Tamlane – Prisoner of the queen of the fairies

«You have a golden fate, but a dangerous one,» someone whispered in her ear, leaning over her shoulder. Janet had already realized that if she turned back, she would see no one but a swirling shadow that no one had cast.

The guards in front of the square were asleep. One of them had managed to fall asleep in a standing position, leaning on his spear. Janet accidentally caught his cuirass, and he began to sink to the ground. His armor clanked longingly.

There was someone in the square. Not asleep! There were some silhouettes moving. Were there people? No. Janet saw a lady in a sumptuous scarlet dress, and around her were stunted, ugly creatures, dressed as groomsmen and footmen. The lady’s scarlet train was so long that it seemed to flow in a wave across the square. Her curly hair, too, grew so much that it flowed over the ground, as did the train. It seemed to Janet that they turned suddenly into living black snakes, one of which hissed wildly, pointing its head in her direction. The girl hurriedly hid behind a corner. There was a threat from the creatures in the square. She could feel it. It was better to stay out of their way.

A gilded carriage also stood in the square. Fire seemed to be shooting out of the horses’ nostrils, and the blankets on their backs were wings folded behind them. Janet blinked to drive away the illusion, but it didn’t go away. The horses still seemed fire-breathing and winged to her.

«That’s enough!» The lady handed some young man, Janet thought it was Quentin, a whole purse of gold. As soon as it passed from hand to hand, jingling coins rained down on the young man’s palms. Each one looked like a gold moon with a woman’s face, like the emblems in the fortune-teller’s house. The coins seemed to sing a mischievous song. They slipped from the boy’s hands and rolled across the sidewalk. He rushed to pick them up.

«They’re quick,» he complained.

«They are as nimble as you are,» said the lady indifferently. The lady’s voice was ice-cold, and her train of fire stretched across the square. Janet noticed one coin bouncing and rolling toward the edge of the square. It did indeed have a face the size of a tail of coin carved into it. The chiseled lips rounded as if they were about to sing.

«And now you give me my order!» The lady held out her hand, her fingers were unnaturally long and thin. It looked as if the membranes between them were laced together. Or was it just a fancy piece of jewelry? Janet did not know what to think.

«Here, ma’am,» the young man handed her not colored ribbons but some sort of jars. He did not appear to be a peddler, but a druggist. So she had mistaken the young man for Quentin.

«Will that be enough for one unruly mind?» The lady inquired, peering at what appeared to be living worms inside the vials.

«It is more than enough!» The young man bowed.

«You said it the last time too,» the lady scolded him.

«But this potion is stronger. And if it isn’t, you’ll have to work it out for yourself, and it’ll cost him his head.»

«I’ll trust you one last time! Off you go!»

The young man bowed again.

Janet bent down to pick up a coin that looked like a living disc of sunshine rolling right at her feet. The coin did not burn her fingers, though it seemed a real flame. The face on the tail winked at its new mistress. Or did it just seem that way?

Janet looked out at the square and saw no one else in it. No lady, no groomsmen, no footmen with monstrous bodies. The square was empty. On the stones of the sidewalk, where the train of fire stretched, there was no ashy trace of the recent burning, either.

Could it be that her visit to the fortuneteller had influenced Janet in such a way that she began to see strange things? The girl stepped into the empty square. Somewhere there should be a carriage waiting to take her back home, but there wasn’t. Janet walked through the empty square and turned nervously at every sound. Sometimes she thought she heard someone calling her name.

Suddenly she bumped right into Quentin. He was there all of a sudden, like an elf popping out of a snuffbox. A second ago the square was empty. And now he was standing right in front of her. There was a teasing grin on his face. And his box was gone.

Janet stared at him, not immediately startled when she heard a noise behind her. A carriage was hurtling across the square toward them.

«Look out!» Quentin covered her as the gilded carriage raced past.

«There are two great frogs instead of grooms,» said Janet, stammering. It seemed to her, somehow, that Quentin could confess everything she’d seen. «Tell me, did you see it, too?»

Quentin was strangely silent. The freckles on his face blazed with the fire of shame. He even shuffled unsteadily from foot to foot. Janet noticed how unusual his shoes were: they had upward-curved toes, buckles shaped like crescents of the month, and bright green leather inserts, as if they were frogs’! What an absurd suggestion!

