A Fairy Blossoms in the Garden

I glanced at my cell phone. It was already three in the afternoon. The traffic light was still red, and my fingers drummed on the steering wheel restlessly. My phone buzzed at the same moment the light turned green. Not thinking, I looked at it again briefly before hearing a horn honk behind me. Instinctively, I stomped on the gas pedal and my truck sped across the intersection.

It took me another fifteen minutes to get to my client’s house. It was a small place with an overgrown lawn and lots of abandoned children’s toys spread across the property. I grabbed my toolbox out of the back of my truck and ran towards the front door. A quick glance at my watch confirmed that it wasn’t three thirty yet. Less than twenty minutes late wasn’t too bad. I knocked on the door.

“Quién es?” A harried voice came from inside the house. I could hear the sounds of a television program in the background.

“Es Juan Guillermo, Sra. Gonzalez. Me llamaste hablando de tu refrigerado.” I replied quickly

The door opened and I saw a middle-aged woman wearing an ill-fitting tank top and sweatpants looking back at me. She gestured for me to follow her.

The inside of the house wasn’t much better than the outside. There were two children sitting in front of the television while a little girl sat on the ground next to the front door playing with a plastic baby doll. The woman stepped around her on her way to the kitchen. I shut the front door behind me and kept my toolbox close to my chest.

“Está goteando agua.” She pointed at the ground near the refrigerator. It was covered in towels that were completely wet. “Solo empezó esta mañana. No sé qué pasó.”

The sound of children fighting came from the living room behind me. Before I could turn around, the Mrs. Gonzalez was already forcing her way past me and towards her children, shouting at them to be nice because the handyman was here and trying to do his job. I turned away and knelt down to get a better look at what was happening with the fridge.

I moved the fridge forward until it was no longer flush against the wall, then unplugged it and tried wiggling my way behind it. Mrs. Gonzalez kept her kids out of my way and I was able to lay down on the ground curled around the side and back of the fridge in order to get a good look at the defrost drain. Upon closer inspection, there was a bunch of gunk stuck in it. I sighed, then grabbed a small wire brush from my toolbox and began scrubbing. Once the debris was cleared, I took my water bottle and attempted to pour water through the drain. It flowed through perfectly.

A sense of keen satisfaction filled me. I’d been late, but I still managed to complete the job. After cleaning up the stray debris, mopping up the floor, plugging the fridge back in, and pushing it back into its proper place, I looked at my phone. It was only four in the afternoon. I looked around for Mrs. Gonzalez in the kitchen as I packed up my toolbox. She wasn’t there. I walked into the living room. The television was still on, though the volume was turned off.

“Terminé el trabajo Sra. Gonzalez.” I spoke loudly, expecting a response to come from one of the other rooms in the single-story house. None came. As I walked back into the kitchen, it was too quiet. There were some utensils set out as if Mrs. Gonzalez had been preparing lunch for her children before I came, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Holding my toolbox close, I walked out of the kitchen, past the living room, and into the singular hallway that led through the house towards the restroom and bedrooms. There were small children’s toys on the floor and some simple paintings hanging from the walls of the cramped corridor, but even as I approached the bedrooms, I didn’t hear anyone else in the house.

I knocked on each door. No one responded. A sweat broke out on my forehead and I quickly turned around to head towards the front door. I’d send her a text message later about my payment. The entire scenario reminded me too much of grandfather’s old house. It looked lived in and you could see that happy moments had at one time taken place there; but now the only things left were memories.

“Mr. Guillermo, I have your payment.” The voice was calm.

The voice made me stop dead in my tracks. I reached for the knife I carried in my toolbox and turned around carefully. The voice had come from the kitchen. I took a deep breath and stepped towards it.

“Sra. Gonzalez?” I did my best to sound confident as I got closer to the kitchen.

“No, I’m just a friend of hers.” The voice, now that I had heard it a little more, didn’t only sound calm. It was soft, with a cool sense of rhythm that made each word flow into the next one like lyrics in a lullaby.

Steeling my resolve, I stepped into the kitchen, with my hand still on the handle of my knife.

In front of me was a tall, pale woman with long and flat white hair. She wore a light gray dress that shimmered slightly in the light of the sun. Her eyes were a dark and almost magical blue. She stood out among the warm tiling of the kitchen and the cluttered counters around her the way a bright star stands out on a dark night. I almost let go of my knife.

My voice wavered slightly as I spoke in English. “Where is Mrs. Gonzalez?”

The pale woman raised her arm and pointed out through a window in the kitchen that was positioned over the sink. I spared a glance through it, still holding my knife tightly. I could see that Mrs. Gonzalez and her children were in their tiny backyard, with the three children tussling over a stick horse. I looked back at the pale woman. She hadn’t moved any closer to me while I’d been turned away.

