The Perils of a New Grocery Store

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Stacy liked to fantasize. As she pushed her shopping cart along the grocery store relieved that this aisle didn’t have any bustling shoppers, she let her imagination fly. Instead of scanning the nearly empty shelves, she was a bat, soaring through the sky under the moon. Life would be simpler as a bat she thought as she squinted at the expiration date on the Kine Juice - New with Italian Herbs! it was seven months expired and she gagged slightly while putting the can back on the shelf. Bats snapped insects from the sky without worrying about upset stomachs. Four expired cartons later - and a particularly nasty one that had leaked - she finally settled on three cartons of Chicken Humors - Chortles for the Heart. With a sigh, she rolled her eyes at the marketing gimmick and made a mental note to ask Lewis if he was sure this store was the only sanguine extract carrier in the area. If it was, it looked like she was going to have to order off Amazon and dish out the insane shipping prices. Bats never worried about shipping.

 
She turned her cart back towards the entrance and grimaced. The stares and whispers and hurried scattering was the worst part of any shopping trip. Nobody liked bats either, but a bat wouldn’t know that everyone hated them simply for existing. Being a vampire, well, she was all too aware of the fear she inspired even though most of the things people believed about vampires weren’t even true. Exiting the Larder for Lorefolk aisle, she tried to ignore the elf mother that promptly shepherded her children down the Meats, Mussels, & Marrow aisle, despite the fact that elves couldn’t digest meat. Stacy gritted her teeth and kept going. Who in their right mind - vampire or not - would bother attacking someone in a grocery store with plenty of witnesses and security cameras?

The human cashier stiffened when she rolled into his lane and kept casting furtive looks at her. Probably thought she could smell fear. She couldn’t, but she didn’t need to; his body language said it all. She could smell that he was anemic, but no one ever wanted to hear that from a vampire, so much so that most states had a law prohibiting vampires from discussing medical information with anyone without a medical license and signed consent from the patient. This suited Stacy just fine. She preferred keeping conversations with strangers to a minimum. Bats she was sure, never had to navigate awkward social niceties. It was a relief to step outside the grocery store at last and take her cartons of chicken blood to the car. At least in her second-hand sedan she was just another driver, not a legendary monster. 

***

Not really sure where Stacy is or why she’s there, but I had fun making up a vampire shopping trip. I figured that a vampire blood supplier would want to use less obvious terms other than blood to describe their products, hence the “Kine Juice” and “Chicken Humors,” and calling blood “sanguine extract” for general use. “Kine” is a biblical word for cattle, and “humors” is referring to the four humors in medieval medicine, which included blood. “Sanguine” is a blood red color.  I had a lot of fun with the products and aisle names, and maybe someday I’ll get around to actually creating a story for Stacy to inhabit.

Time Flies

Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash

“But I don’t wanna!” wailed 2020, dragging his feet.

The instructor sighed, “You have wings for a reason. It’s time to learn to use them.”

2020 flopped onto the ground (or what passed for ground in the realm of non-reality), folded his arms and stuck out his tongue, “You can’t make me. I’m staying right here.”

The instructor looked at his clipboard, looked up into the indefinite color of what could be considered sky (or a roof, or more ground), counted to ten, took a deep breath and then made a decision.

In an instant, the non-landscape changed and they were no longer standing on firm ground. Well, the instructor was standing on something, but 2020 was falling; falling fast through the nothingness of time and space.

“Flap!” yelled the instructor. “Rise above!”

Instead, all the instructor heard were screams. The instructor shook his head and sighed again, “He’ll figure it out.”

A Flight in the Night

Photo by Krzysztof Kowalik on Unsplash

I stood at the window, waiting for sunset. In the fading light, the garden looked wild and mysterious, nothing like the carefully curated scene it presented in the daytime. Finally, the last light vanished and the night garden blossomed. Slowly, first with the star lilies on the pond, little lights flickered to life. Moon violets glowed along the pathways, and the most recent addition, three fire trees at the far edge of the garden.

“They look good,” said the sorceress approvingly. “Like floating lanterns, but safer.”

I grinned. The reddish flowers on the trees were the only night flowers that glowed red instead of white, and they really did look like fire, even though the flowers were merely warm to the touch once they lighted up and couldn’t burn anything. We’d had to get special permission from the fire marshal to put them, for even though the trees weren’t a fire hazard, they could sometimes cause a panic among neighbors.

“I think it’s my favorite part of the garden,” I said.

The sorceress laughed and rolled her eyes, “Iris, every plant is your favorite.”

“True.” We looked back at the garden and I sighed in contentment. Working on the sorceress’s garden was the first time I’d ever used night plants, and it had been intimidating at first, but it had been so worth it. The lights twinkled and danced in the garden and I wanted to look at them all night. We finally had to turn away from the window, but as we did, something grabbed at my magic.
I paused and turned back frowning. Usually plants only tried to communicate with me when I was near them. The sorceress didn’t have any plants inside the house - she said she’d never remember to water them - and the garden plants might try to reach me if there was a fire or something, but otherwise, they didn’t really care what I did when I was inside.

“What is it?” asked the sorceress.

“I don’t know,” I said. Whatever it was, it kept pulling at me. The feeling was faint, but it was there. “Something’s wrong, I need to check it out.”

“By yourself, in the dark?” the sorceress exclaimed. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No,” I said heading for the door. “Don’t worry, go ahead and lock up. I’ll just go straight to my car when I’m done.”

With my hand on the door handle, I couldn’t see her roll her eyes, but I could practically feel it. She sighed, “I’d better come with you.”

So we went out into the garden. Even in the dark, I knew every single plant, even without the glow from the moon violets that lit the paths. The violets brushed gently against my magic, but didn’t react otherwise. They weren’t the problem. The feeling was stronger outside, but not by much. It was just really persistent, or I might not have noticed it at all. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and leaned into my magic, stretching it out, trying to locate the source of the pull. I could feel the bursting energy of the moon violets, the murmurs of the sleeping roses, the muted excitement of the golden apples, everything around us resting and not paying attention to two humans. Further out where the apples of youth, and the vegetable patch with carriage pumpkins and donkey cabbages and mattress peas. (We’d almost planted some giant beanstalks, but there’s a city ordinance against it.) None of these plants were calling out to me. I stretched out more, searching.

“It’s the fire trees,” I said at last and we started down the path.

The pull got stronger as we walked. Even before we were within sight of the trees, I broke into a run, the sorceress right behind me. When we reached the trees, we finally saw the problem. In the yellow light of the fiery flowers we saw a boy, maybe ten or so, curled up in the roots of the trees. One of his legs was twisted in a funny angle, and I winced. He’d probably jumped from the wall on a dare. The local kids thought sneaking into a witch’s garden was a rite of passage. We’d been doing our best to discourage it, but hadn’t been very successful. The moment he saw us, he tried to crawl back, but cried out in pain instead.

“Hold still, that leg’s broken,” the sorceress commanded and started digging through her pockets “Where’s that amulet?” She muttered.

“Can you fix it?” I asked in surprise. I had seen her do some impressive magic; most people would consider her the more powerful magician between the two of us. She could do just about any magic she chose to study. My magic only worked with plants.

“I’m no healer. I can ease the pain, but we’ll need to call an ambulance once we get back to the house. Stop moving, you’ll make it worse,” held the amulet out and began chanting. The boy had a wild look in his eyes and I thought he’d tried to bolt again. But he stayed still and suddenly relaxed.

“Thank you,” he said in a small voice.

