The Magic Garden

by Shane Greenhough

The Magic Garden

  By Shane Alexander Greenhough

  Copyright 2012 Shane Alexander Greenhough

  The flash and flitter of tiny wings glitters amongst the leaves in the garden out back. I watch from the kitchen window as they dance among the green, my face straining with a wide grin that cuts from cheek to cheek.

  Three inches tall and as bare as birth, they flit from branch to branch, leaf to leaf, singing in a chorus of squeaking cheers as one then the other taunts the feathered regulars feasting on the days entrée of stale breadcrumbs and last night’s leftovers.

  This is my magic garden.

  The kettle, steam rising from its spout, clicks off next to me, barely noticed. Two mugs wait with endless patience on the counter in front of me, untouched. I’m enraptured, in awe of the tiny denizens of my enchanted woodland.

  It’s not much of a woodland, I’ll be the first to admit. Half an acre of mown lawn fringed by manicured shrubs and the occasional small ash. In one corner a stumpy jacaranda sporadically shakes off showers of lilac petals as miniature dragon-winged people dart in and out of its broad boughs.

  “Distracted again, Will?” asks a voice at my back, followed by a tinkling laugh.

  “Ah hell,” I look down at the empty mugs on the kitchen counter in front of me, “your tea.”

  “My tea,” Elette confirms.

  She steps up behind me, ropes her arms around my waist and rests her chin on my shoulder, following my gaze out through the window. I don’t turn, but I can imagine the squint of her bright, blue eyes as she searches for the cause of her tardy cup of tea.

  “What distracted you this time, something shiny?”

  Oh yes, I neglected to mention that my garden is only a magic garden to me. This was a hard lesson the learning of which never failed to embarrass my parents when I was a child.

  When I was six, my mother, standing in the kitchen where I am now, had recoiled in shock and shame when she spotted me gambolling naked from bush to bush with my shirt clutched in my little hand and trailing out behind me. I dove in, under and around the foliage, chasing creatures she couldn’t see, my paper-white posterior flashing the Johnsons - our neighbours, visiting for lunch at my mother’s behest.

  Of course I explained that the little people didn’t wear clothes, and I was just trying to fit in. The garden was their home, after all, and when in Rome…

  Suffice it to say, paper-white was turned a few shades pinker shortly after my sincere explication.

  I was a slow learner, so it was a year or two, and several thrashings later before I learned that while honesty is generally the best policy, a boy should perhaps be more careful about the honesty he chooses to express and how he chooses to express it.

  “Worlds beyond imagining,” I answer truthfully and turn to smile at Elette.

  “Don’t be so sure,” she winks, “never underestimate this girl’s imagination.”

  *****

  The air is chilly outside. Running around naked in the garden was infinitely more comfortable when I was a boy and it was mid-afternoon in summer.

  Right now, though, it’s the middle of the night and Autumn is nipping at my pale rear. Still, I can’t help but smile.

  Fire-flashes of faerie light dance on the air around me. In and out of invisible bushes in the dark they streak, to-and-fro.

  It’s not long before the boy in me takes over, and I’m again gambolling about after them. The wisdom of years has tempered my enthusiasm to a reserved giggle, but restraint in the presence of magic is hard to justify.

  “The queen, the queen. The queen is coming.”

  “And the prince too.”

  Their high and tiny voices sing to each other, a raucous and tuneless choir. I can understand only the most oft-repeated words - these references to royalty - but I can reply with even less than that.

  My voice, to them, is a wordless, booming echo. Even my whispered laughs are a deafening machinegun-staccato rhythm.

  Not that it matters. Understanding is unimportant – excited as I am for the arrival of faerie royalty, imagine the splendour!

  What matters, in these stolen moments, is the rush of running and dancing in private audience with the court of the magic garden.

  I rarely risk these night-time excursions anymore, as much as I love Elette, I just don’t think she’d understand, and who could blame her?

  No, better I keep secret my Magic Garden goings-on. But this, news of a queen and a prince! I try to listen, straining my ears as I bound through the green while the little people – shedding light like dust – flit about my head.

  “Soon. The Queen, the Faerie Queen and her freshly-ennobled beau,” one explains to no one in particular.

  “In robes of green and gold, garments fit for kings,” the sing-song voice of another titters.

  “Fit for a queen,” an agitated chirp corrects him.

  “How soon?” I ask, forgetting myself.

  My voice booms in their delicate ears and sends them all darting away to hide beneath leaves and to hang in the air, out of reach – glowing like little earthbound stars.

  I stop running, and wait – hoping that they’ll come out again, that they’ll play and fly around me just a little more before bed beckons.

  They don’t. They watch me cautiously from their places of hiding – not much good for hiding considering the glow that clings to their skin in the darkness of night.

  I don’t say anything (having said too much already) and simply raise my hand in apologetic supplication, turning toward the house with my head hung in shame. Something catches my eye from inside though. The blinking out of a light as I turned. Movement too, perhaps?

  Elette.

  I dash inside, my mind racing to find an excuse. Why was I running around, dancing naked in the garden? Nothing feasible presents itself. The kitchen is dark, and empty, but the light I thought I saw came from deeper in the house. In moments I’m through the kitchen door, up the stairs and in our bedroom.

  “El’, babes?” I address the darkness. Is she sitting up in bed, looking at me? Maybe standing three feet in front of me, waiting for some sort of explanation.

  Silence.

  “Elette?” I think I can see movement, hear the creaking of the bed. That’s a good sign.

  “Mmm? Yes?” her voice is confused, weary – the voice of the still-sleeping, “what? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I smile, “Nothing at all. Sorry for waking you.”

  I should be more careful, but I know I won’t.

  Faerie Royalty!