KURIS YRA TEODORA

KURIS YRA TEODORA?
Until she knew that there was another world that runs parallel to ours, Theodora had a difficult life. She was orphaned on the day she was born and forced to work in the household of the Faia family, who had been her mother’s employers. She has to do everything: she looks after the twins, Ruca and Cacá, cleans, cooks, irons — in fact everything that has to be done in the house. Theodora does all the jobs with amazing ease, as she has a gnome and a goblin as helpers.However, her luck is about to change. Theodora is the last of seven sisters and, by tradition, she is destined to change into a fairy when she is twelve. On a trip for a holiday in the Azores she meets up with the midwife Viviana who has recently learnt of the plans of the Congregation of Fairies for the girl whom she protects.All sorts of really strange phenomena start to happen to Theodora: at night a frightening horse comes and gives her strange news at the window of her bedroom; the goblin David and the gnome Robin appear to tell her that something important is about to happen; and last of all she gets to know Alex, a boy she has never seen but who promises her that, from then on, they are going to meet up lots of times.But it is a conversation with Viviana that clears everything up: Theodora’s mother died a little after giving birth to her but she did have time to be visited by Urgânia, the Lady of the Earth, who is Theodora’s fairy godmother. Urgânia gave her a magic ring to use on the middle finger of her right hand. The ring is going to protect her and should never be taken off. As she is the seventh daughter, Theodora is going to be a fairy when she is twelve. Theodora’s mother still has time to agree to Urgânia’s requests before dying. As she already had no father, Theodora and her sisters are split up and sent to different houses. Theodora never sees them again and starts a life of slave work in the Faias’ house.When she is told all this Theodora is determined to accept her destiny and to prepare herself to show what she can do at the Annual Meeting of the Fairies that takes place on the day of the summer solstice. With the special help of Robin and David Theodora goes to Moon Mountain Market to buy fairy wings, visibility ointment, a bow with a stone arrow, green clothes, a litre of milk and a kilo of mushrooms, which are all necessities for anyone aspiring to be a fairy.Theodora gets to know the passages to the magic world and the creatures who live there: the Trolls, who are the guards, the wizard Saramago, the enchanted Moor, Madame Brigitte and, of course, more fairies.At last the longed-for day arrives and all the candidates to be fairies go to the enchanted forest at the Lake of Fire. After several formalities it is Theodora’s turn to put a personal belonging into the bubbling cauldron: if a red cloud appears she will have to go back to the human sphere; if it is green the rest of her life will be spent in the World of the Fairies.Theodora puts the magic ring in the cauldron, the ring that Urgânia had given her mother and that has been her protection all these years. But the cloud is neither red nor green. Instead, the pot calls out asking her name, which usually is seen as a signal that this person is going to play an important role in the World of the Fairies. But the price she must pay is high: Pooka, a rival fairy, is there and takes the ring.Theodora can be a fairy — the Earth is to be her natural element and she is to be dedicated to alchemy and science.But it is with her friends Alex and Gil that Theodora is going to have fantastic adventures in a world that is parallel to ours, whose entrance, strangely or not, is the enchanted islands of the Azores.The fantasy is in fact very real; it is as though the fairies, gnomes, goblins, pots of gold at the end of the rainbow are living right up alongside us.However, you must not think that this is going to be easy. Theodora has got to meet Pooka, a fairy who belongs to a rival clan, and to get back the magic ring that she received from her mother the day that she was born. There are going to be lots of problems, the obstacles are going to increase more and more, her adversaries will seem to be almost unbeatable. But it is this search that will let her grow up and unravel the various enigmas that are put her way.