“Hold onto to that for now,” said the sorceress handing him the amulet. “Now we just have to move him… If I had my flying ointment…”

“There’s witch feathers growing around the bend. I’ll get them.” It didn’t take me long to find the flight granting plants. Their leaves looked blue in the night, and were nearly identical to feathers. Their yellow flowers were closed for the night and they hardly stirred as I harvested a few.

The sorceress had coaxed the boy into talking by the time I returned, though he clammed up again when I appeared. It occurred to me that he probably thought I was as powerful as the sorceress and not just a landscape designer who could talk to plants. The sorceress took the with feathers and started chanting again. The boy yelped in surprise as he rose up into the air, but a moment later I think he was enjoying himself. As we walked back, the fire trees finally stopped tugging at me and the garden was calm.

Let Me Be Crazy

Photo by Adrianna Van Groningen on Unsplash

“You know it’s not going to work,” Mason said, arms folded as he leaned against the doorway.

“I’m going to do it anyways,” Evelynn snapped, lacing up her shoes.

“It’s not even real. You’re crazy.”

“Then let me be crazy,” she pushed past him, onto the street and started running.

The thing was, Mason was probably right. It was just a game they’d played as children with the neighbor kids, before they moved away and grew up. Pretending they’d found a kingdom in the abandoned lot. She hadn’t even thought about it in years. But now that they were emptying out their great-aunt’s house a lot of memories were resurfacing. And her memories of the kingdom (had they ever bothered giving it a name? There must have been a name,) were just too solid to ignore. She remembered buildings - living buildings grown out of trees and bushes that breathed and bent in the wind. And people. The baker who saved hot rolls for them; his wife who only wore red; Adria who’d taught her to herd geese.

They weren’t like memories of playing dress-up, where jeans stuck out from under sparkly princess skirts and all the play food in the toy kitchen was plastic. No, they had been real rolls, so hot they had to toss them back and forth between their fingers; she could almost taste them. The wife’s deep red tunic and leggings had extensive embroidery - a detail she wouldn’t have known to make up as a kid. Real unruly geese, not some random stuffed animal. Mason, of course, said that she just had a really good imagination.

But this morning she’d found the photograph. It was her and Adria in a brown tunic, unlike anything the kids at home wore, with the geese and beyond them the strange living houses. The photograph was real, so the rest of it had to be, right? Mason said it could all be explained. He said the houses were just bushes and she was looking too hard at them. Adria must have been some visiting kid in weird clothes. And there were geese in the area, so they’d just been sitting there with them. But Evelynn knew he was wrong. So she kept running.

At last she reached the place. It wasn’t an abandoned lot anymore. There was a nice house there and if anyone looked out the window and saw her, well, they’d think she was crazy. Because as she looked at the blank air above the sidewalk, it was there. Something she’d never had a name for. Something you didn’t quite see with your eyes. But something she wouldn’t forget again. A shiver in the air. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and leaped. For a moment she was flying.

Then she landed. Not on hard sidewalk. Something soft. Opening her eyes, she saw grass. Sitting up, she saw geese scattering and in the distance, growing homes beckoned.


Written for Verge.
 
I like stories where characters travel to other worlds. But I think the characters get a raw deal when they have great childhood adventures and then are expected to go on and be normal adults without ever going through the portal again. So I'm sending them back.

Dawn and the Tooth Fairy

Photo by Mikel Ibarluzea on Unsplash

This is a continuation of The Mysteries of Flight.
 
The plane ride was uneventful. Dawn spent the entire ride with her face pressed to the window in awe. She made occasional comments about the shape of the clouds and the play of the light, but Liz didn’t hear them. Liz had earphones in, and was glued to the in-flight movie. Flying was so much easier now that planes had movies. They took her mind off her fear of crashing. She still had to take several deep breaths though and remind herself that the plane was not a death trap. Was a family reunion really worth the anxiety? Once they touched down, she could breathe easily again.

“So now we’re on the other side of the world,” said Dawn in amazement as they walked down the ramp.

Liz laughed, “Just the other side of the country. Come on, we need to find our luggage.”

Dawn was blown away when Liz looked at a screen and determined where their luggage was. “That’s… that’s, but how does it know?” she gasped.

“So, you know those tags we put on our luggage at the last airpot…” Liz started while wondering if she even knew the real answer. But she got something out that satisfied Dawn, and then she had to explain how the baggage carousel worked. Liz was relieved when they got out of the airport and her brother Edward and his seven year old picked them up. She didn’t have to explain things anymore. Dawn already understood cars.

“Auntie Liz! I lost a tooth! Look at it!” He waved the little white tooth at her, “The tooth fairy was supposed to come last night, but dad says she was recovering from a broken wing and couldn’t fly. But she’ll come tonight. How much do you think the tooth fairy will give me for it?”

Liz exchanged looks with Edward, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been a long time since the tooth fairy visited me.” 

They chatted about the tooth fairy during the drive to the cabin. Dawn had retreated into her usual silence. She was rather shy about meeting new people. She didn’t like admitting that she only had six years of memories. Liz thought Dawn was a little too touchy about her lost memories, but let her be. Once she warmed up to the family she’d open up. When they reached the cabin, Davey insisted on dragging Liz’s carry-on up to the room they were sharing. This was difficult, since he wouldn’t let go of this tooth. Edward eventually took over. Once the bags were in the room and the boys were out of earshot, Dawn turned to Liz.

“What’s a tooth fairy?”

Liz looked up from her suitcase in surprise, before realizing this was a very reasonable question. “It’s a kid thing. When you lose a tooth you put it under your pillow and the tooth fairy leaves money or something. My parents gave us a bag of those gold chocolate coins, which I realized later was kinda defeating the point.”

Dawn sat down on the bed deep in thought. Liz started unpacking, waiting for the deluge of questions that was sure to follow.

“Jill says fairies aren’t real. She says I’m not allowed to read anymore fairy tales until I have a firm grasp on reality.”

Liz sighed. Dawn’s social worker had a good thought going there, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about the rest of society. Until Liz had met Dawn, she hadn’t known how many unreal things she causally believed in on a regular basis. Well, this would probably be easier to explain away than the flying snakes. “And she’s right. No fairies. The tooth fairy is just a story made up for children. Like Santa Claus at Christmas.”

Dawn’s face lit up, “Oh! Jill says Santa is the mascot for Christmas. So the tooth fairy is the mascot for teeth?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Liz in relief.

“I think I get it now. Everyone just pretends the tooth fairy is real, because they think lying to kids is cute.”

Liz laughed and shook her head, “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

A sob came from the hall. Both of them turned toward the open door. There stood Davey, still clutching his tooth. He immediately turned and ran.

“Davey, wait!” Liz called out and ran after him.

Dawn followed, still puzzled. Davey’s cries brought Edward running and despite promises from every adult present that the tooth fairy really did exist and would bring him a one dollar bill - “Maybe even three!” - couldn’t console the seven year old. It wasn’t until another aunt herded a bunch of young cousins off for swimming that he calmed down at all. He was still very sad when they left, though. Dawn watched it all awkwardly and didn’t say much. Having just nearly learned about the tooth fairy, she didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Edward glared at Liz as the kids left, “You have to fix this!”

Liz sighed, “Look Ed, I’m sorry. I should have closed the door. But when you put that dollar under his pillow, he’ll forget all about it.”

“Not after this, he won’t! I forgot two nights in a row already. He’ll never believe in the tooth fairy now.”

“Yeah, and now he’ll tell the rest of the kids too. There’s going to be a lot of unhappy children before the day’s over,” grumbled another uncle, planting himself in a chair.

“Why do they need to believe in the tooth fairy?” asked Dawn. All the adults look at her as if she’d suggested they eat the kids.

