"Did all this happen?" Richard recalled what happened last night. He opened his eyes and saw an insensitive girl right next to him. This is not a dream. There she is, right in front of him. Her face remained deathly pale, but pink spots appeared on her cheeks in places. The heart is beating, and the breathing is calm. She's alive! He managed to help her.
It was already morning; there was not a cloud in the blue sky, and the spring sun shone directly into his eyes. The songs of awakened birds echoed through the clearing. Everything foreshadowed another measured day in Bertleben and its surroundings. Nothing happened to anyone. All the most unusual things happened only to him.
The guy got to his feet, gathered all his things, threw the bag over his shoulder, and picked up the stranger.
Now he was going to go to Ilda, she would be able to help her! But the young healer feared for the girl's condition. After all, she may not be able to withstand such a long journey, and this will only disturb her wounds. And he will not carry her—he is not too strong, after all. If only he had a horse!
He didn't want to leave her in an open clearing. The young man decided to take the mysterious traveler first to his and Veya's hut, which they built in childhood, then to their small castle, and then to seek a healer. It would be wiser that way.
Pushing through the thorny bushes so as not to injure the girl, Richard moved to the edge of the forest along a shallow river. As soon as possible with his burden, he reached a dilapidated hut with a stone base. No one has been here for a very long time.
The guy made a bed out of his blanket on the floor in the corner of the house, lowered the girl onto it, took off his cloak, and covered her. It's a little dusty, dark, and damp, but it's better than an open glade where anyone could come to.
Looking back at the house, Richard raced toward the fields, jumping over fallen trees, shrubs, and deadwood.
He kept running, ignoring the pain in his legs and side. His heart was beating wildly; it seemed like a knife was digging into his chest, but he did not stop until Bertleben appeared. Only then did he slow down a little, greedily inhaling the cool air that seemed to burn his lungs.
"Richard!" someone called out to him. The young man stopped. A tall old man with brown hair tousled by the wind and a beard matching his head was walking toward him from the opposite side of the city, limping slightly.
His dark brown cloak fluttered in the wind like a flag. His name was Garrett Groff. He was not indigenous, but came to Bertleben a few years ago from some large city in search of a calm and measured life. Oddly enough, he became his own pretty quickly. It was as if Groff had always been a part of this backwater world, fitting into it completely and completely.
Richard liked him, he treated the boy's family well and sometimes helped them in a friendly manner—with advice or some small matter. If there were other circumstances, he would have been happy to talk to him. But now, when the life of the girl he found was hanging by a thread, he was not up to the old man.
"Hello, Groff!" he shouted. Something tempted him to tell the old man about his find, but how could he help? He doesn't walk so soon, and he certainly knows less about treatment than Ilda. "I'm sorry, but I don't have time at all!" and with these words, the guy rushed on.
Groff shrugged, scratched his beard, and watched the young man with a puzzled look.
Richard reached Ilda's shop in a matter of minutes, pushed the door open, and flew inside.
A healer came out of the backroom to see him.
"Richard..." she looked at him in horror. The guy's face and hands were covered with abrasions, and his shirt was torn and stained. "What happened to you in the forest?! Where's your raincoat?" Ilda asked, startled. "Are you hurt?"
"Everything is fine with me, but something happened," he exhaled, bending in half. "I need your help... Take the best healing potions and something else for healing wounds, clean bandages, some of your clothes, shirts, for example, we will also need a bigger pot and food—" he listed.
"Please explain what's going on. Is someone in your family sick?"
"There is no time!" Richard shouted. "I'll explain everything later!"
Ilda nodded and didn't ask any more questions. She packed everything she required very quickly and handed him the bag.
"At least tell me where we're going." She closed her shop and followed her excited student.
"Into the wood," he said shortly.
Richard walked quite fast, and I wondered how Ilda managed to keep up with him. Of course, it took much longer to get to their hut.
"Well, here we are," the guy said when the dilapidated house appeared. "This way."
Richard opened the sagging door, and they both went inside. The girl was lying on the floor in the same position in which she was left. He breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing had happened to her during his absence.
