distance, having silently agreed on a pace, questions returned to Anna's mind. She wanted to discover as much about this world as possible.
"What was life like as a fairy back when everything was normal?"
Margerite's eyes shone and a blissful smile appeared on her pouty mouth. "It was wonderful. Back then, we could sleep on every flower, under every leaf, and on every branch. We rose at the crack of dawn and did our work."
"By work, you mean we spread fairy dust on the flowers?" Anna intentionally used the "we" form even though she still couldn't imagine herself as a fairy.
"Exactly. A good pinch on each flower."
It sounded time-consuming. But taking care of plants had never seemed like work to Anna. Time had probably passed quickly — if she had even been one of those fairies.
"Do our names indicate which flowers we care for?"
Margerite shook her head. "They're simply the names of the pollen we were born from."
In the normal world, the scent of anemones made her faint. The images she had perceived back then probably hadn't been products of her imagination, but probably had hidden meaning. Had the scent of the flowers helped awaken her memory because she was born from an anemone? But what had she seen back then, at the time?
At that time. Anna smiled. The day before yesterday, to be precise — but it felt as if an eternity had passed since she had lived a normal life, been at work, and fallen asleep in front of the television in her apartment. No matter how hard she tried to remember, the images were still blurry and she couldn't recall what the scent of the anemones had caused her to see.
Margerite continued, interrupting Anna's thoughts. "Everyone takes care of the flowers that no one else has takencare of that day. As long as no one is lazy or doesn't take part, it's fair."
Anna listened. Was that an insinuation? "Was I lazy?"
Margerite laughed. "No, don't worry. Even if you were literally lost in your work and hardly approachable, you always worked hard — in contrast to Lilie and Calla. The two of them took any opportunity to nap." The fairy sighed and flew lower. "They didn't make it. Why was I always so strict with them when I caught them daydreaming?"
