The Garden Spy

"What you need is trail cams. Security cameras, some floodlights set on automatic, barbed-wire fencing...that'll scare 'em off good." Grandpa Al grunts at his own solution, nodding affirmatively at my garden. Or rather, the disastrous remains of my garden. 

Potted rosemary and parsley are smashed to smithereens, flossflower trampled into fine dust. Once robust pumpkins now lay scattered in gooey pieces over the marigold patch, and, oddly, only the bright heads of my shrub roses are gone. 

Every single one. Pale orange, sunset yellow, and a deep fuchsia, so vibrant it was like wine. All plucked from their stems, leaving nothing but the green of foliage behind. The pinpricks of tiny, needle-sharp teeth grace the edges of the leaves. A bug or something else?

"Feels a bit extreme for a few deer," I grumble, collecting up the bigger shards of broken pottery. I’m more upset about the mess and ensuing amount of work it's going to take to get everything as it was than I am at the prospect of having to fortify my home from woodland animals. Luckily, Grandpa doesn’t take offense to my snide reply. He doesn’t take offense to much of anything.

"Could also be coyotes, or foxes. If it is, you don't want them hanging around, they eat your garden and pets. Nothin’ some flood lamps and a good old shotgun can't fix." Grandpa elaborates, nods again, satisfied.

I groan inwardly, sweeping the rest of the detritus into a pile. He's probably right. About the cameras and lights. Not the gun. I'd likely end up hurting myself more than whatever it is I'm trying to scare off. Not to mention the absolute mess I'd be if I actually managed to shoot something. No, weapons weren't the way to go for this.

Later that evening, I stand in the dim on the edge of the backyard porch, inspecting my handiwork. The bulky door cam my auntie Shannon had abandoned in a box inside the cellar is now duct-taped to the top of the standing bird feeder. It's pretty wonky, and I'm not sure how well the feeder will fare on the tape removal, but it holds up for the moment.

Shannon sported six toes between both feet and required a cane to walk, and as my house was both accessible and near her work at the butchery, she lived with me for a time. She eventually migrated up to a ranch outside Vancouver, leaving behind the treasured door cam in her haste. 

I'm suddenly thankful for my relatives' eccentricities.

I walk the feeder into position, camera facing toward the garden. This should at least give me an idea of what critter I'm dealing with. Like Grandpa, I nod with satisfaction at my work.

What wakes me up a little past dawn, I can't say. I'm not normally a light sleeper. Even someone breathing next to me can pull me out of it.

My eyes slowly adjust to the dark, just as my phone pings. That must've been it. As I reach out, another alert vibrates the phone in my grasp. What's going on?

I pull up the app to the door cam as my screen is slammed with notification after notification. The damn thing takes so long to load, my phone nearly goes dark again. The feed finally pops up, grainy and grayscale.

The first thing I see is wings. Rounded and gossamer, translucent, akin to a dragonfly's or a spiderweb. The screen is full of them, dozens, all about the size of my hand. And even through the terrible footage, I can detect the mystical illumination. They glow.

The second, not-as-fantastical-but-equally-strange, thing I notice is the discolored, shifting mass of fur attached to the wings. Ears, button eyes, and twitchy noses slowly come into shape. Rabbits. Or more specifically, fairy rabbits. Which are, apparently, real. And frolicking in my ruined garden. 

As I watch, a bunny with long white ears and tiny, fluttery wings rears up on its hind legs and takes an enormous chomp out of my flowers. An entire rose head gulped down in a single, fluid bite. 

At least it isn't coyotes. But how does one go about removing fairy rabbits? I wasn't great at dealing with the average garden-variety of critters, let alone the magical kind. And they seemed content with lounging about in the flowerbeds, gorging themselves on my roses. As cute and enchanting as they are, they can't stay here. Sooner or later, they'll eat or destroy everything I have growing out there.

I kick the covers back, easing my way out of bed. Any trace of sleepiness that might have been lingering is gone. The old floorboard creaks unevenly as I tiptoe—ridiculous, I know, it's my house—down the hallway, stopping at the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard. I carefully push a section of the drapes aside and peer out.

There they are. My pulse picks up at the sight of them. Seeing something like this emitting from a horribly pixelated screen doesn’t nearly do the real thing justice. 

The darkness is broken up by the cheery glow of fluttering, pastel-colored wings. Soft pink, minty green, and baby blue lights bounce off the enclosed yard, a mesmerizing show. 

I pause, watching the little bodies hop about, snuffling hungrily at my vegetables. I think of my roses. It doesn't feel fair to spook them off so coldly, being as hungry as they appear. And, honestly, I don't want them to leave, either. This is much different than catching an enormous buck drinking out of the bird bath during wildfire season—because how many people have come across a dehydrated deer versus winged rabbits? Still likely not too many, but more than those who've maybe spotted a mythical creature.

But I also can't let them ravage further, either. I lean my forehead against the glass, staring out at the backyard and the fairies and flowers within. My phone continues to buzz from alerts as the camera detects their every motion.

What now? What would grandpa Al say about all this? Minus the fatal means and tools, of course. There's usually a nugget of gold somewhere in those rambling, ridiculous ideas of his. Like the door cam; not technically his, but he bore the spark. 

Just like right now. 

I silence the alert before quickly pulling up a series of searches, plans and ideas already flooding throughout my mind's eye.

It takes a few weeks to get my garden back in order, and it's at least a month after that to get the other roses flowering. The yard has transformed in that time—in the center, right where my beloved blooms and plants sprouted, is now a small glass house. A shed, really, just big enough to host everything, roses included. A pebble pathway stretches from the porch to its entry, and surrounding the perimeter of the greenhouse are thick, rapidly-growing shrub roses. What the fairies lack in restraint they make up for with a nice, magical fertilizer. So far, I’ve found it to be a fine tradeoff. 

At least it isn’t coyotes.