"Is she the one who needs help?" Ilda asked, examining everything at once: both the girl and the squalid room.
"Yes, as you can see."
"But what happened to her?" the healer sat down next to the wounded traveler and touched her forehead.
"I don't know, I found her in the forest yesterday when I was picking herbs for you. She is all wounded, she has a high fever. I prepared the potion for the fever, then began to treat her. But that's not enough!"
Ilda opened the blanket and examined the wounds.
"I'm proud of you!" She patted the disciple affectionately on the shoulder. You managed to make the decoction in such a difficult situation and help this poor girl.
Richard smiled, but he didn't consider himself a hero at all; he just happened to be there by accident. And how could he not help her?
Ilda took out a bottle of medicine from her bag and began to give the girl a drink with it.
"We'll need water and firewood."
"I'll get everything now!" Richard took the pot and left the hut. He went to the river and collected water, and then gathered firewood.
When the young man returned, Ilda had already treated the wounds with one of her compositions, bandaged them with clean bandages, and changed the girl's clothes.
"Look what I found," the healer whispered and gathered the girl's hair into a ponytail.
The boy almost dropped the bowler hat when he saw the girl's pointed ears.
"You think... she's... she's..." his voice trembled slightly.
"An elf?" Ilda finished for him. "I don't know. I don't know... if I had seen them before, but... and whoever saw them? Especially here, in Bertleben! But just look at her sword. Except for an elf, it can't belong to anyone," the healer pulled the blade out of its scabbard. Her blade flashed with all the colors of the rainbow, illuminating the shack from the inside. Richard had never seen anything like it before. What has he ever seen in his life, by the way?
"But elves don't exist..." it sounded somehow justifiable and uncertain. The guy put the pot on the floor, and he was standing with it in his hands all the time. "Is this girl one of them? But how is this possible?"
"Who can know what is possible and what is not... But I never believed in the existence of elves," Ilda sighed heavily. "At least until today. And something does not make it easier for me, but on the contrary, I want to lose faith again!"
"How is she feeling?" the young man carefully examined the girl. It seemed to him that she was already a little better.
"She's not very good. To be exact, she's really bad."
"Surely you can cure her."
"I can't say anything. This girl must be in some kind of trouble. I have no idea what happened to her, but all these cuts, dehydration, fever, and all the situations in general." she pressed her palms to her chest compassionately. "It seems to me that she was walking from somewhere far away, and she was also attacked... And not only her body suffered, but also her mind. This ailment will be much more difficult to cure."
"But you're a real sorceress! I know you can cure her!"
"Ha!" snorted Ilda. "I'm not a sorceress at all. It's just that I know the properties of plants, and I use this knowledge to prepare potions. There is no magic here. But there is a chance that the girl will recover. And I won't miss it!"
They built a fire and heated water. Ignoring the young man's protests, Ilda insisted on the need to feed him as well.
"But I'm asking you not to tell anyone about her," Richard warned after a quick snack. "In Bertleben rumors spread very quickly. I don't want anyone to find out."
"I wasn't going to!" Ilda exclaimed a little angrily. "Don't you think it's weird? The girl appeared in our forest for a reason. Some of her wounds were inflicted with a sword and claws, that's for sure! Perhaps someone is looking for her, so moving the girl to the city is out of the question," the healer reasoned. "I'll stay here, take care of her. I hope no one will pay attention to my absence."
"I'm staying too," he said.
"No! You need to rest, otherwise, I'll have to take care of you, and your parents will lose you! Go home, and tomorrow you will come here. And take this," Ilda handed him some coins. "Part of it is for your work, and with the rest of the money, buy food for us at the market. And now quickly go home!"
He didn't want to leave Ilda alone at all. If a girl is being persecuted, then the healer may also be in danger.
"Don't worry about me," Ilda seemed to read his anxious thoughts. "I can take care of myself."
"Okay," the young man agreed. "I'll leave you my bow and other things. Be careful!"
"And you take care of yourself too."
***
When Richard got home, he mentally thanked Ilda for sending him to rest. He could not feel his legs, his back ached from fatigue, and his eyes closed by themselves.
