Lena, Karol, and Ada uncover a strange circle of glowing stones in the Emerald Forest, and a tiny forest spirit calls them to a hidden path no one in Mygłowo dares to follow.
Most people in Mygłowo crossed the street rather than come near the Emerald Forest. They said the trees hummed after dark, and that small lights drifted between the ferns like lost fireflies. Lena, Karol, and Ada thought that only made the woods worth exploring.
Lena climbed anything with branches and pockets full of acorns, which she later turned into little lucky charms. Karol carried a notebook for sketches, especially after he once saw a blue butterfly in an atlas and decided he would find one for real. Ada liked the cool moss, the whisper of leaves, and the stories she invented about forest elves watching from behind the trunks.
That afternoon, as the sun slid lower and painted the clearing gold, they found something none of them had ever seen before. In the middle of the place where they usually played, pebbles had been set in a perfect circle. Each stone glowed with a different colour: green, blue, purple, pearl-white. The circle looked too neat, too deliberate, as if someone had drawn it there with careful hands.
Lena took a cautious step closer. Karol bent down, and his breath caught when he saw mist seeping from one of the pebbles, thin as smoke from a candle. Ada reached out and touched the brightest stone.
The forest went still.
Not quiet. Still. Even the birds stopped singing.
Then a soft laugh slipped through the trees, and a little figure rose from the shadow of the ferns. She was no taller than Lena’s knee, and she wore a dress of leaves and dew that shimmered like glass.
"Welcome, Guardians," she said, smiling as if she had been expecting them all along. "Your adventure is only beginning."
Ada stared. Karol forgot to close his mouth. Lena felt the stone in her hand warm all the way to her fingertips.
The tiny figure lifted one hand and pointed to a narrow path hidden between two ancient ferns. Deep in the forest, something answered with a low, rumbling hum, and the glowing circle behind them flared brighter, as if the woods had just woken up and were waiting for the children to decide what to do next.