In The Garden

Sam was elbow-deep in freshly churned soil when they spotted a glimmer out of the corner of their eye. As they turned, the fairy froze and stared back at the gardener.

When the fairy realized it had been caught, its wings drooped.

“Oh… puff.”

Sam blinked. Their eyes were still bleary from a midday nap, and they itched for a smoke, but neither of those things could trick Sam into believing there was a fairy when there wasn’t. The little sprite had a mop of mushroom-colored hair and a defeated expression.

“Oh,” the gardener said under their breath, frowning. “A garden fairy.” It was the first time they had ever caught any kind of fairy, and it was a wonder that it had taken this long; most of Sam’s friends had seen a fairy or two at the beach during summer vacations in school, during hikes in college, or even on road trips as young adults. The lucky ones had seen fairies in parks as young children.

The little fairy’s wings shone like mother-of-pearl in the sunlight and, as it cleared its throat, fluttered and straightened back up with authority. They sprayed tiny rainbows across the compost pile that moved with the fairy’s breath.

“Right. Paragraph eight, clause three of Concerning Humans: Any garden fairy successfully sighted and identified shall offer the human one of three things in return. Number one: a garden blessing, which shall ensure all fruits, vegetables, fungi, and non-edible plant matter will resist rot, infestations, freezing, scorching, or theft for three harvest seasons.”

Sam raised an eyebrow and remembered last year’s constantly wilted cabbage. A garden blessing could be useful.

“Number two,” the fairy continued, wiping its hands on the front of its moss-colored outfit, “one baby blessing, which shall protect the baby from theft by fairies, fae, spirits, or other celestial creatures for three summers. It offers no protection against creatures of the demonic, ghostly, or ghoulish persuasion, you understand?”

Sam nodded. They lived alone and decided they had passed the parenting age a decade ago — no use for that one.

“Or, number three,” the fairy’s tiny eyes glittered in the noonday sun, anticipating its next sentence and pausing for dramatic effect. “One. Wish!”

“A wish about… anything?” Sam asked. They sat back on their heels and brushed the dirt from their hands.

“Anything!” The fairy pushed its hair back from its face. “I don’t know why they even offer the other ones to be perfectly honest with you, the open-ended wish is so much more fun. What’s your name, anyway? I’ll need it for my report later.”

“Sam Downing.”

“Sam! What a stupid name,” the fairy fluttered up to Sam’s eye level. “I’ll never understand human names. Now, Trout, that’s a fairy’s name. A proper fairy name, that is.”

“Trout?” Admittedly, Sam had never given much thought to fairy naming conventions before, despite the stories. “I thought you’d be named something like Rosehip or Dew… Needle.”

“Dew Ne—you’ve never even spoken to a fairy before, have you? Now look, do you want the wish or the garden blessing because, you know, this?” Trout gestured to the garden, “This is just abysmal.”

Sam took offense to that. They worked diligently through February, removing weeds, preparing the soil, and nurturing sprouts indoors. It was hard work for a new gardener, especially because they were working off old books found in the attic when they had moved into the little blue home at the end of the street rather than the internet. “This garden is totally fine!”

“This is a disgrace, is what it is!” Trout crossed dainty arms across its chest. “Your soil is so dry, you know that? It’s April, not July, and these ferns are dehydrated as.”

“Well,” Sam hesitated. An open-ended wish was intimidating. “What would you wish for?”

“A new job! I don’t want to paint the undersides of ferns,” Trout lamented. “I want to be a detective! Solve crimes. Whodunnits. I like knowing things.”

Fairies were gossipy, naturally nosey creatures. Sam’s childhood picture books had always told them not to trust a fairy with a secret. Or a job of any importance, truth be told. They were always trying to skirt the rules, cut corners, find loopholes, and make sure they were the only ones who came out ahead. Trout would be a dismal detective.

“But this isn’t about me!” Trout fluttered its wings, irritated, and Sam was sure it had made its voice extra shrill at that moment just to needle them. The wings sounded like a hummingbird at top speed.

“The wish.” Sam decided. “I’d like the wish.”