“I’ll explain it later,” sighed Liz. She turned to Edward, “You could include a note from the tooth fairy maybe, and add glitter or something to make it magical?”

The grumbling uncle suddenly jumped up, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Ed, get your camera! We’ll take a picture of the tooth fairy!”

“How?” asked Dawn, but everyone else was nodding.

“I’ve got pictures of butterflies I could photoshop for the wings,” mused Ed looking happier. “And if I shrink it down enough,   no one will be able to tell the difference. Not a seven year old, anyways. Who’s going to be the tooth fairy?”

“Liz,” said the uncle.

Liz looked at them and then shrugged, “Okay I guess. But I don’t have a skirt.”

“I do,” said Dawn. She still didn’t get why everyone was so upset about this, but she might as well help out.

A few minutes later Liz was in the wooded backyard wearing Dawn’s jean skirt and trying to pose like a fairy. She didn’t look like a fairy. That’s how Liz’s mother fund them when she and her husband pulled up. After explaining why they were  attempting a photo shoot, Liz’s mom shook her head, “That’s not going to work. Look, we passed a formal clothing rental on the way up here, why don’t you go down there and pick out something?”

Liz frowned, “A tooth fairy in an evening gown. That’s not much better.”

“No, no. Like a prom dress. Something puffy and sparkly. Get going, before the store closes.”
“I can’t afford it.”

Her mother smiled, “I can!”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” said Liz as they piled into the car. Dawn shrugged at her and didn’t say anything.

The people at the rental store thought that dressing Liz up like a tooth fairy was an absolute ball. They went through several sparkly dresses, and had a lively debate over which one was most fairy-like. Dawn spoke up once to say she liked the green dress best, but this was dismissed as not very “toothish.” A blue knee length dress with a very puffy skirt and lots of beading was finally chosen. By the time they had a dress, Edward got a text that the kids were on the way home from swimming. So the rental folks let them take pictures out in the back parking lot.

“Your photoshop skills had better be good,” Liz told him as once again she tried to pose like a fairy. It went better this time. They returned the dress after they were done and hurried home, making a stop to pick up dinner.

Dawn didn’t speak again until they were getting ready for bed, and first she made sure the door was closed, “So, every family dresses someone up like a fairy that doesn’t exist to make sure kids… don’t think too much?”

Liz rubbed her eyes, “No. We’re the only family I know that’s done this. The dressing up part that is. The whole tooth fairy thing that everyone does… It’s just for fun. It’s fun for the kids. I loved the tooth fairy coming. Even when I was older and suspected it was just my parents. It just makes childhood happier.”

“Huh,” said Dawn, but didn’t ask anymore questions.

In the morning Davey waved the picture that his dad had “caught” of the tooth fairy and all the young cousins were suitably impressed. Childhood innocence had been preserved. Dawn stayed thoughtful and quiet. When she hadn’t said anything by lunch time, Liz took her aside.

“Is it bothering you that much?” she asked behind a closed door. “It’s not a big deal.”

Dawn gave her a look, “Do you know how hard it is to tell fact from fiction while everyone else is just lying without a second thought?”

“Kids grow out of it! They’ll look back on this and think it was so fun that their parents made photographic evidence for the tooth fairy.”

“I suppose,” said Dawn doubtfully. “So, you’ll actually tell them someday that all the adults were lying about that?”

“Yeah. I mean, they figure it out eventually.”

Dawn mulled this over for a bit and then sighed, “I’m glad I’m not a kid then. I couldn’t handle it.”

The Mysteries of Flight

Photo by David Kovalenko on Unsplash

Liz took a deep breath, trying to banish images of the plane diving to meet the ground. Would crashing in the woods, or the sea be worse? Were they even flying over a significant body of water?

“So, where are they?” asked Dawn as they stood in line at the airport.

Glad of the distraction, Liz turned to her friend. Dawn didn’t always say much, but since this was her first time flying, she was bound to have questions. Lots of questions. Maybe answering them would keep her mind off her own anxiety. “Where’s, who?”

“The winged serpents. They can’t be in this building, there’s not enough space. Do we have to take a car or something to get to them? I don’t think they’d like cars. Are there carriages?”

Liz blinked in confusion. Dawn was a reasonably intelligent person; they’d met in a math class at the community college and had hit it off. Dawn was much better at math than Liz. But sometimes talking with Dawn was a lot like talking to a four-year old. It wasn’t her fault, of course. Losing all your memory as an adult would do that to anyone. “There are no such thing as winged serpents,” said Liz, starting with the easy part.

Dawn frowned, “But what other animal would we be flying on? Brandon says dragons aren’t real. Besides, you wouldn’t be so upset if there weren’t snakes involved.”

Liz suppressed a shudder. Flying snakes would be so much worse than regular ones. She’d faint dead away. “I’m scared of flying and snakes. Two separate fears. There are no flying snakes. We are getting into an airplane. It’s a machine, made by people. They’re made out of metal and, um, fiberglass.”

Dawn was silent for a moment as they inched up in the line. Her forehead was creased in concentration. “Metal doesn’t fly,” she said at last. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Yes,” said Liz tersely as headlines declaring Passengers Perish in Explosion and Airplane Wings Weren’t Screwed On Tight flashed across her mind. She took several deep breaths. She could feel Dawn watching her face. “I’ve flown before and survived. We’re both going to be fine.”

“I think we should go by winged serpent,” said Dawn. “They’re intelligent. I had a very nice conversation with one last time. Besides, if we fell, they’d catch us.”

“Um. I think that was a dream,” said Liz as gently as possible. Dawn was always trying to remember something, anything, from the days before her memory vanished. It was painful to see her latch onto the wrong thing. “You must have been reading some fantasy book and had a dream about it. Snakes can’t have wings. Only birds have wings.”

Dawn’s face clouded, but then she pounced on the last thing Liz had said, “Butterflies have wings.”

Liz laughed, “Okay, and some insects too. But not snakes. They’re reptiles. Reptiles don’t have wings.”

“What about pterodactyls?”

“Extinct,” said Liz as they moved forward. Dawn pressed her lips together and Liz wondered how many counter-arguments she’d come up with. She smiled fondly at her friend. It was going to be an interesting flight.



Written for Verge.
For more of Dawn's story see Blank Slate and Out of Reach.

The Grand Tour

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Squirrel placed her hand in her new husband’s as he helped her gently down from the carriage. With her skirts rustling around her, she looked up in awe at the country home. Who would have thought that she, former street thief, would be here, a proper lady and married to a rich and charming man? Some would say even that she was marrying down! Well, that was the nobility for you. He was richer than some dukes, but was merely a merchant, and therefore second rate. Captain Delman and Lady Corrine, her adoptive parents, had been insistent that Mr. Price wasn’t worth it. So she had done a very non-proper thing and runaway with him.

“My dear Sofia,” said her smiling husband, “Come, the grand tour awaits!” He swept her off her feet and carried her into the house.

And the tour was grand! He showed her every room, starting with the great hall with its wide trailing staircase, the dinning room with golden candlesticks and he did not forget the kitchen, which was cleaner than she had ever dreamed a kitchen could be. He showed her the drawing room with its crystal chandelier and ornate plasterwork on nearly every inch of the ceiling and walls. The guest rooms dripping in silk canopies and sheets covering mahogany beds. Their own room had been redone after the passing of his last wife (the fourth wife one he’d lost, poor man) with completely new furnishings, including a charming vanity with a mirror in a gilt frame, that he’d commissioned just for her. Squirrel was dazzled. He ushered her up the stairs to the servants’ quarters, which after the opulence she had just witnessed, seemed more bare than any others she had once inhabited (when she was lucky.) The tour ended at the door of the garret at the top of the house.

