Chapter 13
13
L eisurely, Anton rose from the meadow. The blades of grass immediately stood back up as if the heavy weight of a giant hadn't been pressing down on them. He offered her his hand. Anna hesitated. It was pretty darn high — but that was why the view from there was so spectacular. Hesitantly, she agreed. She felt slightly dizzy at the height, but Anton curled his fingers like a railing. She felt safe and as the giant pressed onward, her fear of heights slightly subsided bit by bit.
His great strides thundered across the plain. "This meadow used to be white and pink from the blooming clover. And there was at least one fairy on every tenth flower."
Anna listened in surprise. Had there been so many fairies? How many must have already disappeared if all the remaining ones fit into an oak tree?
"You are a hard-working kind. I've always admired that. I could never be on my feet all day, spending most of my time taking care of someone."
"So, where did the fairies live?"
"They slept out in the open. The oak tree Iris and Margerite retreated to has always been something like your headquarters. You often had parties at the pond with the water lilies. Once, you hid me there so I could watch. The others were so angry when they noticed." He laughed, slowly and deeply, and Anna automatically joined in the laughter.
"Someone couldn't watch the celebration?"
He shook his head sedately. "You pushed for an exception to be made for me, but the other fairies wouldn't hear of it. From then on, you stopped attending parties and instead spent the evenings with me." His expression was mawkish.
A quiet voice throbbed inside her, trying to tell her about the past. But before she could seize onto it, it disappeared. What remained was the feeling of why she hadn't left him alone. He had been her friend, had been dear to her, and she had known how much loneliness bothered him. He had left the giants because life there had been too monotonous and boring for him, but also too heartless and solitary, and she didn't want to subject him to such isolation. She looked at him with a smile. There by his side, many things from before were coming back.
"So, what did we end up doing?"
Anton let out his slow, deep laugh. "We watched sunsets, told stories, and philosophized about the seemingly endless nature of the sea."
As Anna listened, her heart started to beat faster. "We've been to the sea? Can you tell me how I met the captain?"
He furrowed his bushy eyebrows. "I hate to talk about him."
"But I have to find out as much as possible about the past, Toni. That is the only way I can find out who did this to me and the fairies. At least there's a chance he wasn't the one who banished me and robbed me of my memories."
The giant said nothing, but from the deep lines on his brow, she could tell he was considering what she'd said. She left him to his inner debate and examined the fairy realm. Unfortunately, there were hardly any flowers to be seen. The bushes, trees, and meadows they passed on their way didn't appear in any other than the green of the grass and leaves. And even that green did not look fresh and rich, but rather withered, with a brownish hue.
The landscape was monotonous. Where were the inhabitants? The villages or cities? Were there any left in this part of the land? She held back the question so as not to offer any distractions from the topic at hand. What she wanted to find out more about now was the captain. Then she'd ask him about the people.
The giant sighed deeply and a gust of wind swept through a hazel bush, causing countless leaves to sail to the ground. It was no wonder the fairies weren't too keen on a giant wandering through their realm, considering what Anton could do with a single breath.
"All right, I'll tell you. But only the short version. And I want to make it clear that I don't trust him — him or any other pirate."
"Understood." Curious, Anna sat up in the huge hand. She was so nervous that she was no longer looking at her surroundings. Had the pirate saved her from the clutches of unscrupulous thieves? Had she met him in a port bar? But as a fairy, what would she have been doing there? Except she wasn't a fairy. That was entirely possible. Perhaps she had once been the daughter of a gardener and had met him on the job — that would also explain where she obtained her knowledge of plants. Since when did pirates care about floral decorations on their ships?
Before her imagination ran away with her, Anton finally started to tell the story.
"You and I were on our way to the Kingdom of Rocks."
"To see your relatives?" Anna blurted out before pressing her lips together tightly. If she interrupted him after every sentence, she would probably never find out how she'd met the captain.
"Not exactly. You wanted to see the kingdom. Like me, you have always been curious…"
Hadn't the captain said that too?
"…and that's why you showed me your kingdom first and then I wanted to show you mine. Unfortunately, I underestimated how much my species dislikes visitors and how quickly they are disturbed."
Anna frowned. "What happened?"
"We hiked over the Thundering Mountains, which lie just beyond the border of the Kingdom of Flowers. You were so euphoric that you jumped from my hand and flew away. The sun's light reflected off your wings and the beam of light shone straight into the cave of a sleeping giant."
"Uh oh." Anna had a bad feeling.
"He was mad as hell, just like any giant who is disturbed while sleeping. He stomped out of the cave and immediately charged us. You flew away, but our giant strides are so large that in exceptional cases, we can move at great speeds — the same speed as a flying fairy, if not much faster."
"Uh oh." Anna forgot to blink. Her eyes were practically glued to Anton's lips. "What happened next?"
The giant scratched his head. "Well, he would have caught you, but I threw myself at him. He hit the ground rather hard. That gave you a head start and you flew away."
What did that have to do with the captain? "Where I…" she didn't want to say flew to, "…escaped to…?"
"Back to the Kingdom of Flowers, though, not directly because the Thundering Mountains are so high and the air up there is too thin for you. That was why I had to carry you across the border on the way there. You flew along the seashore and shortly afterward, I lost sight of you."
That was when it had happened. She must have met him then. Her heart immediately began to beat faster and she leaned forward, her voice a whisper. "Then what?"
His face darkened. Aha, finally, they were getting to the heart of the story.