«There are some things you’d better not talk about with your tongue, or you might end up with no tongue at all,» muttered the young man. «And no head, either.»

He drew a meaningful line down his throat with his finger. It reminded Janet of a ball that seemed like someone’s head had been lifted off his shoulders.

«Talking about inscrutable things is unnecessary,» he added with a touch of bravado. «You’d better not fill your head with silly thoughts. But I have something to give the beautiful lady.»

He plucked a sparkling necklace out of his sleeve. It had two pendants in the shape of a crescent moon and a sun. It’s doubtful that the necklace was made of real gold, most likely of cheap yellow copper, but Janet liked it. Quentin put it in her hand.

«Another rarity from the famous pedlar,» Janet smiled.

«To protect you from her!» uttered Quentin, suddenly becoming serious for a moment. The mischievous twinkle in his eyes faded, replaced by a pensive expression.

«Does it protect me from whom?» Janet didn’t understand.

The boy moved backward instead of answering. The moonlight flickered across his face, and suddenly Quentin’s figure multiplied, as in a mirror with many compartments. He seemed to be standing both right and left, front and back. His monotonous figures, created by the moonlight, danced around her.

Janet looked here and there, trying to distinguish the true young man from the multitude of doppelgangers. Suddenly they were all gone. The girl looked around in vain for the boy, who was no longer there. Again all she could see was the empty, dark square. And the jewel was still clutched in her palm. Quentin hadn’t even charged her for the necklace.

It would soon begin to dawn. In the distance, a bright streak appeared in the dark sky. That means, over the city, the sun is rising. Eternal night has not filled it forever. The spellbound people began to lazily wake up. Would they remember that they had been forcibly put to sleep, or was there a lapse in their memory?

Janet wondered why she hadn’t fallen asleep with them all. The guards were the first to regain consciousness, and they began to stand up, their armor rattling. Probably the guards that her father had sent to escort Janet had awakened somewhere. She must fetch Nyssa from the fortuneteller’s house. Perhaps they could both make it home by noon.

The forest elf

Janet had a dream. She was walking through the woods. A creature was beckoning her into the thicket. It wore a mask of golden leaves, and behind it moved transparent green wings. Was it not an elf? He turned around and then disappeared around the bend in the path. Janet had to run to keep up with him. The forest around her grew darker and darker. The trail broke off, and the girl had to hack her way through the thicket. The thorns clung to her train, but she moved on anyway. Somewhere ahead she could hear clatter of hooves, as if a cavalry party was galloping this way. So there was a road nearby. There was no way a cavalry could have ridden through the thicket.

The branches scratched Janet’s hands. The birdsong suddenly stopped. A gnome ran right under her feet. He was in a great hurry.

«Her knights are coming!» He turned around and shouted to Janet as if it meant something to her. «The time of sacrifice is coming, now that they are here.»

Janet didn’t understand him at all. What knights? What sacrifice? No sacrifices have been made in the woods since the days of the pagan gods. And they had been here so long it seemed legendary. Maybe he was confused about something.

She looked around, but saw no more of the elf in the golden mask. The dwarf had disappeared from view, too. And the clatter of hooves sounded quite close. Janet did see the galloping knights. But the road on which they rode, she could not see, as if the horses were treading on air, not on the driftwood. Suddenly the ground trembled beneath her feet. Thorns clung to her dress, and the knights rode past on their horses and paid no attention to her cries for help, as if she was in a looking glass from them. Or did they simply not care that another victim was dying in the woods? The ground began to suck her down like a viscous swamp, and one of the knights suddenly turned to look at her. His eyes were familiar to her: blue with golden speckles. She knew him and remembered the dragon-head helmet well.

Janet woke up in a cold sweat. Someone had just knocked on her window. The knock must have woken her up. It was quiet but insistent. At first she thought it was rain drumming on the glass, but the sky was clear. The moon shone with a measured pale light.

«Let me in, Janet,» it was Quentin’s voice. There he was, himself, outside the window, or rather, just his red head. «You don’t want the sentries to shoot me. They have very formidable crossbows. I can see it from here.»