“I’m going to ask her for payment then. Thank you ma’am.” I tried to move past the woman to the back door. She didn’t get out of my way.

“Mrs. Gonzalez is busy right now with her children. I’ll handle the payment Mr. Guillermo.”

“I can’t take your money.”

“I’m staying with her family for a little while. Consider this a gift on my behalf for her.” The pale lady reached into a nearly invisible pocket on her dress for a few moments before pulling out a wad of cash. “Will this be enough?”

I let go of my knife and carefully took the wad of cash. It amounted to roughly thirty dollars. I raised an eyebrow at her, frowned, then took twenty of the dollars and handed them back to the pale lady.

“It’s only ten.”

“You don’t want the rest?” Her voice sounded slightly surprised, breaking the completely calm and collected demeanor that she had maintained until this point.

“I haven’t earned it.” I looked back out the window. Mrs. Gonzalez and her children were still in the backyard. “Thank you for the offer and the work; have a nice day.” I turned away and started walking towards the front door. I started to text Mrs. Gonzalez about how there was a woman in her house on the off-chance that the pale lady was an intruder.

“Mr. Guillermo, what do you know about fairies?” I stopped leaving and turned around. The pale lady stepped out of the kitchen and into the living room, looking as calm and collected as she had earlier.

“Fairies? Like the ones from the movies?” I remembered watching movies with fairies and knights and princesses in them with my cousins in my grandfather’s house. The memory stirred within me briefly.

“Almost... But not quite.” She stepped closer until she was about three feet away. She looked at me with her deep blue eyes. “What if I told you that they were very delicate?”

“I'd believe you?” I said while I pursed my lips and slowly backed away towards the front door. “They're kind of tiny, right? They're like model cars; if you're not careful with them they'll fall apart.”

“That is an interesting comparison, but I suppose it fits.” She stood there looking at me for a little bit. I wanted to leave and get on to my next job, but for some reason I felt like if I did I would be making a very, very bad decision. My hand found its way to the handle of my knife again.

“So, why do you ask? Are you writing a book? My little cousin Sophie's doing the same thing. Maybe you could talk to her and give her some tips?” I said it half-jokingly.

She didn't answer. Instead, she turned around and started walking back towards the kitchen. I stared at the back of her head for a few seconds before going to shut the front door and leave, putting my knife away and resuming my text to Mrs. Gonzalez.

“Take care of her, Mr. Guillermo.”

