Once upon a time, there was a little potion shop in a medieval town. In the town, everybody knew Lila, the charming little potion maker who filled the city with sweet smells and colors. Lila was such a positive person that people often told her stories just to see her pretty smile and sweet laughter.
Then one day, something bad happened. It was a cold winter evening, and Lila had already closed her shop. To protect her little shop and herself from thieves that liked to sneak around in those dreadful hours of limited light, she pulled the windows shut and locked the door. But she hadn’t fully secured the little latch on the upper window…
Suddenly, there were footsteps behind her. Did thieves have the courage to sneak around in the town so easily? With great agility, they climbed up outside the shop through the snow and tapping on the window, to see where the brave potion maker was. Those were no thieves at all, no, it was little Rosa, her best friend, the little rose princess, while Louis and Max collected herbs in the forest up north.
Sisterly love had conquered her fear of the dark and bitter cold. Rosa had traveled a long way to be with Lila over the holiday season. And while Lila prepared for her visit, Rosa told her of exciting adventures.
“Louis and Max have sent me a little gift. It was hard work hiking in the woods to collect all the herbs, especially so late in the season. That triumphal return from their adventure must weigh down their animal transport — or are they carrying it on their backs?”
Rosa locked the lips of her mouth together in a playful manner and laughed like little bells. “Guess what was the present they gave me to thank me for my devoted support and company — though of course it is much more likely I helped them, as they are naughty boys: a whole large collection of the most strange and unusual herbs. So you have a mighty winter here, Lila? But look, I have an idea, let us make a special potion. We still have a few hours before we must go to bed…”
And that it was that the two pretty girls climbed up the ladder in Lila’s lumber chamber to rummage around in boxes full of dried herbs from hot countries.
Giggling and laughing they cast them down through the floor hatch. No — not only giggling, they whispered sweet things on the lips of one another, their little foreheads pressed against each other. For instance:
“I wish I had a cat at home, but never, ever again one as big as the boys’. That object was definitely of demonic origin; its huge large amber-colored eyes were alive with clear intelligence, as were its dog-like ears. And did you see how it played with the ball Louis threw?”
“Then we shall make a magic potion tonight, with ingredients for conjuring it back into this kingdom of ice and snow.”
Rosa stretched out her small white fingers. “We could well go out into the dark. Let us go out together and see what time it is.”
But a new snowstorm was howling around the little potion shop. Sorrowfully, Lila made up her mind that, however much she wanted it, a trip would just be too difficult, even with Rosa’s company.
“If only it was summer! When one was tired, one could lie down between the willow trees in the meadow by the lake, and hear the sounds of the rippling stream and the croaking frogs.”
Then Rosa had an idea. “And why not then have one last beverage from our little summer meadow apartment up there, instead of a midnight stroll through the busy beauties of the town? You said there is still enough peppermint tea in the kettle.”
“No; I know Max and Louis will wring their tongues together if they get a perfume. However, we can rinse our mugs with some delicious tasting violet juice. Just wait.”
And it took Lila less than half a minute to go down the ladder, from which Rosa heard loud and increasingly loud cries.
But what would those cries mean? The first time they just sounded loud and clear — but now the same could be said of the notes of the finest organ in the whole country.
What Lila held in her little hand was Violet solution, packed in an enormous crystal bottle, of a type fit for both eyes and stomach and straight from the herb groves in the south. For the thirsty throats of Louis and Max, it was sure enough the best drink she could imagine. With her free hand, she poured the other liquid into a porcelain basin. But that was full.
“Oh oh!” she cried out. Now the sky and elements had opened their gates, it appeared as if a sea torrent attacked a little mountain stream.
Well, how could she have guessed, being so inexperienced in regard to such mystical ingredients, i.e. those Rosa played so skillfully with, that she could still have pressed that much liquid out of the stems and leaves!
