Calendula Blooms
by Charles C. Cole
part 1
Young Calendula Comes of Age
A quarter of the city was suffering through rolling brown-outs, power outages that lasted for hours. We’d shut down the office in response. My job involves advocating for the little guy, in this case urban faery folk. It’s a thing.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, Calendula, my half-rosebush secretary, was going through a particularly awkward phase in her unique life: her pretty head had broken out in small, tight buds. To a human, she looked about 18, short for her age. In plant years, she was closer to five. I guess plant-human hybrids mature more slowly than their purebred counterparts.
I sat on the building’s front stoop, mentally reviewing expenses while finishing a cigarette and watching Calendula approach. When I thought about my old business model before she’d joined the team as another person to “share” the load. I was always grateful to see her returning. She smiled and waved when she saw me, but it was a brief smile and a quick wave.
“So, it turns out,” she said, having just come from visiting her relatives at the arboretum, “I’m supposed to keep my hairy toes, meaning the little roots sticking out the sides of my feet, in soil, not just water, if I want to sustain my seasonal blossoms. I know you think of me as a plant but, honestly, working in the human world, I sometimes forget who’s driving the bus.”
“Calendula,” I said, standing for emphasis, “tell me what you need; we’ll make it happen.”
She squinted into the summer sky. “For starters, can we keep the blinds rolled up, so I get more sun inside?”
“We’ll remove them altogether. And maybe we could hang a large mirror on the wall to brighten the place.”
“I know things are tight, but could we buy a grow lamp for my desk?”
“Of course. I’m surprised you haven’t asked for one before.”
After all my recent interactions with urban faery folk, this was a new experience for me. I just assumed she knew how best to take care of herself. What if there were more hybrids on the horizon? Calendula was the test case.
“Can we add soil and fertilizer to your Tupperware thingy under your desk?” I asked, caught up in her brainstorming. “No standing to greet folks. No walking them to my inner chambers to introduce them. No escorting them out of the office. Will that do the trick? Or...” — I went there — “are you talking about staying in your apartment, trying something remote?”
She did a funny thing: working her lips a moment like they were chapped. “The city botanist, Director of something, who seems pretty smart, thinks I should chill out with the plant side of the family for a couple of weeks and de-stress until my blooms are fully opened, ‘gone by,’ even.”
She was talking a leave of absence. “Calendula,” I stammered, “are you going to drop seeds?”
“Don’t worry: there’s no chance of propagation in my future,” she said, like she expected me to be relieved at the news. “No suckers. No sprouts. Whatever combination of faery magic and passion that led to my becoming me, the botanist is pretty sure I’m infertile.”
“I’m sorry.” I reached for her hand, careful to avoid the palm thorns. Calendula didn’t pull away. “It just reaffirms what I’ve always known: you’re one of a kind.” She brightened. “All the more reason to take care of yourself. I hope you won’t mind if I visit. No work; strictly personal.”
“I’d like that,” she said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.
* * *
Genie, Ginger and Gretel
Genie, the big-and-tall shirtless exotic client who’d started it all, was back in my office. As he’d done in his original visit, he grabbed some throw pillows and sat cross-legged on the floor. This was not a countercultural or nonconformist gesture; he was too much mass for my cheap furniture, and he knew it.
Genie didn’t notice the pillows had never recovered from their first encounter. A small puff of cotton fibers escaped up and out behind him, like the death rattle of a stuffed animal. I sat self-consciously straight in the swivel chair at my desk, and our heads were almost exactly the same height, almost.
“You do wondrous magic!” I explained gently, as if acquainting a toddler Genie to its life’s purpose. He wagged his huge noggin in agreement. “Surely, you’ve handled this kind of thing before.” He wagged some more. “You don’t need me.” He vigorously shook his head in a demonstrative refutation of the facts.
“There’s nothing I can do,” said Genie morosely, “except bring him to your attention.” His dear friend was seriously damaged and looking for some end-of-life resolution.
“Give him the lamp and three wishes,” I proposed, like “Why didn’t you think of it?”
“Can’t.”
“Give the lamp to his best friend who uses his first wish on your pal Ginger.”
“I have no say who gets the lamp or how they use their wishes.”
“He’s not getting my last wish!” I declared, slapping the top of my desk with both hands and sounding more petulant than intended.
“I would never... But you have other skills in this instance which—”
“You’re looking at my waist! You want me to eat the Gingerbread Boy?!” I exclaimed.
“Humans love cookies.”
“Not a cookie that talks and thinks.”
“A crow pecked his eyes out while he was suntanning. A mouse stole all his gumdrop buttons while he was sleeping in a hammock. A dog ate both of his legs! He’s gotten stale. He’s just looking for peace at the end of his life’s journey. And purpose.”
“To be eaten by me?!” I gushed.
“This is not my wish.” Genie’s lower lip sagged. “He’s a big fan. It would be a tremendous tribute.”
“I’m not chowing down on your lifelong pal! No matter how appealing you make it sound. Listen, Hansel and Gretel have a whole house made of gingerbread!”
“Made from a different batch entirely: it doesn’t talk.”
“No, but maybe they can bake him some legs and replace his decorations. It was a witch’s house; in the right book, they probably have a potion for this.”
“I won’t visit a house for feral children growing up without adult supervision with a vulnerable friend who’s one-third sugar.”
“I’ll go too,” I grumbled. “I owe you that much.”