I considered turning around and asking what she meant by that; unfortunately, I already had another job lined up in less than an hour. I shut the door and got into my truck, then started off towards Weslaco.
~~~
By the time I made it back to my apartment it was ten in the evening. My last job had been helping a guy move some defunct motorcycles out of his garage and into a big trailer. I ended up sweating like a pig; what kind of man keeps four broken motorcycles?! I looked into my refrigerator and grabbed a couple things to make a sandwich before I slapped it together and walked over to my windowsill garden. The only plants that were in it were a cactus, an aloe and a burro’s tail, but I was still proud of it. I grabbed the cup I was drinking out of and sprinkled the water over each of my three plants.

“Hey! Watch where you're watering!” Said a very feminine and assertive voice.

My right hand ended up crushing my sandwich with how hard I grabbed it. My head shot down as fast as a bullet and I looked at each plant in the garden.

I dropped my sandwich as my eyes went wide.

Standing there, underneath the little rose, was a tiny woman with butterfly wings. She was wearing a purple dress and had hair that was as dark as the night sky. At most, she could've been about four inches tall. Her small fists were balled up and on her hips as she stared at me with an angry look on her face. Her eyes were a piercing shade of orange and her skin was nearly as pale as the moon that was shining in through the window behind her. Her figure was lithe and graceful, yet still distinctly feminine. She looked like she’d stepped directly out of one of my grandfather’s bedtime stories.

“What are you staring at you pig?!” She said harshly before she flew right in front of my face with her small, white butterfly wings. “You look like you've been hauling boulders for hours! Are humans always this disgusting?”

“W-well, I-I, I, ay sumecha!” I turned around and tried to run to my front door. As soon as I took my second step, I slipped on my sandwich and fell flat on the ground with a loud thud. While I tried to get my bearings, the fairy landed on the ground in front of my face and rolled her eyes.

“You can't even run away right.” She made eye contact with me and crossed her arms with a look of disappointment that would've made my father proud. “Besides, why are you panicking? Didn't my mother tell you I was coming?”

“M-madre?! Que madre?!” I sputtered the words out as quickly as I could, still trying to back away from her. When I sat up straight again, I accidentally placed my hand right on top of my now ruined sandwich.

“My mother! Didn't you talk to her earlier today? She should’ve told you that I was coming by.” She fluttered up with her wings until she was hovering a few inches away from my face. “She's really tall? White hair and skin? Big blue eyes?” I needed to take a little time to catch my breath before I could say anything. Unfortunately, she wasn't patient.

“Hello? What's wrong? Speak up!” She snapped her fingers in my face. She was staring right at me with her fiery orange eyes, looking very annoyed.

“Ay-yi-yi, you can't give me just a few minutes to think about what's going on? I've never seen anything like you before! Excuse me if I take more than a couple seconds to get used to you!” I shook my head and scooted backwards until I was leaning against the wall under the windowsill. She didn't move closer for a minute or two, then she slowly flew up to the back of my couch and laid down on top of it so that she was a little above my eye level.

We sat there until the moon rose past the horizon and stopped shining directly through the window. Eventually, I was able to come up with something to say that wasn’t completely stupid.

“Cómo te llamas?” I said softly, looking up at her. Her dark black hair was dangling around her shoulders and framing her eyes perfectly as she looked down at me. Her expression went from very annoyed to a strong smile.

“My name's Myra Rosebud.” She said confidently. “Mother told me that you were named Juan; is that right?” She stood up and flew down from my couch until she was hovering at eye level with me again. She flew around me briefly, and her smile changed into a frown. “I'm going to be honest, I'm surprised that you have the nicest garden here.” She fluttered past my face and flew back up to my little garden. I heard her cough briefly, so I took that as a signal for me to stand as well. I looked at my garden and could see her standing in the middle of it with her hands on her hips.

“What's wrong with it?” I asked curiously, trying my best to remember everything my grandfather had told me about fairies.

“Nothing's wrong with it exactly.” She said with a slight huff. She jumped and climbed on top of the old man cactus that was on the right side of the box, then sat down on top of it. “It's just not very exciting. All you have are an old man cactus, an aloe vera, and a burro's tail!”

“I'm sorry?” I said after recalling that my grandfather had said that fairies were very particular about the care of plants and beautiful gardens. “But can we talk about your... mother? I think I saw her, and she didn't say anything about you.”

“Don't lie!” Myra said as she crossed her arms at me while still sitting on the fluffy cactus. “Mother must have told you something!”

“What do you mean mother? The lady you're describing is a real person, not a, well, fairy.” As soon as I said that, I regretted my words.

“What am I then?” She stood up and raised her arms in an attempt to make herself look bigger.

“I didn't mean it like that! It’s just that fairies have never been real before!” I said quickly, as I opened my palms in a non-threatening gesture. After Myra put her arms down, I continued speaking. “The woman you’re describing was at the house of one of my clients, so she can't be a fairy! Can you see why I'm a little confused?”

Myra giggled, then flew up to my eye level again. She was hovering right in front of my window, so I could see the city of Edinburg at night behind her. It framed her perfectly as she hovered in place, with the lights of distant buildings and houses replacing the stars that no one could see because of the brightness of the city.

“Mother does that. She'll pretend to be people all the time. It makes it easy for her to walk around humans unnoticed.”

“W-wait, are Mrs. Gonzalez and her kids alright?” I said quickly. “I texted her about your mother and she acted like it was all completely normal!” I pulled out my phone and looked at the previous texts I’d sent to Mrs. Gonzalez. The texts were still there.

“Don’t worry, mother wouldn’t hurt innocent humans.” Myra said calmly. “She’s able to make up memories for people. I think. I’m not sure about what she does exactly; mother’s really powerful.”

I stared at the text messages in silence for a minute before trying to snap a photo of her with my phone. Myra didn’t flinch. I looked at my phone’s camera reel. The latest photo just showed the empty ceiling of my apartment, without a single fairy in sight.

“If it were that easy to get evidence of our existence, do you think I’d be here?” Myra said playfully. I set my phone down and looked at the fairy with my eyes narrowed.

“Why are you here? What’s going on?”

“I live in places that have beautiful things and help them get even more beautiful, like any fairy should.” She motioned with her hands to my little garden. “So I'm going to help you make this garden even more beautiful than it is now. Which honestly shouldn't be too hard; you've only got three non-flowering plants.”

“My garden is beautiful?”

“I mean, mother told me to come to your garden specifically.” Myra shrugged. “So I guess it is.”

“Why my garden?”

“I don’t know.”

“So, what, are you just going to stay here? What am I supposed to do with-” I started talking, then stopped.

Take care of her.

I looked down at Myra. She yawned.

“Forget it.” I turned around and started walking towards my bedroom. Before I left the main room, I looked back at Myra. “Have a good night.”

“Thanks. You too.” She said, as she slowly nodded off to sleep in my windowsill garden.

I didn’t know exactly why there was a fairy living in my garden now. What I did know was that I had a new job to do. As I settled under the covers of my bed an hour later, I set my alarm for the next morning and steeled my resolve. I wasn’t going to be late for work this time.