“And now, my bride, my dear, mistress of the house! You have seen everything, you are queen here. The keys to your domain, my lady!” He made a show of bowing and handing her a ring with a great many keys.

“Thank you, my lord,” she laughed and curtsied as she took them. “But what is behind this door?”

His face darkened, but he smiled, “Aha, that my precious, is the one place that I forbid you to enter. This key here,” and he pointed to a key smaller and older than the others. “Opens the door, but that you must never do, my love. It shall not go well with you if you do.” And he led her away down to dinner.

Well, thought Squirrel, Why give me the key at all? Why shouldn’t I use it?

She did not climb the rickety stairs to the garret that night though, nor the next night. Squirrel waited. She had learned patience on the streets, where one wrong move could have ended her life or sent her to the jailhouse. Instead, she enjoyed the lavish meals, and the fine clothes, and the fairytale she’d somehow found herself in. She went in and out of the many rooms and looked them all over carefully, for they were hers, and this was a novelty she would never get over.

At the end of the first week, Lady Corrine wrote her with entreaties to come home. Squirrel was amused and tucked the letter away. At the end of the second week, Mr. Price went away on a business trip. “I must be away for some six weeks. But do not pine in my absence. Invite your friends, my dear Sofia. Invite your lovely parents. It will ease their minds. Be merry!” Squirrel thought of the room at the top of the house and sat down to write a great many invitations to her house party.

Mr. Price had hardly left the grounds when her guests descended on it. Captain and Lady Delman were first among them, as well as a number of young lords and ladies and their servants. They bustled in every which way they could, and Squirrel greeted them as prettily as Lady Corrine ever had.

“And now,” cried Squirrel, before they had a chance to settle in. “The grand tour!”

Her tour was not as grand as Mr. Price’s. The guests had a glimpse of the great hall, but they they saw not a peep of the drawing room, nor dining room, nor hardly anything of the furnishings, for Squirrel led them straight up to the top of the stairs to the garret and thrust the little old key into the locked door. The door swung open and the key fell out onto a floor of blood. For in that haunted room were the cut up bodies of the four former wives of Mr. Price. There were screams and gagging and the town guard were sent for and Captain Delman himself led a hunt for Mr. Price. Lady Corrine whisked Squirrel back to the city and fussed and scolded, “I told you it was dangerous! I told you not to do it!” she said. “Didn’t I say the lawmen could get to the bottom of it without you getting involved?”

“The most recent Mrs. Price was my friend. I had to do something,” said Squirrel unrepentant. “Besides, what danger was I in when I in with everyone around me when we looked into that room?”

Lady Corrine shuddered and kept her indoors until Captain Delman returned, with the prisoner in tow. Mr. Price was locked up in the Imperial Dungeons of the Realm, and quickly executed.

“Well, now Sofia,” Captain Delman said to her after Mr. Price was deep in his grave. “You married him, his estate is yours. Whatever shall you do with it?”

“Burn it,” said Squirrel.



Prompt: An Escape

For more of Squirrel's adventures read: The Sword Thief.

Blue Beard has many variants, but the one by Perrault is quite nonsensical. The heroine discovers her husband's murder room during a house party, while there are tons of guests. Does she raise the alarm? No. Instead, she must face Blue Beard alone. Perrault then has the audacity to end the tale by claiming the "moral" is that women shouldn't be curious.  This was unacceptable, so I fixed it. The Grimm brothers' version, Fitcher's Bird, is much better.

Within Reach

Photo by Buzz Anderson on Unsplash

Dawn jogged along the mountain trail. Around her, summer was getting into full swing. The trees were green and shady, birds chipped and darted through the leaves, and occasionally she caught sight of a chipmunk scurrying by. School was almost out for the kids and they’d be sailing on the lake soon. She smiled. Could life get any better than this? Well, okay, maybe if her missing memories ever came back… but that was a thing best not to fret about. She’d made peace with her patched together half a life. Forward was the way to go, not backwards.

She thought she heard a shout and a moment later, a strange woman ran out of the tree line. Dawn jumped back in surprise as the other woman spoke, “Reinhild! Is it really you? I thought… We all thought you were dead! Where’s Arnau?”

Dawn took another step back. There had been two times before when she’d thought she’d found someone from her past life. Once a woman had claimed to be her mother. DNA testing had quickly squelched that hope though. The other time some creep had claimed to be her husband. It had taken years to get rid of him.

“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Dawn said firmly, wondering how fast she could run if things got out of hand. This woman was dressed in a long tunic and leggings that simultaneously reminded her strongly of a raincoat and a very cozy blanket. Her hair was braided around her head with small gold medallions laced through it. She looked like one of those cosplay people Darcy was interested in.

The woman looked at her incredulously, “It’s me, Dietlinde!” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dawn said stiffly.

“How-” Dietlinde broke off what she was going to say and looked at her closely, taking in Dawn’s jogging clothes and ponytail. “What’s happened to you? You can’t have forgotten…” Her voice trailed off and she waved her hands. Gold light appeared swirling into intricate patterns. Dawn’s heart skipped a beat. The light from her dreams. The light that sometimes surrounded Darcy. In the patterns, a scene formed. A sailboat, and two girls on it. They were younger, but it was clearly herself and the strange woman. Steam billowed over the waters they sailed in, covering the boat for a moment, then blowing away and revealing a glimpse of something red and glowing. Lava? What where they thinking? Was that even safe? Dawn shook her head. Whatever was happening, there were more important questions.

Dietlinde looked at her imploringly, “You said that was the best day of your life.”

Dawn took a shaky breath, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said again. “But..” But what? She wouldn’t admit to knowing this person, no matter how desperately she wanted to. Somewhere a voice whispered that the safe thing was to get away. Run fast, and never look back. But she was hungry for answers, and for the first time, answers seemed within her reach. “Have you had breakfast?” She finally asked.

Dietlinde looked startled, “No.”

“Then let’s get breakfast,” said Dawn, turning back towards her house. “And… and we’ll figure whatever this is out.”

Dietlinde nodded and followed her, “Sure.”



Dawn's becoming quite the character here. For more of her back story see Blank Slate and Out of Reach.


 

Out of Reach

Photo by Md Mahdi on Unsplash

Dawn swung the wet clothes from the washer to the dryer, somehow still amazed at it all. Here she was, somewhere in her forties (probably), but only able to remember the last twenty-six years. Most days she still felt like a teenager. What she imagined a teenager felt like, anyways. Everything before twenty (probably) was a resounding blank.

But despite that, she was married, running a household, and raising teenagers (who arguably knew more about the world than she did). How had that happened? She pushed the wet clothes firmly into the dryer and patted the machine. It still seemed magical and unknowable to her.

Vanessa stomped in and dumped clothes on the floor, “How come Darcy gets to sleep?”

“He’ll do his laundry later,” Dawn said automatically. “The washer will be stuffed as it is.”

Vanessa grumbled as she sorted her clothes into different piles. She did not think her brother’s date to the high school dance was a good enough excuse to stay up late and get out of chores. Dawn had given up explaining that Darcy had done most of his chores during the week and would be finishing the rest later. She wondered if she’d been this crabby as a teenager. Had she even had a brother to argue with over petty issues? She pushed the thought away. It didn’t do her any good to chase questions she couldn’t answer.

Vanessa finished and headed back to her room. Listening to her footsteps, Dawn let out a sigh. She’d give anything to remember her past life. The footsteps came to a sudden stop.