The guy did not tell anyone from his family about what happened in the forest, although he wanted to share his experiences.
His father and Aunt Aurora behaved as if nothing had happened between them. This pleased him a little. He hoped that their lives would return to normal, and that there would be no new quarrels. Veya didn't hear anything yesterday. As always, she was having fun, joking, and laughing. Or pretended to. He didn't ask her about that.
After lunch, the young man went to his room, fell on the bed without undressing, and instantly fell asleep.
From then on, Richard went to see Ilda every day. They repaired the old hut, making it more or less habitable. The young man was very careful. Leaving the house, he headed toward Bertleben, and only then, having made sure that there was no surveillance or at least curious eyes, did he move toward the forest. He carried food and other things there, and then quietly returned and helped with the housework. In the town, no one knew anything about the sudden disappearance of the healer. The healer's disciple started a rumor that she had gone to visit her brother.
The girl's wounds began to heal, but she never regained consciousness. Ilda said that she whispers things and sometimes calls someone.
"The shackles of oblivion are too strong, the experienced events don't let her go," the healer repeated. "But, one day, these ties will not be able to withstand the test of time. That's when the girl will wake up."
They both tried to do everything for her recovery. Ilda insisted on patience because taking care of the sick requires it in the first place. But it was starting to leave Richard. What if their care is not enough, and this girl will never recover?
All this time, Richard was looking for something about elves, in books, of course. But they failed, there was nothing about this race. Who would doubt it? Sometimes something slipped through there, but nothing sensible, just some grains and tall tales.
In Ilda's love novels, of course, there could not be something like that. Well, what if? His heart skipped a beat when he saw the word "elf" in one of them, but it turned out to be just a saying.
"It's like elves have replaced you. That's what they said if a person started behaving strangely, and then rarely, in a whisper, not without notes of fright.
It was believed that elves could charm you, then kidnap you and take you to their country. If you spend too long there, then their magic will turn you into an empty shell. Then they returned you to your place, and you could no longer live the usual life, languishing and dreaming about the lost world. That girl had already taken his peace without any sorcery or magic in an unknown country, and he couldn't stop thinking about her.
There was no library in Bertleben, apart from a school reading room with textbooks, but there was nothing to be found there. But he still tried his luck. He was looking for fairy tales, songs, and legends. Anything at all. Nothing here. The history textbooks ignored elves, too.
He was already thinking: the country of elves could be very close, right behind the mountains. How else to explain the appearance of this girl from nowhere? In addition, there is a strange awe among the people before these stone spikes.
Unless elves could cut the canvas of being, distance, and time. But there was another option: she was not an elf but belonged to some other nation. They just made a mistake. But everything has to have a name or a title. So it was easier for them to describe her mysterious essence.
More records were kept in the archive near the town council. The last place where there could have been at least something was the archive, but there was nothing there either. There is just a description of the orderly and monotonous life of the town, which has only twice been disrupted by tragic events. The first time was because of the plague, the second time because of cold and hunger. There were no elves in this dusty, decayed, and yellowed Bertleben. The elves, imprinted in the largest books, did not exist.
So a week passed. But it seemed to him that an eternity had passed since the mysterious stranger appeared in his life. He was tired of secrecy and loneliness. And the fact that he lied to his family every time he fled to the forest weighed heavily on his soul. But he couldn't tell them. They wouldn't understand.
Misunderstanding gives rise to hostility and fear, especially when it comes to a supposed elf. It won't be long before the parents visit the burgomeister, and he will be forced to hand over that poor thing and be punished.
"Look, this cut is not healing," Ilda complained when Richard came to the hut one day. "No matter what I do, the wound does not heal."
The young man looked at the girl's shoulder: like a snake, a thin scratch ran along with it, twisting and intertwining. He touched her with his hand, and a chill ran through his skin. At the same moment, the scar flashed with an ominous purple light. The girl shuddered, and they distinctly heard her whisper:
"Richard..."
The young man looked at Ilda with surprise.
"The girl hears us, it means she leaves the realm of dreams," the healer smiled. "And the disease is almost defeated!"