"I searched for you everywhere. I was terribly worried. Eventually, I found you on the shore along the Bay of a Thousand Spells."
Anna shook her head in incomprehension. She really needed a map. "Where?"
"The bay is in the Kingdom of Flowers. It's incredibly big, like a lake, and it glitters with all the fairy wings. Because so many fairies frolic there, there is a legend that you can have a thousand wishes fulfilled in the bay."
"That sounds magical. But what about the captain?"
"You met him. You didn't tell me where, but I immediately saw that something had happened. Your cheeks were as red as they were this morning after you met him in the cave."
She ordered her heart not to flutter at this, but it did anyway. Without a moment's hesitation. And only because Anton had spoken of him. "How did I meet him?"
"That was the short version. I won't repeat your rosy-colored infatuations from back then. I wasn't there, I have no idea what kind of enchanted berry he slipped you, but I'm sorry to say… you acted like a giant."
Anna laughed. "What does that mean?"
"You stopped working and just sat there dreaming. And you weren't present for a proper conversation, nor did you feel like exploring the rest of the land with me. I wanted to go to the Kingdom of Winter, but you wouldn't have anything to do with it."
"It doesn't necessarily have to be because of those newfound feelings. I hate snow, cold, and everything that comes with it. Winter is the most terrible season for me. No wonder I didn't want to go there."
"No, no, it was him. He enchanted you from the beginning. But enough now. You've heard what you wanted to know. Now we should concentrate on the essentials again." Grumpily, Anton trudged on. His footsteps were so forceful that the ground shook, but he didn't seem to notice.
Anna couldn't suppress a grin. She still didn't know much about her first encounter with the captain, which would of course lead to even wilder speculations. Before she could think about it any further, something caught her attention. A city was rising on the edge of a large hill. Clouds of smoke danced toward the sky and the constant clatter of a mill wheel could be heard. When the blades of a windmill appeared, Anna sat up on Anton's hand. A magical city?
"What type of settlement is that?"
"That isn't just any settlement. That is Linnenberg, the capital of the Kingdom of Flowers. Linnenberg and the seaport are the central places."
"And the people living here are completely normal, like…" She wanted to say, "like you and me," but abandoned the idea due to the giant's size. "…are completely normal people who have no magic in them?"
"Why do you think people don't have magic?"
She looked at him, surprised by the question. "Maybe because I come from a land where people live and none of them have any supernatural powers."
"Well, that's what you think."
Objections were on the tip of Anna's tongue, but what was the point of arguing about it? And who knew? Maybe Anton was right and magic did exist in the normal human world. But she couldn't allow herself to be distracted from what was important.
"So, the people of this realm can do magic?"
"Well, not all of them. There are a few. The Snow Queen, for example, who can cast spells. The others learn from them, using potions, teas, and rituals to perform magic."
How exciting. But that wasn't the point. She had to find out who'd framed her. "So there are people living among them who could be responsible for the disappearance of the fairies?"
"Theoretically, yes. But in practice, no."
What was that supposed to mean? She looked questioningly at the giant.
"Well, the cities have lost their trading power. The goods produced in surplus in this land and traded are now lacking due to the fairies dying out."
"What are those?"
"Honey, flowers, grains, tea, oils, tinctures, clothing…"
"The fairies made clothes?"
He pointed to the meadows that wrapped around the town and up the great hill. "The grass used to glow a delicate blue. The fairies made the flax bloom so that people could use it to make linen. And they wove clothing and sailcloth from the linen, which is why the pirates like to capture their ships."
"So you think a person from this kingdom is out of the question since the disappearance of the fairies also caused the land's prosperity to collapse?"
The giant beamed. "My Anemone, clever as ever."
That sounded logical. Nevertheless, they couldn't exclude all people from the Kingdom of Flowers, since they couldn't be certain, after all. "Do humans live in all four kingdoms?"
"No longer in the Kingdom of Rocks. My ancestors chased away most of those who tried to settle there. The last ones were driven away after the captain flew his ship into the sky, threatening the power of the giants. Then again, it's also pretty barren there since the goats eat everything and there are rocks and mountains everywhere."
"And in the other kingdoms?"
"The people who live in the Kingdom of the Sea are all pirates and there aren't that many of them."
"Are there any other pirates besides the captain and his crew?"
"Sure, but he's the worst of them. We shouldn't talk about him again. You have other things to concentrate on, Anemone, promise me that."
She didn't reply. She wasn't going to let Anton influence her decision about whether she could trust the captain or not — even though she was interested in discovering what the two of them had against each other.
"Humans live in the land of the Snow Queen too," Anton continued. "However, by far, most of them reside in the Kingdom of Flowers."
"Interesting." She was excited to meet people who weren't pirates, so she wanted to take her time looking around the medieval-looking city. "Please set me down, I would like to explore Linnenberg on foot."
Anton had long since reached the city with his long strides. He gently lowered her onto the street and remained in front of the city gates. His feet were so big he could have trampled several buildings with one step.
Excitedly, Anna watched the guards playing dice in the shadows of the gates and a little boy skipping through the gate whistling. They appeared normal, their clothes simple but clean.
"I'll make a round and come back here."
"All right, Anemone. In the meantime, I'll take a nap. You know where to find me."
Anna was about to laugh — it was probably a joke — when Anton calmly laid down on the meadow in front of the city, lying so still that he looked like a huge stone. Good thing he reminded her. Who knew how long she would have searched for him? She didn't want to think about it. Now it was time to go into town.