How the hell did he get up that high? And what does he want? He may have remembered that he gave her the bracelet and the necklace for free, and now he comes to the castle to ask for money. Would it not have been wiser in this case to come in the afternoon and contact to her father. Another salesman who had contacted the Earl’s daughter would have done so, but Quentin was different. The guy was out of this world! Blessed! Janet felt sorry for him, and hurried to the window. She didn’t even have time to put on her negligee. Good thing her nightgown had a high neck and puffy sleeves. Quentin had nothing to stare at.

«How did you get in here?»

The answer came of its own accord. When she opened the window, Janet caught sight of him holding on to the wattles of scarlet and white roses, which had grown so overnight. Yesterday they had been stunted, but today they were all around the tower. She can’t believe Quentin didn’t bleed his hands clinging to them. Roses have sharp thorns.

«You’re out of your mind!» Janet watched as the young man sat down on the windowsill. He was very good at climbing to heights.

«I wish I had wings,» he admitted.

«Had you wings before?»

He looked at her with mild reproach, as if she’d hurt his pride.

«Forgive me for calling you by your first name, Madam.»

«You’d rather call me Janet than Mistress. Why did you risk your life to try to reach me by the wall? It’s dangerous. After all, the sentries could have seen you and shot you. Or you could have fallen down and crushed to death.»

«I don’t think so. I’m very handy,» he boasted, not unreasonably.

«If you think I’m going to let you sleep in my bedroom, you are very much mistaken. I like you, but not that much.»

«I understand that. Young maidens usually like my merchandise better than my advances. A poor man like me can only dream of gorgeous ladies of noble blood, but never go near them.»

«You’ve already been there,» she reminded him reasonably.

«It’s business,» he said, looking intently at Janet. The moonlight was reflected in his eyes, which made them slightly sinister. The sharp ears weren’t hidden beneath his beret this time. It must have slipped off as Quentin climbed the wall like a wildcat.

«Have you come to offer those special ribbons you told the girls in the square about? I heard it as I drove by.»

«I want to tell about the fairies’ kingdom,» he corrected her, businesslike.

«About what do you want to tell?» Janet thought it was some kind of joke. «Is it about the fairies’ kingdom! Are you serious?»

«You don’t believe in it!»

There was nothing to contradict that. Janet somehow even felt guilty and took a step away from the window. In the meantime, Quentin carefully tucked a lock of reddish hair behind his ear, as if he was trying to draw her attention to his pointed ears.»

«You may not believe in the realm of fairies, but there is a realm,» he suddenly shifted back to a respectful tone, as if her mistrust had put distance between them. A second ago he had acted like an old trusted friend, but now he was playing deference to his mistress again.

«Suppose I believe you. What’s in it for me? You’ve already given me two gifts for nothing, even though I didn’t believe in anything.»

«The third gift you will get on your own,» he promised. «You must go into the forest.»

Wasn’t that what the fortuneteller had warned her against? Janet frowned. The moon was suddenly too bright, hurting her eyes.

«Go beyond the line; there’s someone waiting for you,» Quentin asked in a low, hopeful tone.

For some reason she remembered the knight from her dreams. The line was a brook that gurgled near the edge of the forest. It was as if it separated the Earl’s lands from the dense woods. Perhaps Quentin was referring to some other magical line besides it. He speaks of a realm of fairies.

«He’s been waiting a long time, and he needs you,» the young man whispered quietly. «Because no one else can help him.»

A bird with a red spot on its forehead was circling the tower, croaking strangely, with a hoarse caw. Hearing it, Quentin beckoned Janet to be quiet, and began to descend slowly. This time the twigs of the roses hurt his palms, but it was as if he didn’t notice. There was blood on the thorns.

«It’s Blackness!» He whispered goodbye, evidently referring to the restless bird. «Beware of it!»

Beware of some bird? Janet couldn’t understand why. Birds can’t hurt people, unless they swoop down in a flock and strangle them to death.

Still, the girl decided to close the window tightly, and did the right thing. A bird’s beak immediately began pounding on the window frame. It was very insistently. The bird was clearly angry that it was not allowed in, but Janet, paying no attention to it, just tightly closed the curtains.

Already in the morning Janet remembered the night visit and the bird. Blackness! If that was the bird’s nickname, then the bird itself belonged to someone. Like a hunting falcon released after its prey and then lured back. Is her assumption correct? How she could to check.

Her friends were still playing ball in the garden, as if there was nothing else to do in the castle. Janet herself was sitting by the fountain in the courtyard of the castle. She did not even notice how someone sank down on the stone bench beside her.

