Fairy of Forgotten Things

⏱ ~5 min reading

High up, where the clouds look like whipped cream and the sky smells of pure snow and a little bit of strawberries, there lives a little fairy. Her name is Lushpinka. She is no bigger than a candle, she has transparent wings that tinkle like the strings of a small harp, and hair the color of the first autumn leaves. Lushpinka has a silver silk bag hanging from her belt - and it is in it that she hides all her finds.

And she has a lot of finds. Because here's the thing: Lushpinka is the fairy of forgotten things.

You know how it happens? A child will wear two warm gloves to kindergarten, and come home with one. Or he will put a pencil on the desk and go to play, and when he returns — the pencil is gone. Or he will take his favorite teddy bear for a walk, put it on a park bench — and forget about it. All these little lost treasures don't actually disappear. Lushpinka just finds them.

Every morning she flies over the world and listens. Because forgotten things - they barely ring. A glove quietly taps the snow, like the heart of a little bird. A pencil rustles like autumn leaves. A bear - he sighs so deeply that even a fairy behind the clouds hears that sigh and immediately flies down.

In the evening, when the first lanterns light up above the ground, Lushpinka sits on her cloud, pours out all her finds on the soft cloud pillow and begins to sort them out. Here are three gloves (all different, no pairs), here is a blue pencil with a bitten tip, here is a small silver hairpin with a flower, here is a worn teddy bear with one ear slightly lower than the other.

"Oh, you, my peas," whispers Lushpinka, stroking them one by one. "How your children miss you. I can already hear the pillows getting wet with tears at night.".

And he sighs softly — the way mothers sigh when they look at their sleeping children.

Then she takes the fastest cloud—a small, swift one, like a silver fish—and blows silver dust into it. The dust swirls and swirls, and the cloud begins to glow from within, as if a tiny sun has hidden inside it. The husk sits on it astride it, like a grasshopper, and whispers the names of those whose things need to be returned.

The cloud flies. It knows all the houses. All the windows. All the little windows that are barely open. It finds the right house, quietly penetrates through the glass - like moonlight - and carefully lowers the thing into place. The glove - in the pocket of the jacket. The pencil - in the pencil case. The teddy bear - in the arms of a sleepy child.

Children don't wake up. They just smile softly in their sleep. Because their little hearts feel something - something that their minds don't yet know.

One summer evening, Lushpinka was sitting on a cloud and heard a little girl crying somewhere below. Not loudly, not for the whole house to hear. But the way people cry when they want to hide their tears in a pillow so their mother won't hear.

The fairy went down and listened. Then Yulia was crying - she was five years old, she had a blond pigtail and a freckle on her nose. In the afternoon she went to the beach with her mother and there, on the hot sand, she forgot her teddy bear Buryk. The most precious. The one with whom she had slept since the first day of her life.

"There you are, my little pea," whispered Lushpinka. And flew to the beach.

The beach was empty. The waves were gently lapping the shore, and at the very edge, near a dry wooden post, lay Buryk. Completely wet. Sand in his ears. A tiny seaweed in his paw. He sighed so much that Lushpinka immediately took him in her arms.

"Don't worry," she said. "We'll wash you.".

She carried him to the cloud. There, in a silver bowl of rainwater, she carefully washed Buryk. She shook the sand out of his ears. She dried him with the warm breath of the spring wind. She combed his fur with a tiny comb made from a clover stalk. Buryk became as good as new - only with the same soft, homely smell that only Yulia knew.

At night, Lushpinka flew to Yulia's window. She quietly landed on the windowsill, penetrated through the glass with a silver ray - and carefully placed Buryk under the girl's barrel. Yulia felt a familiar warmth in her sleep, moved and hugged the bear to her. A smile ran across her face like a light ray.

But this time Lushpinka decided to leave something else. Because she noticed how many tears had been shed on that pillow. She took out a small pearl from her silver bag - one that shines with a cold, soft light, like morning dew on a spider's web. And she placed it on the pillow, near Yulya's cheek.

In the morning, Yulia woke up and immediately saw Buryk. She squealed with happiness. And then she noticed the pearl. She took it in her palm, and it was warm, as if kissed by the sun.

"Mom," whispered Yulia. "Buryk is back. And someone else brought me this.".

Mom smiled and said nothing. Because, as you know, moms sometimes remember Lushpinka too - from their own childhood.

And Yulia knew from that day on: somewhere, high in the sky, there is someone who cares about her. Someone who sees her tears and finds her treasures. And when sometimes in the morning a silver sparkle appears in the window, it is Lushpinka who has flown in. She always makes sure that your little treasures return home.

And if you ever lose something, don't cry for long. Put your head on the pillow, close your eyes and listen to the sky. Maybe today a silver cloud is already flying to your window.