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Lotte hates pictures of herself, no matter how well they turn out. She’ll probably never suffer through the home video her parents treasure most.
It starts with some fuzz, some muttering and clicking as Dad messes with the camera, but then the evening sun flares into the frame and our view is soaring through a beautiful winter landscape in his hands, strong and steady as a crane shot. The sky is grapefruit pink, streaked with thin golden fingers of cloud, painting the forest around them in dreamy hues as it sleeps beneath its blanket of snow. Mom glides at his side, almost out of the frame, and Lotte is far ahead, gripping her skirts and trotting with high steps.
“Exciting day today!” Dad narrates. It should ruin the atmosphere, but his booming voice sounds just like a friendly troll’s. It ought to be echoing out of a deep cave somewhere in the wilderness. “We’ve got two birthdays and an anniversary this week, so everyone’s partying together. But you know what? I think the Jansson family just might show them all up!”
“Dear, you’re going to embarrass her!” Mom says reproachfully. She’s weaving as she walks, tender green shoots dancing in her agile fingers. A present for their daughter, for later.
“She’s never gonna watch this,” he replies easily, even as Lotte perks up at their raised voices and waits for them to catch up. As they near, Dad changes the subject without missing a beat. “And here we have our brand new baby daughter! Say hi to the camera, Lotte!”
“Daaad~” Lotte whines, but gamely waves. As a girl who can hear the spirits in everyday objects, she takes him literally. “Hi, Camera!” A curtsey.
The ‘baby daughter’ bit is a bad joke, but that’s a father’s prerogative. Today’s get-together will be her debut to the world as Liselotte, their daughter, rather than the son everyone mistook her for. She’s chosen a long blue skirt and a teal jacket that makes her pale eyes look green. Her messy hair is pulled back with a big white bow.
A few of her friends already know, but some will be learning today.
“How you feeling, muru? Ready for the big day?”
Lotte glances to the side, over Dad’s shoulder. She doesn’t quite want to be having this conversation, but she’s too polite to say so. “I’m--I’m pretty nervous!” she admits. “But Ritva and Launo will be there, so…” She jolts to a stop, eyes flying wide. Light ripples across them like sunset on a lake.
The camera doesn’t hear a thing. Neither do Mom or Dad. Lotte definitely does, though.
She tilts her head and turns slowly on tiptoes; the only sound is a soft sigh of wind and the sharp crunch of her footsteps, distorting the audio at the peak of each note. Her motions are deliberate and graceful, but strange. Staccato. Like a delicate little spider.
“Lotte…?” Mom is nervous. Something out there is calling to her child.
“Shh,” Dad says, flipping from newsman to naturalist. He’s excited. “Something’s wriggling in her web!”
That’s another way to look at it.
Forgetting all about interviews and parties, Lotte is off like a shot. The camera follows with Dad’s long, smooth strides. Mom is audible in the background, struggling and cursing her way through the deep snow. Occasionally, the camera falls behind as he pauses to help her.
Lotte isn’t stopping for anything. She moves in quick bursts, half-crouching, arms bent and fingers splayed. Somehow, her boots always hit buried roots and solid ice, even as she twists and weaves around invisible obstacles. When she turns sideways, her eyes are wide, and her tongue darts out to taste the air of another world. Lotte’s nature is divided, each half as true as the other. As she follows the senses of her spirit body, her human body echoes its motions with the poise and strength of a dancer twice her age. As she gets older, she’ll learn to hold her forms apart and hide this grace.
It’s a shame, but it will make living among mortals easier.
Dad can’t contain a proud chuckle. He’s skipped alarm and confusion entirely, preferring to be amazed at his talented daughter. Mom agrees, though she’s more sober about it.
Thankfully, the spirit is nearby. Lotte finally drops to her knees over a small mound of dirt, hardly disturbing the snow. Eyes gleaming - she hasn’t blinked since she heard the call - she draws a long, slow breath, and sings a high-pitched note. Her voice is lovely in the recording, but the full effect is only visible in the way the frame drifts sideways and down as Dad relaxes.