«Are you pensive, young mistress?»

Janet looked up. It was the old knight Ambrose. Unlike her father, he had grown old with years, not from grief, and he still maintained a dignified, proud look. He must have been handsome in his youth. The gray hair and wrinkles seemed like a mask which, when scraped away, revealed a pleasant young face. It probably seems that way because of his young mischievous eyes.

«I’m thinking of the fairies kingdom,» Janet admitted.

«That’s a very serious thought!» He said with a chuckle in his elderly voice. «I knew a young lady who used to fill her head with thoughts of fairies.»

«And what became of her?»

«She withered and died in the prime of her life. Like a rose wilted.»

Janet looked at the wattles of scarlet and white roses growing ever larger around the castle wall. They crawled upward like magnificent snakes with thorns. One rose had indeed wilted.

«A drop of blood on it and it will bloom again!» The knight caught her gaze. «These flowers are like leeches.»

«What do you mean?» Janet looked astounded.

«I just want to warn you not to think too much about the realm of elves and fairies, or you’ll be lost, like so many before you, or you’ll wither away with black ennui.»

«Are thoughts of fairies really that dangerous?»

She did not have time to hear the old man’s answer because young knights, her father’s vassals, were already walking toward her. Many of them tried to woo the daughter of the earl they served. They often brought Janet some small gift. Now a handsome-looking knight, named Howard, brought her a fine mother-of-pearl comb. Janet accepted the gift, but her heart did not waver. A strange emptiness settled in her heart. She wanted neither to be friends with girls, nor to accept signs of attention from knights. Perhaps the rainbow bird had flown in from the realm of the fairies and bewitched her. It had not appeared over the castle for two days, and Janet longed.

Waiting until she was alone, she quietly ran away from the castle and made her way to the creek, where she found the keys. There were no more keys at the bottom, apparently she had collected all of them last time, but the colored pebbles remained. As she bent down to retrieve them, someone’s sharp claws suddenly scratched the back of her head. Janet felt the mother-of-pearl comb she’d just given her slip out of her hair.

The rainbow bird flew up to her suddenly and visibly. Stealing the scallop, it clutched it in its beak and fluttered up on a branch.

«Wrong one!» She sang. In a human voice?! Janet was still amazed that there were birds that could speak human. She had heard from one of the merchants from across the sea that there were rare gifted people who could understand the language of animals and birds. Could she really understand it?

The bird managed to sing without letting the teeth of the comb out of her beak. Well, isn’t she magical? The sun played highlights in its iridescent plumage.

«Rainbow,» said Janet, the nickname given to it. Rainbow was too different from the black bird that had been pecking at her window at night. It flared its tail, and it mottled on the branches of the willow tree in all seven bright hues. The impression was as if a seven-colored rainbow, which appeared after the rain, descended from the sky and became feathered.

«Come with me, you coward!» The bird sang it as it flew down from the branch.

«Did you call me a coward?» Janet was used to referring to the talking bird as a girlfriend. «Well, wait!»

And she followed the bird, completely oblivious to the dangers and warnings that were regularly given to all the inhabitants of the castle not to go into the woods.

It might be dangerous to go there at night, but the sun was shining brightly now. The green of the trees gave rest to the eyes. The forest looked like a fairytale kingdom, not a dangerous place where something could threaten a human life.

Janet even enjoyed being all alone on the forest path. The bird flew a little ahead. Its bright tail was clearly visible among the green crowns of trees. Janet followed it, stepping over fallen trunks and moss, and eventually stepped off the path.

She had to hold on to her hem, walking through driftwood and thistles, jumping over streams. She noticed a rainbow stream in her path. The water in it shimmered with seven bands of different colors, like the plumage of a bird. How beautiful! Sunbeams danced on the water with golden highlights. It was probably just the play of light that made the creek seem like a water replica of a sky rainbow.

Janet would have thought so, but there was a blood-red stream ahead of her. It happens! It looked as if the water in it was soaked with red clay. How could that be? Janet had never seen thick red water before. It felt as if it was blood.

«Is it a blood stream?» Janet looked questioningly at the bird flying ahead, as if it could give her a satisfactory answer. But it only flew forward even faster.