“Oh, how horrible, Rosa!” she screamed at her. “They can’t drink any more purple beverage. Yet if I don’t do so much harmony and melody into my potion, as we obviously can’t let a little drop flow down…”
And under Rosa’s continual chants, she burst two more violets to get juice, before she stopped, mesmerized, as was Lila. It was unbelievably beautiful, in a way they had never seen or imagined.
Unhappily enough, they noticed it far too late. They heard the same astonishing and terrific combinations of sounds through a little shut window downstairs.
And then came all the candles turning on in the shop. They looked at each other, suddenly worried.
“Was it wise of us to pour three lavender small bags into the teapot? And should we really have invited palaces, lakes and mountains with saucers on their sides into the brass boiling pan above my fireplace? You know, they came up higher than my own little kettle. Was all liquid clear in the other vessels we poured together?”
“Horrible! Just horrible!” they screamed together, and suddenly they slumbered to sleep forever and fell from earth. Their limbs stretched out tremulously. “But it really was delightful during the first hour. The greatest reward near to Heaven lies in wonderful remembrance.”
All down below in Lila’s shop, the notes fell till they smashed with horrible loudness. But it was only for a minute. Then came an awful silence, so weird that it seemed as if even the unusual sorrows of this night were horrified by that horrible calm — and the girls appeared to be horrified as well.
Then came an exhale, sharp as scalpel leaf, that split uplasting depths in the spirits of the listeners outside; and surprised they felt crushed under a kind of downy fat pile above their heads.
And down on the morrow, the whole town was overflown with thick, deep grasses, where from early morning to late at night larks and blackbirds were singing, while the stars throughout the whole night seemed to twinkle with a kind of inner bite and harmonious animation, i.e. with the utmost brightness they could muster.
Reading tattered stories about the four poor little listless children where everybody walked around unscathed in the gay loud green of pots, thousands of people craved their sight and wished to save them.
And Rosa the little rose princess and Lila the charming magic potion maker suddenly stirred in front of one of the large filters made of blooming daisies.
“Ah, good morning, Rosa! Have you waited here for my awakening long? I had the strangest kind of dream…”
“But as daylight on this immense green field, illuminated by the greatest sunshine one can imagine, is enchanted and merry, on awaking from sleep, with the same astonishing fairy tale spread itself before me. Yet to express it, sad and sorrowful, I seem to be guilty of its effect. How and why? These are our fruits then on the meadow’s grass.”
“Near touch in such close gates. They could hardly have rent broken my inner being more than now.”
“Oh?” Rosa replied. But at that moment everything — her dreams and thoughts — were swept from there, as when during horrible storms, thunders roar and lightning fiercely falls.
They didn’t agree on the guesses of their life, except that both girls understood well the value of sense and measured spirits might be able to hear themselves. At last, they both agreed:
“The two townspeople Max and Louis don’t mind. Generally speaking, they are indifferent toward that endless chain of sky one calls time. Yet never again shall we give Christmas acute angles on violets. That is a thing we can promise them. Lavig uged unmeasured depth, softness and all-rightness, can’t our boys devote themselves to light, they would suffocate if they weren’t fitted out for sportsmen. Each part of the are comparable to a quite beautiful branch. All men are the best relatives to each other while alive. But, I assure you, the flowers are lovely put in contact clasped arms.”
When the town got tired of longing, suddenly everybody noticed there was so unbelievably little missing and spread some more sparkling sun in such close fixtures that were, however, wonderfully bright, even more followed those in advance.
In Lila’s and Rosa’s heads, it was full of scant pebbles and strange purplish flowers. While they went around every day, helped wherever and however, their recklessly-created shadows must be auditory.
Some grew so big, and on the same time beat them, crushingly protesting, new the injuries of their head and heart to them. For whatever way Rosa came, it was necessary for Lila to follow her, however she screamed or implored her not to do so. Rosa was as frightened as Lila was self-willed, and Lila said:
“We are going to deny themselves.”