“Mom?” Vanessa’s voice had lost the grumpiness and sounded small.

“What is it sweetie?”

“How do you know if you’re hallucinating?”

Teenagers ask weird questions and Dawn had thought she was done being surprised by the things they came up with. Apparently she’d been wrong. “Hallucinating? What?” She asked as she followed Vanessa into the living room. She stopped and stared and wondered if she was hallucinating. Darcy had been napping on the couch, and he was still sleeping, but now he was floating about six inches above the couch with strange golden designs hovering about him.

“We’re seeing the same thing?” squeaked Vanessa. “Like he’s floating in a hamster ball.”

“Yes…” said Dawn faintly. There was something familiar about the designs. Something like a memory danced just out of reach. They both stared, mesmerized, hardly daring to breathe, as if a sudden sound or movement would send Darcy flying away. (Impossible, something inside her whispered. It would take conscious effort to get him to fly and he wasn’t exerting any.) The golden designs shifted and tilted in intricate swirls. She couldn’t take her eyes off them. They twisted one way then the other, seemingly at random and yet… “Look, there’s a pattern,” she murmured and reached out.

“Mom!” gasped Vanessa, clearly worried. “What if you hurt him?”

But she wouldn’t. This, whatever this was, she knew it. There was a pattern in the twists and turns, and with a brush of her fingers she sent the pattern spinning in a different direction. For a moment, a new pattern formed, then the golden swirls dissipated. Darcy plopped back onto the couch.

“Ow!” he sat up, rubbing his head and then caught sight of his mom and sister. Vanessa stared at him opened mouthed. Dawn stood with her hand still outstretched. “Um, guys, what’s going on?”

Vanessa opened and closed her mouth several times, but couldn’t answer.

“Mom?” Darcy looked worried. “What happened?”

Dawn stared at her hand. For just a moment, when she touched the golden designs, her world had been clear and right. No unanswered questions. She’d understood everything. All that was lost now. “There’s something I’ve forgotten,” she whispered in bewilderment.

Blank Slate

Photo by Charlie Harutaka on Unsplash

If you could start over with a blank slate, what would you do?

Dawn shudders at the essay prompt as it beams down from the blackboard. The other college students babble incessantly, spinning imagined lives into being; filling the air with chaos and drowning her in mindless speculation. She hurries from the room before the professor officially dismisses them, gulping for breath. Outside she can breathe again, but her only thought is a vision of herself, forcibly erasing the prompt from the blackboard. How can she write such an essay? Eight years ago I woke up to a wretched existence in a hospital bed as a blank slate.

Waking in a strange room with machines she didn’t have names for and questions she couldn’t answer was bewildering. Fate had left her unconscious, floating in a battered sailboat, with no clues to the mystery that was herself. No parents came forward with relieved tears to claim her. No worried friends appeared to connect her with her past. No memories resurfaced to solve the mystery of herself. There was only the nurses, the doctors, the social workers, to put herself back together again. Never once in eight years has anything seemed familiar.

Sometimes she thinks her favorite dream is a memory. If only it was! If only she had just one memory. But this one is just a dream. In the twilight, she walks down a worn path with her father to a small wooden sailboat. Look, she says to him, I can sail to the end of the river and back. She doesn’t know how old she is in the dream. Young though; maybe a teenager, eager to show off her skill. Her father is just as eager to be shown. His smile grows with every step. It almost could be a memory. The feel of her father’s hand in hers; the sparkle of stars in the water; the gentle caress of the night breeze. It all feels real. But it’s not. Because when they enter the sailboat, she holds up her hands and golden light spills out in intricate patterns and that is how she guides the boat through the water. They sail at impossible speeds, passing slower vessels, passing cities, all the way down to the mouth of the river. There they turn around, laughing with delight. In the east, the sun rises and the dream ends.
If she could will herself into the world of her dream, she would. In that world her slate is all filled up, except for a little bit at the end, still waiting to be written. But reality is all around her as she walks through the buildings of the community college where she’s trying to cobble together something that looks like a life. She takes a bus to her next class: sailing. Her breath catches at the river. It makes her heart ache even more for the dream of what never was. This sailboat is fiberglass and modern, not weathered wood. The ropes (lines, the instructor said) are awkward in her hands. But something about it feels right.

I named myself, Dawn, she writes, after a memory that never happened, in the hope that someday, my slate will be filled.

 *

In fantasy, there's often a character who has amnesia who's trying to figure out who they are. Sometimes they're even stuck on earth, even though they're from a magical world. I've always wondered how would this character handle being told magic isn't real? Assuming they can still talk, they know the meaning of words and would know the word magic meant, but since they can't remember anything, would they remember that magic is real, while seeing all evidence to the contrary? Obviously, this question will never be answered. But it did lead to some interesting backstory for Dawn, who will eventually have a grand adventure to get her memories back.

 

Yada Yada, Rhyme Rhyme

Aerwyna stirred the steaming pot. Outside the castle infirmary the sounds of battle raged. There was the clang of swords and shields, the roaring of the dragon, and the screams of the injured and dying. She tried to shut them out. It didn’t really matter who won. She was the Chief Healer. One way or another she’d be mending the injured when the battle was over. Sure, she would prefer if the army of the One Chosen by the Forces of Light drove the Lord of Darkness out of the castle, but they hadn’t won for the last five years, so it didn’t seem likely they would win today. Everyone knew the prophecy, all that yada yada, rhyme rhyme nonsense and everyone had a different interpretation. The Forces of Light said it meant they would win. Eventually. The Lord of Darkness said it meant he would win, and the last five years (and deaths of four Chosen Ones) was a pretty strong argument in his favor. For now, along with the other healers, Aerwyna prepared potions and bandages and healing stones and sharpened knives for the inevitable amputations. It kept her busy and away from the windows were the Battle to Determine the Fate of the World played out. Again.

*

They had been right to prepare. As expected, the army of the Lord of Darkness, with its trained warriors, superior armor and weapons, and sheer enormity of numbers, won. There were casualties of course, and those poor souls, including the Dark Lord himself, were now being admitted into the castle infirmary. Aerwyna moved from one patient to the next, casting spells to stop bleeding, straighten bent limbs, and generally prevent people from dying. In between, she helped brew more potions and clean knives and try to rummage up more bandages. The work blurred together as she picked up bits and pieces of the battle. The Chosen One hadn’t been found among the dead yet and had apparently survived the battle. Many of the Dark Lord’s generals had fallen. The dragon still lived, but both wings were torn. The grooms outside were trying to patch it up. She found this out on a trip to the well for more water. There she picked a few herbs and had a good look at the ruined fields around the castle. It would be a lean winter. All the reasonable normal people (who seemed to outnumber the maniacal lunatics at the moment) wanted the fighting to end. But on they went. At the end of the day Aerwyna found herself coaxing the irritable Lord of Darkness to drink potions, and being very glad that his sword arm was broken and encased in a cast, where he couldn’t use it to hit her.

They both had a fitful night. Dark Lords are terrible patients. They tend to threaten violent destruction on whoever was telling them (gently and with sympathy) that yes the arm really was broken and needed to stay in the cast, sitting up too fast would cause dizziness, and that throwing up after a battle was normal and not a sign of weakness, though maybe it was a sign of infection and fever, and yes, a potion really could help with that in the long run and throwing it all over the place wasn’t going to do anybody and good. Somewhere in the early hours of the morning, the Dark Lord finally slept and Aerwyna had a bit of a breather. She would have liked to take a nap herself. Instead she brewed another potion with the herbs she had found by the well. As the steam rose up, she reflected on how lucky she’d been to find those particular herbs. She’d thought the Head Gardener had weeded them out years before the Dark Lord had taken the throne. When he woke she held out the potion to him. “Here,” she said in her most soothing voice, “Drink this.” And for a wonder, he did. Three hours later, the Lord of Darkness was dead and the castle was negotiating terms with the Forces of Light.