«Wait for me!» Janet suddenly realized that she couldn’t find her own way back. She had gone too deep into the thicket. Should she call for help? But who would hear her here? Now the bird is her only hope of getting out of the forest, she just needs to talk to it and convince it to fly back. It knows the way, for it has flown to the castle so many times before.

«It is Dead Water!» The bird chirped as it descended over a spring. No, it was no longer a spring. As she came closer, Janet spotted a well. Was it a well in the woods? She’d never seen anything like it before. Who would think of digging a well in the woods? There was probably a woodsman’s or lumberjack’s hut nearby. But no matter how much she looked around, Janet saw no sign of habitation.

«Look inside!» The bird advised. Janet struggled to pull the wooden lid off the well hole and involuntarily squeezed her eyes shut. The water at the bottom of the well glistened too dazzling.

«Don’t look too closely, or you’ll go blind. The water is dead,» the bird chanted again, circling at a distance from the well.

So why look at it at all? Janet noticed a round object floating in the water. It looked like a head, cut off from a statue and gilded. The thing was quite beautiful. Janet even wondered if she should fish it out of the water, when suddenly the lips of the head moved. They were trying to say something.

«Turn back around!»

Did the head really say it? Janet recoiled from the well.

«It is the boundary! You will overstep the boundary if you go any further!» The head’s words became muffled.

«He’s supposed to warn anyone who came near here, but you didn’t listen. Then we can go on,» the bird exulted. Janet, grudgingly, followed her. It would probably be better to turn back.

What kind of place was this, where severed heads floated in wells and were able to speak.

The well was left behind. The girl passed a thicket of centuries-old pines that somehow reminded her of a troop of sleeping giants. Then she passed a thicket of shrubbery. And then a wall of white and scarlet roses rose before her. Right in the woods! What a miracle! The roses somehow surprised her even more than the bloody brook and the head in the well.

Janet walked over and touched one of them. It looked more like garden roses than wild roses. But who is here to tend them? Was there a castle in the woods that had been destroyed by enemies? The hulk of the wall she noticed to the left of the roses might have been preserved from it. Apparently, it had happened years ago. There had been some kind of war going on here. The kingdom might have been destroyed. All that was left of it were ruins. But the roses had not withered away.

She plucked one of them and hurt herself, her blood settling on the thorns and as if awakening someone. A dark whirlwind swept nearby. The roses whispered.

«Go away, or you will be caught like him!» A scarlet rose whispered.

«The nets are spread,» the white ones echoed.

Can roses whisper? She’s just imagining it. Janet turned and stumbled right into him. The knight from her dreams was standing in front of her.

She was dumbfounded. He didn’t move either, making him look like a statue in armor. Janet gazed avidly at the helmet with dragon horns and jaws, the cuirass with inlays of shiny scales, and the hilt of the sword made in the shape of a two-headed dragon. What marvelous craftsmen could make such armor and such a sword?! Janet stared enchanted at the hero of her dreams. Could it be that now she sees him in reality, and not in a dream. And all around are not those harmful creepy creatures that each time accompanied him in his dreams. And there is no wall of fire, either. Even the mirror frame through which they were seen is gone. It is worth reaching out and she will touch him. Nothing separates them.

But the knight intercepted her hand before she could do anything. Janet even cried out in pain. His hand felt as iron as his armor.

«You can’t tear those roses!» A whisper from beneath his visor gave off a steely hardness, too, a fiery fury.

«But I didn’t!» Janet tried to justify herself. «I only touched it.»

«Didn’t you?» He let go of her arm, but the scales set into his gauntlets marked her skin. The knight walked slowly around the wall of roses. For a moment she lost sight of him, and suddenly a young man without armor, dressed in a smart green camisole, fair-haired and unbelievably handsome, stepped toward her. Janet almost gasped in admiration. His hair! It reminded her of dawn! Only the morning sun shone like that. His eyes were blue. The green velvet of his camisole set off his very pale skin. Were his ears pointed, like Quentin’s? For some reason that was what bothered Janet the most right now.

«I love it when beautiful ladies come into my woods,» the stranger said in a playful tone. «And I love the beautiful ladies themselves. I love them as long as they are alive.»

«And how quickly they become dead in these forests?» Janet asked, and was struck by her own impertinence. Why was she so eager to defy him? Why did he hurt her so much? The fact that in a fraction of a minute, somehow free of his armor, he was so handsome it was painful to look at.