Lotte is singing in the fairy tongue. It’s a language she’s known from birth; her first words were blessings on her parents, before they understood. All around, trees sway softly as their spirits listen in. The clouds don’t thin, but it feels like they have. Even the picture’s low quality can’t hide the invisible spotlight that shines down on her.
“Keep watch,” Mom says, grimly. Most people don’t believe the propaganda from the war days. Either they don’t believe that fairy spirits exist, or they understand that fairies aren’t demons. At the very least, most of their neighbors would understand that this child’s unearthly song isn’t betraying the world to some cosmic invasion.
Most of them.
The camera jostles - Dad is keeping it trained on their daughter but now he’s looking out.
“O-oh…” Mom immediately contradicts herself. “Dear, look!”
Lotte’s song breaks off and she suddenly rubs her eyes with a soft whine. A tall red carnation stands in the dirt before her, bobbing cheerfully in the icy breeze. The air around it seems brighter somehow, as though it carries a haze of summer. She gives it a polite nod. “H-hello?”
It must have answered, because she tilts her head to listen.
“But why’d you want to bloom now?” she asks anxiously. The camera’s mic is barely picking her up. Her mittened hand stretches out and cups the blossom at a respectful distance. “Now you’ll die.”
Another silent reply.
“I guess so,” Lotte says, smiling sadly, and stands. “W-well, good luck!”
“I feel like we should’ve been the ones to teach her about that,” Dad observes, a little sullenly. He’s only guessing at the conversation, but he has a head for these things. He’d be confused all the time, otherwise.
“We should take the fairies’ help when they give it,” Mom replies. “For a child like her…”
Their little girl lives in a world they’ve never seen. All they can do is have faith in her, and listen. (Would they have accepted her as their daughter without the fairies’ lesson? Surely so, but Mom is still glad they were primed. Dad hasn’t wondered about it.)
The camera dips to follow Lotte as she runs back to them and accepts a hug from Mom and a punch on the arm from Dad. The party is audible now, and grows louder as the Janssons set out towards it. Lotte’s smiling by the time the other kids in bright coats crowd in around her, but she still seems distracted and melancholy.
The children are lovely, at least today. None of them bat an eye at the new name, and none use the old one, even by accident. Mom and Dad know it isn’t always so, but it’s nice to see them being kind. The parents… behave themselves. Some need to be motivated by Lotte’s elephant seal of a father staring them down. (Likely, though, they’re more scared of Mom.)
In the weeks to come, there will be changes in the grownups’ circle of friends. Mom and Dad are learning which of them are worth keeping around. They’ll never explain this to Lotte - the poor girl would blame herself.
Whatever nerves Lotte had about her debut, now her head is full of that brave little flower and its strange request. The camera ambles up on her as she pauses to rest in a snowbank, great puffs of breath rolling around her rosy cheeks. “Lotte!” Ritva calls in the distance. Her gloved hands crunch through the snow as she starts to rise, but she pauses, looking back along the trail.
“Hey, muru, ” Dad says gently. “Wanna talk about it?”
Lotte looks up, eyes bright and soft. She seems surprised that he noticed, though it’s obvious that she’s on the verge of tears. “Um,” she says, starting to nod, but then looks to the camera hesitantly.
“Oh, right,” Dad says. The view shoots to the ground and the timestamp jumps ahead.
It was an eventful day, and the video never fails to bring memories tumbling back, but Dad had only remembered to turn the camera back on hours later. The last shot is in the backseat of the family car. Lotte curls in the crook of Mom’s arm, thoroughly tired out. Dad hasn’t started the car yet; for now, the three of them are just sitting in their cold seats, recovering.
The circlet of green shoots Mom wove is nestled above Lotte’s ears. Henkukat flowers bloom vibrantly in the spirit world even when their mortal forms lie dead or dormant. A fine blessing for a daughter’s first day in the sun… and one that helps them imagine the strange little head those blossoms adorn.
The air is silent but for a few distant cries from migrating birds. As Lotte snuggles in (awkwardly - she’s already taller than Mom), her eyelids flicker and she murmurs uneasily.
“It’s so noisy out here!” Mom says, gently brushing Lotte’s hair back. “But it’s nothing to worry about, dear. Let’s go home.”
The camera swoops down to the passenger seat, then goes to sleep.