*

There had been one maniacal minion who had given a great speech about carrying on the Dark Lord’s legacy, but no one paid any attention to him. During the negotiations it came out that the fifth Chosen One was deathly ill from dragon poison and it became Aerwyna’s job to heal her. The camp of the Forces of Light was lacking in everything, from tents to water and medicines, but the jovial attitude of the victors almost made up for it.  There were no true healers with training. The poor man who had been trying to heal the Chosen One was relieved when Aerwyna arrived. Aerwyna was relieved to see that he hadn’t done a bad job. Dragon poison was non-intuitive to heal. With proper training, he would do well. They didn’t have time for that though so he acted as her assistant. The Chosen One drifted in a fevered haze, muttering to herself, until Aerwyna had a good idea about all her journeys. A bard would have killed to be in her position. The Chosen One’s companions hovered nearby and Aerwyna drafted them to fetch supplies from the castle. By the time the Chosen One finally woke, the fever had lasted three days.

“Drink this,” Aerwyna said, handing her a potion. Reflexively, the Chosen One pushed it away, spilling the potion.

“Who are you?” demanded the Chosen One. “Give me a sword and-”

“Relax, Neirin,” said the man who’d been Assisting Aerwyna. “We won! The Dark Lord is dead!”

Neirin, the Chosen One, calmed down and finally drank the potion and apologized. “I’ve been so sure someone would poison me, or something like that. It’s made me rather paranoid about what I eat.”
Aerwyna smiled. “You’ll last longer than the Dark Lord then.”

Word Allergy

I parked my car and took a deep breath. How bad could a hiking club be? We'd look at plants and identify trees, see some birds, take pictures, and get to the top of a mountain together. It would be fun. Still I was nervous when I approached the guide and the usual questions began.

"Caroline, right?" He checked my name off a list. "And what word are you allergic to?" He asked. I pulled out the medical card case and averted my eyes while he flipped it open. Touching the word directly makes my fingers itch. Looking at it makes my eyes smart and eventually results in full on tears and a stuffed nose, like I was cutting an onion. Hearing it starts a slow build up of reactions until I can't breathe. Saying it myself sends me straight into anaphylactic shock. He read the card and then the questions start.

"Can I say H2O? No? What about-"

"Just read the card," I beg. "It's all right there."

Hearing H2O isn't as bad as the actual word, but it still leaves my ears ringing. Why are people so possessed with the idea that they have to verbally ask for every single possible synonym? One or two, I can handle, annoying as it is. But a whole diluge of synonyms can still put me in the hospital. Acceptable words are listed on the card. All they have to do is read it. I can say it in French, l'eau, but not in Spanish. Ocean, sea, tears are okay. My doctor says it's because the salt in them mitigates the idea of the actual word. But if it's a a form of the word without salt? Not happening. I have to be careful with pool. I can say it, but it makes my tongue fuzzy. I try to save it for if I'm having a really hard time communicating and the other person's being dense. 

Then he started on the next set of questions and I tried to hold my frustration in. It's not his fault all the questions people ask are the same. "But you can drink it right? It's everywhere; it's not like you can avoid it. Are you sure it's a real allergy?"

Yes I can drink it. It's a word allergy, not a food allergy. No, I can't avoid it; but it puts a lot of limits on what I can do. Yes it's real and not in my head. Once when I was eight, my uncle yelled it at me over and over again, until my ears rang so hard they bled and I fainted because I couldn't breathe. I woke up in the hospital and my parents never spoke to that uncle again. 

"How do you manage? Don't you ever do anything fun?"

I manage the way everyone with word allergies does. I wear earplugs or headphones and carry my medical cards at all times. Also a white board, so that new people can write to me, until I decide it's safe to take the headphones off. I never take them off in crowded public places; there's too much risk. Texting is a lifesaver. Even if someone forgets and uses the word, it's not as bad as hearing it. I rarely take calls. I work remotely, which also helps.

"But don't you get lonely?"

Well, that's why I'm here. I  enjoy nature and a hiking club seemed like a good way to get outside and meet new friends. He hands the card case back. "Great to have you on board. Before we start up the trail be sure to grab a water bottle."

The Missing Lake

Photo by Dylan Freedom on Unsplash

I looked over the rock garden with a frown. I’d spent weeks designing and trying to create a lake-like effect with bare stone. It was supposed to accentuate the archeological site in the drained lake. In a few weeks, the University would be unveiling it to the world as the place where Excalibur had been found. So far only the University professors and a few select scholars knew about the find and had been studying it in privacy. Of course everyone knew that something was going on, but the University had been telling everyone it was just looking for stuff about the school’s origins, which I guess was technically true. The Lady of the Lake had given Arthur and taken the sword back, and the University was named after her… If she even existed. From what I’d heard from the excited professors, it was looking more likely that a small city with an advanced blacksmith had been established here.

Even after all my work, the rock garden still was unsatisfactory. It was one of the most challenging projects I’d ever taken on. Vivienne University had been maddening insistent that the “garden” be movable and weren’t interested in anything with roots. It had taken me weeks of arguing to persuade them that moss tucked into the rock cervices and a small water feature would add sufficient interest to be worthwhile. With so many limitations, the garden wasn’t a masterpiece, but it had turned out better than I’d hoped, even if I wasn’t completely happy with it.

Walking along the gravel path towards the dig, I bent down to straighten a stone with gold lines running through it, when I touched it felt warm. Standing up to get a better look at it, I suddenly realized I wasn’t in England anymore. Gone were the rocks and moss I had slaved over. Instead, I was standing on some kind of a balcony, overlooking a flooded city. The gold lines in the rock I was holding were glowing. Alarm raced through me. Apparently I’d ended up in fairyland. How could I get out again? Turning around, I discovered there was a woman on the balcony with me.

I expected her to be the most beautiful woman in the world, but she wasn’t. Really, she was rather ordinary, except for the fact that she wasn’t. She was standing still and looked like someone had taken a picture right as she’d moved, so her edges were blurred. Not enough to be noticeable at a first glance, but enough that it was there and made her hard to look at. When she finally advanced towards me, everything about her shifted as if she wasn’t there and then she was. I was expecting a demand to know what I was doing in her domain, or a mysterious welcome into a world I couldn’t understand and braced myself for it.

“Where is my lake?” she yelled. “Where’s Arthur’s heir? I sent the brat the sword and has anyone come to ask my advice on anything? No! And now my lake is missing!” The water in the flooded city rose up with each crescendo of her voice, until it was a towering wave above us.

“I’m sorry,” I said trying to keep my voice from trembling. “I’m just the gardner and I’m not even from the U.K. Maybe you should talk to someone else.”

She glared at me, “How am I supposed to travel through the worlds if my lake is gone?”

“I got here. So there must be a way -”

She through her arms up in the air and the spray from the water drenched us. “Where’s the poetry in picking up a rock? I need a lake to rise from the waters as if I were a living wave. How can I be the Lady of the Lake if there’s no lake?”

Well that confirmed who she was. The University would have a field day if they knew the actual Lady of the Lake existed. What would that mean about the village with the blacksmith they had discovered? Her mere presence rewrote history. The history that we knew about anyways. “Perhaps you could talk to the University about the lake,” I suggested tentatively. “If you could answer some of their questions -”

She suddenly locked eyes with me and I couldn’t finish. Her eyes were strange - probably green, but with an eerie yellow glow. “Questions? I have answers for every question you mortals could ask.” She sounded disdainful, but the waters around us calmed.