«It all depends on them,» the young man answered in a flimsy voice. «And it depends on whom they meet in the woods.»

«Are you implying that it’s extremely dangerous to run into you in the woods?»

«There are more dangerous creatures than me,» he said cryptically.

«Are you a knight?»

«You could say I was,» he shrugged.

Janet didn’t understand him. How could a knight be a former knight, unless he’d been so badly maimed in battle that he could no longer fight? Somehow she thought that beneath the armor was a battle-worn body. For in her dreams he had fought alone against an army of unearthly beings. All of his comrades-in-arms were dead. But in reality, these creatures were not around. There was only a handsome young man whose mere sight thrilled and teased her. Janet couldn’t feel her legs under her. All because of his mischievous gaze, because of his graceful flexible movements. He appeared and outshone the sun in an instant. She did not want to go anywhere from him, although one look at him was like a burn from the fire. Her heart beat like a bird in a cage.

How could he be free of his armor so quickly, and without a squire’s help? All the knights she knows take at least half an hour to do it.

«I’m not one of the knights you know. I am not one of your acquaintance at all, fair lady.»

«I saw you in my dreams,» Janet admitted, and immediately felt like a fool. He said nothing, and arched his eyebrows in surprise.

And yet he looked at her strangely, as if he were trying to recognize her.

«Who are you?»

«I am the protector of these borders and flowers.»

«Then why do the flowers warn against you?»

«Can you hear them?» He marveled.

«Yes! They whisper.»

«And what do they whisper?»

«They say I should run away from you!» She confessed honestly. The whispers of flowers echoed in her ears.

«That was unnecessary,» he suddenly put his arm around her waist and drew her toward him. She felt so good to be close to him.

«I tell you a secret, you can’t trust flowers that whisper things to you,» he leaned toward her ear. «Magic roses are a whole lying chorus.»

«Are they magic?» It wouldn’t have occurred to Janet herself to call them that.

«And you’re an enchanting lady. There weren’t any here before you. If I’d known you were coming here tonight, I wouldn’t have come myself. I don’t want to do to you what I do to the others, but I have to.» He ran his fingers over her breasts, which were marked above the tight corset, touched her throat as if playing, and suddenly his fingers were something green, like toads’ legs digging into the skin of her neck, looking for an artery. Janet wouldn’t have had time to cry out before he killed her, but the young man suddenly recoiled.

«Your bracelet burned me,» he said, almost insulted, and he studied the orange blotch that bloomed in his palm with disbelief.

The bracelet! Janet looked at the Quentin’s gift and shuddered. Orange figures danced around her wrist. She wasn’t imagining it. They were moving!

Janet shifted her gaze to the burnt young man.

«Who are you?» she repeated. The first answer was too streamlined. She wanted to know what kind of creature was in front of her.

The young man looked at her with discouragement, as if seeing her for the first time. He looked at her incredulously, as if he’d never seen her before.

«I am sorry! I sometimes forget myself. And worst of all, I forget all about manners. I have been in bad company too long. Can you forgive me whatever I have done to you?»

How sincere he said it, as if he hadn’t attacked her a moment before. Janet didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

«My name is Tamlane,» he introduced himself.

The name rang in her head like a gong. She’d heard it somewhere before. Was it in a dream? She thought of fire and mirrors and human-devil battles. One of the knights had survived, but he belonged to neither. And not human, but not a magical creature either, he seemed to stand above both races. Both the human and the foul should have fallen at his feet. But somehow they didn’t.

«Tamlane,» she repeated like an incantation. The sound seemed sweet to her.

«Let me give you a present,» he plucked a white rose with an elusively quick gesture, and handed it to Janet courteously. The girl did not at once dare to accept it. Hadn’t he himself almost killed her a moment ago for touching those roses. And now he was giving her a gift. Unless the rose has poisonous thorns, and he wants revenge by watching the girl prick herself on them.

«I wanted to pluck a red one as a sign of passion, but it only came out white,» he confessed with a disarming smile. «These roses have a nasty temper.»

He spoke of them as if they were living beings.

«Don’t grieve! The white rose is the symbol of pure love.»

Janet had heard that somewhere before. Her mother must have told her as a child what the different shades and plants symbolized. She picked up the rose and almost dropped it. The flower had a woman’s face. It was hiding inside the terry-like petals.