“Right, well, think of your wish, and I’ll go find a flower for you.”

Sam didn’t immediately think of anything. Money was always helpful. Success, maybe, but that was pretty vague. And what was success to a backyard gardener with wilted cabbage and PTSD?

Trout fluttered back and held the daffodil like a bride.

“Right, whisper your wish into the flower, and the flower will tell me.”

“Why can’t I just tell you?”

“Because that’s not how it works, stupid! I am bound by contract law here!” Trout brandished the bloom. “If I could see a way out of this, believe you me, I would! Best contract writers this side of the full moon, fairies are. And be careful what you wish for! It’s all dependent on the flower’s hearing and what they remember to tell me. So be clear.”

Sam thought again about what precisely to wish for. The gardening was helping, they supposed, even if it was slow progress. It was good for them to get their hands in the dirt every day, to have little living things depending on them, whether they got up in the morning. They couldn’t very well tend to a garden with constant hangovers, and a garden wouldn’t take lightly to being neglected for weeks at a time whenever they felt like going on a bender. No, they had to be here, clear-headed and present for the garden.

The nightmares were worse, though, without the drinking. It was hard to get up in the morning and mist the plants well before the sun rose and got any proper fire behind it. They hadn’t returned their therapist’s calls in weeks, and their conversation with Trout was the first that wasn’t with a plant in almost ten days. They had nearly made it into the grocery store that week but panicked in the car and turned back around. The thought of the failure made them fold back on themselves once again. They hadn’t attempted another trip.

“Hey!” the fairy smacked the little flower against the tip of Sam’s nose. “Get moving, I don’t got all day here! A fairy’s got fairy things to do, you know. These ferns aren’t going to paint themselves, and I will not be relegated to moving sunbeams across windows this summer. Not again!”

Sam started, and the fairy was lucky Sam didn’t bat it away in surprise. It had been many years since Sam could be startled like that without overreacting, but living offline and nearly off-grid had been helping.

“Right, your wish. A couple of rules. I can’t bring anyone back from the dead, I can’t make anyone fall in love, can’t make you immortal, can’t see the future or when you die or anything like that. Good wishes are like: I want a new waterproof coat with a hood for the winter. Or, I want a salami sandwich! A sandwich is always a good wish, I can always make good sandwiches happen. And no wishing for more wishes!” Trout shook its little finger in Sam’s direction, a stern look on its petal-soft face. “That’s not how this works!”

“And bad wishes?”

“Bad wishes are things like I want lots of money. Or I want everyone in the world to always like me and never be mad at me ever again. That’s how you get into trouble. These flowers are not reliable communicators, I tell you what, and daffodils in particular are stupid. Not as bad as geraniums, of course, nothing is as bad as them, but they’re no iris. These wishes need to be clear and specific.”

Sam nodded. The logic was easy to see. Tangible things were more straightforward than intangible, subjective things.

That didn’t change their mind, though, in the end.

“I want to forget.”

Trout’s wings stilled. “Forget what?”

“Allison. Allison Downing.”

All the tension went out of Trout’s little body, and the fairy looked down at the compost pile. It nudged an earthworm with a tiny bare foot and lowered the flower away, trying to hide it behind its back and out of the gardener’s line of sight.

“What, you’re not interested now? You’re not even going to ask me who she is? I thought you wanted to be a detective.”

Trout hesitated. “Listen, forgetting whole people, it’s—it’s complicated, right? All your memories with them, around them, they’ll all… it’s hard, and I—”

“Are you going to let me say it to the flower or not?”

“Well… puff.” Trout sighed and held out the little bloom. “Be careful.”

After Sam finished whispering into the daffodil’s ear, Trout sighed heavily again and twirled around three times in a slow circle while holding the flower aloft.

“Of the sky and earth and sea, let this wisher’s wish be free.”

Sam blinked and surveyed Trout, eyes focused squarely on the little creature and its shimmering wings.

“Oh,” the gardener said under their breath. A wide smile crossed their face when they realized what Trout was doing there. “A garden fairy.”