“I’m sure they have tons of questions only you could answer,” I said helpfully. “And if you talk to them, maybe they’d be willing to put your lake back. If you like, I could take you to them.” I wasn’t sure about that last part. The University was terribly excited about the dig, and there was still more to unearth. But I was willing to say anything to get out.

Her strange eyes flashed and with a wave of her hand we were back on the University grounds. I promptly dropped the rock. The gold lines vanished as it hit the ground. Careful to avoid it, I picked my way across the path to the University. “Come this way,” I called over my shoulder, without stopping to see if she was coming. As I tried not to bolt across my rock lake I marveled that it was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen and for the first time I was glad there was no water.

For more garden adventures see Avalon Gardens and The Gist of a Lake.

The Gist of a Lake

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

“And the lake must be spectacular!” the warlock in front of me waved his arms for emphasis.

Professionally, I did not scream. I really wanted to though. This was the tenth time he had used the word ‘spectacular’ as a must, while either only having a vague idea of what the university grounds should look like or being over specific about plants that wouldn’t work. No, we weren’t going to be putting in a man-eating pitcher plant next to the child-development building, not even with a railing, and especially not with a dragon guarding it.

“Right, the lake. How big is it?”

He gestured again, “It’s about two loch ness monsters long and half a monster wide.”

I made a note to find a conversion chart and didn’t bother asking anymore questions. He would either explain the conversion in long winded magnanimity or skip the answer in favor of astonished snobbery. Either way it would be faster to look it up at home. “Star lilies are impressive. They have large eye-catching flowers for the day time and at night when they light up they’ll look like floating votives.”

“No, no! We can’t have any water lilies.”

I held in a sigh. It had seemed like such a fantastic networking triumph when the sorceress had recommended me to her alma mater. Not only was it prestigious to be doing work for Vivienne University, but I also got to visit the UK. It should have been the chance of a life time. Now I was wishing she hadn’t bothered. “What’s wrong with water lilies?”

“Well, Ms. Linden, you can’t put them where there’s no water.”

I blinked. I must have misheard him, “But we’re talking about a lake, right?”

The warlock smiled indulgently and patted my shoulder, “There are lakes and whole oceans on the moon that don’t have a drop of water. It’s very much the same thing here.”

This was such an absurd explanation that I couldn’t even question it. So I foraged ahead, not sure what I was doing. “How about some bachelor buttons… and maybe some monkshood… we could recreate the look of a lake in flowers! A bunch of blue flowers. Blue roses would be absolutely stunning!” As I warmed to my theme I actually started getting excited. I had fallen in love with blue roses just the summer before when I was doing work for the sorceress and was itching to use them again. But the warlock waved me off. “We can’t get in the way of the archeologists. It wouldn’t do to have something put down roots only to dig it up.”

I tried to wrap my head around the instability of this preposterous idea. “And are you sure you want a garden in the… lake, at all?”

“Of course there should be a garden! It’s the most important site on campus! Two years ago a student was doing some recreational diving and unearthed Excalibur at the bottom of the lake. We had to drain the lake to excavate the site properly. It’s the most spectacular discovery in history! We must show proper respect to it.”

“I see,” I said. “I haven’t heard about any of that.”

“Naturally, if we’d announced it right away, we’d be crawling with treasure hunters and professors from other universities would want a go at it. So it’s been kept quiet until now. But soon, we’ll be presenting our finds to the world. So you see, everything must look spectacular!” He positively beamed at me, as if he had just handed over Excalibur itself, and not an impossible task worthy of the fairy queen.

I chewed my lip in thought. A lake without water, a garden without roots, a spectacular display without stability. Was it a demand like this that had caused Merlin to create Stonehenge? Catching hold of the faint hope this thought carried, I made one last offer, “How about a rock garden?”

For more of Ms. Linden's garden adventures see Avalon Gardens.

Avalon Gardens

Photo by Michael Bourgault on Unsplash

“And over here we have slumber apples in three different varieties: Short Nap, Golden Dreams, and Dead to the World. They make great healthy bedtime snacks! Next to them are the Apples of Youth, which are lovely for pleasure gardens, as they bloom all year long - even in winter. The fruit is small and sour, not worth eating. And of course, we have ornamental Golden Apples. Fruit appears once every ten years. They are for decoration only, if you tried to bite them you’d break a tooth!” The tour guide gave a brilliant smile and laughed at her own joke.

I smiled back. Outfitting a sorceress’s garden was a daunting task. It was a more than a dream come true though; working with magical plants was always so fascinating - they keep you on your toes, especially the hybrids - and building a garden from the ground up? Well, the sorceress might be the one footing the bill, but this was my garden. I looked at my brochure again. Avalon Gardens: Magical Greens and Nothing Else! It was the largest magical nursery in the States, nestled in a river valley in Idaho. It was so large that we were bumping along in a golf cart on a tour that had taken most of the day. We had just come out of the greenhouses after looking at the man eating plants (which were fed with cows, not people), and it was a relief to get out of the humidity.

“It says on the map here that the mineral trees are close by. But all I see are the apples.” I was a little dubious about these. While they could be quite striking, they were very high maintenance.

“Oh, those are underground!” chipped the tour guide. “The Silverleaf Trees tend to tarnish if left out in the elements too long and the gold ones loose their shine. We just imported some Gold Groves, so the Mineral Caves are closed off until next week while we move them in. And,” she lowered her voice confidentially, “The Princess Diamonds have coal blight at the moment.”

I winced in sympathy. I made a note that a Gold Grove might be fantastic in the entryway, but otherwise, they didn’t seem worth the trouble. I also started a sketch of some Apples of Youth surrounding the wall of the garden. Then I frowned. Did the local teens know enough about horticulture to know better than to try stealing the apples? ‘Youth’ referred to the year-round flowers, not any property of the fruit, which was a common misconception. It would be a nuisance to keep chasing over eager teens out. On the other hand, one bite of the apples would probably ensure they were never bothered again. Those apples were just as sour as lemons!

“Can we see the roses now?” I asked. Roses were always a good staple for enchanted gardens.

“Oh yes!”

We left the orchards behind and were soon amid the colorful bobbing heads of the roses. It was a relief to see all the different hues. Magical trees tended to run towards the gold side. I read an article online once that claimed all magical trees were descended from one ancestral tree that had sprouted from a gold vein so many thousands of years ago; it wasn’t hard to believe.

“Those blood-red ones on the right are Castle Thorns,” said the guide. “Very few flowers. Lots of thorns. Grow like crazy. They make wonderful barriers, though they do need lots of pruning. Anciently they were used around castles when dragons were too hard to come by. They’re still a great addition to any security plan you’ve already got.”

I nodded thoughtfully. Perhaps some Castle Thorns around the garden walls and Apples of Youth more towards the center. The beds of roses were all shades of red from a crimson so dark it was almost black to a pale baby pink. There were deep purples and dusky lavenders, pristine whites and butter yellows and fiery oranges. A faint fragrance wafted up from them. I quickly filled up a page of notes. 

“Most of these are Enchanting Roses. They aren’t magical themselves, but they soak up magic like sponges. So if you need a timer, or a plant to grab an intruder, or a recitation of your grocery list, these will do it. The brochure has a list of the most common spells Enchanting Roses are used for. If you want to do something not on the list, check our website for more details.”

A quick glance at the list told me the colors made a difference in the spells. I made a star next to it. The sorceress would have to look it over to see if there was any particular spells she wanted. Otherwise, I was pretty sure I would have free range. And then we came to the blue roses and I gasped. Oh, I’d seen blue roses before in vases, but I hadn’t seen them growing. It was as if we’d suddenly entered a mini ocean. “They’re splendid!” These we needed no questions asked. They would make an impressive bower for receiving guests. Pale ice blue roses would add a frosty elegance to summer. It would be unsettling. Magical. Perfect.

The guide grinned at my enthusiasm. “They’re delicate, but worth it. Be sure to pick up a booklet back at the office on their care. My favorites are the Sapphire Hearts.”

“What are those, the white ones with blue tips?” I asked then scribbled down her answer Glacial Thaw. I had a new favorite plant; besides the Venus Flytrap on my office desk, the pussy willow and white daffodils in my backyard, the living rocks in my bathroom, the lilac bush down at the park… I have a lot of favorite plants. But the Glacial Thaw roses were at the top of the list.

By this time the sun was setting and I almost missed the black roses. I wasn’t so sure about those. They were impressive and beautiful, but people tended to assume only wicked witches had them and I didn’t like to think what that could do to the sorceress’s reputation. With the sunset in full swing just about the only thing visible now were the giant beanstalks off in the distance.

“Off to the night garden!” cried the guide.

I had never worked with night plants before. As we tumbled along, I wondered if they were even worth it. Most night plants either gave off a heavy scent or a dim light. Hanging baskets of moon violets could mark a pathway, but lanterns were perfectly serviceable. Star water lilies looked impressive in ponds, but how often would there be guests in the garden at night to see them? Unless the sorceress wanted to host a midnight ball or something they would be wasted. And she hadn’t seemed like the ball giving type to me. We passed a field with large sprinklers shooting water over rows of short leaves. I frowned. I didn’t recognize them. They didn’t look like rapunzels, or mattress peas, or anything else I could think of; they had to be really rare. I tried to consult the brochure, but it was now too dark to see it. “What’s in the fields?” I asked.

“Potatoes!” said the tour guide brightly.

“Potatoes?” I asked in surprise, wondering if I’d heard her right. I didn’t know of any magical potatoes. It had to be a new hybrid. Maybe they grew as french fries or potato chips in the ground. How would they get the dirt off? Or maybe they talked? Talking plants were all the rage right now, though I didn’t see the point in giving potatoes the gift of speech. “What do they do?”

“Oh nothing much,” the guide said breezily. “They’re just good honest potatoes.”

“Why?” I asked at a loss for words.

She laughed, “This is Idaho. It would be unpatriotic not to have potatoes.”

I stared at the fields and sprinklers as if I’d never seen them in my life. Of course I had passed several potato fields on my way to Avalon Gardens, but somehow I couldn’t wrap my mind around them being here, in the most magical place I had ever been in my life. How could it be that the strangest thing I saw in Avalon weren’t the golden trees, or the man eating plants, or the glowing moon flowers coming into view, but the potatoes?

En Plein Air

Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash

Gasping, Bella began to wonder if she really needed to drag the table outside. It had seemed like such an easy thing to do… But that had been thirty minutes ago, after staring out her window at the spring, instead of painting. Then - such a clever idea! - she’d decided to simply take her watercolors outside and paint what she was looking at. And now here she was. 

Gritting her teeth, she pushed at the table again. She’d gotten this far, she may as well keep going. With several more grunts Bella tugged the table forward and smacked into the doorframe. Swallowing frustration, she took a deep breath. Almost there. A bee buzzed through the open door and she ignored it. So long as it stayed away from her, she’d let it be. Carefully, she maneuvered the table out the door and onto her lawn.

She collapsed into the grass and gulped for air. Why did she have such a heavy table? How was she going to get it back in now that it was out? Bella firmly banished such thoughts from her mind. The table was out, she was going to paint in the spring, and she wasn’t going to think anything beyond that. Of course, now she needed her brushes and paint, paper, clipboard… With a groan, she pulled herself up and headed back into the house, passing the bee on its way out. 

Bella caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and had to laugh. Her hair had come undone and was flying out every which way and her short stint in the grass had already put stains on her jeans. Oh well. The idea was for people to look at the painting - when it was done - not at her. Shaking her head, she rounded up various art supplies and headed back to the table. She had to take another trip back into the house for water, and then another one for a chair. And once she got herself settled, she went in again for a paper towel roll to prop up her clipboard. With a sigh she finally reached for her brush. 

An apple-blossom breeze tried to rearrange her hair. Somewhere, a mockingbird called out. Smiling, she dipped her brush into the water. Was it even possible to capture such perfection? She began to paint the scene before her. The tire swing swaying gently from the tree. Several bees courting daffodils. Chickadees and goldfinches splashing in the birdbath. The neighbor’s terrier running by with a struggling fairy in its mouth…

Bella dropped her paintbrush and stared. “Hey!” she yelled, then realizing that was stupid, tried a different tactic. “Here, Rocky, come here boy.”

Obediently, the dog trotted over, clearly pleased with himself. The fairy was yelling things she couldn’t understand, but assumed weren’t very nice. Bella grabbed the dog’s collar. “Let go, Rocky.” Rocky wagged his tail at her. She tried to gently pry his jaws apart, which was difficult both because she could only use one hand and because she was trying no to hurt the fairy more. “Come on, drop it.” Rocky reluctantly relinquished his hold on the fairy and then immediately tried to pick it up again. “Shoo! Go home!” Bella pushed the dog away. Rocky didn’t want to go. In the end she had to scoop up her paintbrush and throw it before he lost interest in the fairy.

Finally she was able to turn her attention to the fairy. The fairy had picked herself up and was shaking out her wings that resembled something closer to bat wings in shades of yellow and green. “Are you alright?” asked Bella.

“No,” snapped the fairy. “I’m alive, and no longer under that revolting creature’s control, but I’m certainly not alright.”

“Can I get you something?”

“There is nothing you can do,” said the fairy grandly, sweeping her wings behind her like a cape. “But you have saved my life and I must reward you. What boon can I do for you?”

Bella blinked, “Um… I don’t really need anything…”

The fairy crossed her arms, “I didn’t ask what you needed. I asked what I can do for you. Most humans have a list of things they want.”

Bella looked around. There was the tire swing, the daffodils, the birdbath, her painting table with everything askew, the house. “Can you get my table back into my art room once I’m done out here?”

The fairy stared at her in disbelief, “You have the opportunity to ask for untold riches and you want me to move your table?”

Bella didn’t point out that in most stories asking for untold riches seemed to get people in trouble. “It’d be a help. But if you can’t do that…”

The fairy rolled her eyes, “Of course I can do it! But you humans… there’s no understanding you.” With that, the fairy disappeared behind the daffodils.

The table was still standing in the grass. Bella shrugged, and started straightening things out. She was missing her favorite brush now that she had thrown it for Rocky, but she could make do with the others. Maybe she should have asked for a new brush. She spent the rest of the afternoon painting. Some bees buzzed by her water, but soon lost interest. Rocky ran across her yard again, but this time with no fairies. He was soaking wet though. Bella shook her head. She had no idea what that dog was up to. Finally, she cleaned up her supplies and started lugging the table back inside. It was incredibly light, and took no effort at all. Bella grinned. This was much better than dragging it out. In no time she had everything put away and was thinking about dinner.

About a week later, when she sat down to paint again, she opened a drawer in the table, looking for a sketchpad and gasped. The drawer was filled with gold and diamonds. Stunned, she gaped at it for a moment. Then she hunted up her laptop and started googling how to do taxes on fairy gold.