Genie snapped his fingers. We were instantly transported to a dark forest, just outside a special, aromatic house.
“Nice trick,” I growled, feeling a draft and reaching up for a hat that would ordinarily have been on my head.
“Sorry. Wouldn’t want you out of uniform,” said Genie, pulling my fedora out of mid-air, like he’d had it hidden in his palm the whole time.
Ginger was on a wheeled wooden stretcher beside us. He’d seen better days.
“How you doing, Ginger?” I asked.
“Detective Avery? I’m honored,” he said, smiling broadly under dark sunglasses, worn out of modesty. Somehow, he managed to have dimples, and I could see crow’s feet, from a life well lived, at the corners of his empty eye sockets.
“Hello. Anybody home?” called Genie.
“Home, home, home,” came an echo from the woods, as if Genie had been shouting into a canyon.
“A little help please!” It was Gretel, I assumed, climbing out of a stone well just behind us. I clasped her small cold hand, propping a foot on the side of the well, and pulled her up easily. She was a broom of a girl in her early teens, about 5-foot tall. She was dry.
“Coming back from a swim?” I teased.
“It leads to a tunnel under the house, for surprising people who surprise me,” she explained, candidly. “You must be...” Gretel peered up at my hat, then gently tapped one side to give me a rakish look. “Joe Avery?”
“The same. We’re hoping you can repair our gingerbread friend.”
She leaned over our wounded pal, putting her nose close to his head and shoulders and sniffing like a sommelier. “That’s quite a recipe! Never smelled anything like it. I believe I can help, in exchange for a small sample.”
“Of me?” asked Ginger, shrinking back from a menace he could not see.
“You ever make sourdough bread?” Gretel asked me, stepping closer, ignoring the patient. “You take a little bit of the original dough as a starter. Hansel hunts for days, leaving me alone. I sometimes talk to my gingerbread house. I would love to have the house talk back. What conversations we would have! Maybe with a little of Ginger’s recipe in the walls...”
“That’s up to Ginger,” I said.
“Of course. The talking cookie.” She returned her attention to our pal, towering over him in an oddly menacing way. “What do you say, Ginger, to new eyes, new buttons and new legs?”
“Sounds appetizing,” said a prone Ginger in a joke at his own expense.
“Hope you’re not planning on taking him down the well,” I said.
“You’re funny,” she said, but it didn’t sound at all like she meant it. “Shouldn’t take long; there’s always a cauldron on the fire.”
After Gretel had gone inside, I looked about for Genie. He’d disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared. I saw a pair of glowing, bodiless eyes not far off.
“A trick I learned from the Cheshire Cat,” he answered in explanation.
“Is it kids or witches that scare you?” I asked, approaching gingerly.
“The combination of the two.” His body slowly reappeared. “I’d prefer to be the only magic in the room, if you get my meaning.”
Unexpectedly, I’d become the bravest member of our little band. Genie’s unusual fear endeared him to me even more.
In the end, Ginger was better than new. Gretel had our thanks, our respect, and a talking house.
* * *
The Stranger With a Strange Name
My ex-wife, Janice, was generously helping while Calendula was away. I stood as she escorted our latest client out of my chambers. That’s when I felt a sudden dizzy spell, as if while looking out a high window in a swaying building or when returning to land after a day on rough seas in a small vessel.
The door locked behind Janice on its own volition. The clock on the wall stopped ticking. The city’s white noise ceased. Walls faded away and a forest filled the space around me. I “merged” with a dusky outdoor world, sitting on bare ground.
I stood up inside a small circle of large rocks, a personal-sized Stonehenge, far from my office. The ground was damp with dew, and there was a dense mist just beyond the ceremonial circle. A three-foot high hobgoblin in a clay-brown hooded poncho was dancing around a fire. His shoulders, arms and legs were substantially more muscular than my own.
Being transported far from my office against my wishes by a stranger was mildly off-putting, but I was a professional who was accustomed to the odd habits of non-humans. “I’m gonna stand, if that’s alright with you.” I brushed myself off.
An image of a window floated in the smoke of his fire, the same window I looked out every morning at the crazy city I loved. My host shook his head but left the image hovering in the air, maybe as some small comfort of familiarity for me or so I could see “the exit.”
“My turn.” He snapped the fingers on his right hand, down at his side. The sound was like a starting pistol. “Joe Avery, I’m Rumpelstiltskin. Apologies for the magic tricks but, to be honest, your busy steel-and-concrete city intimidates me! Let’s talk.”
I felt my mouth move in response, but I heard nothing. More magic.
“I’ll go first, then you can go,” he explained.
The manikin had my attention. I sat, an audience of one, and the dizziness from my funky travel mostly settled down.
He took another moment to glance at the industrialized world. “It’s prettier from afar. I know you want to speak; humans love their own voices! But I’d like a few moments.” I nodded; there was little else I could do.
“The miller’s daughter had a deal. In exchange for my generating cryptocurrency out of straw and, therefore, her winning the avaricious king’s hand, she was supposed to offer me access to a child, not give me a child. With an out: If she guessed my unique name, she could walk away without payment.
“I live alone. I wanted a companion to teach and train. What do I care for wealth? It was finally happening! I got drunk and giddy, threw caution to the wind, and sang a sarcastic song about my life-changing success to come. But I was overheard by a throne spy! Little did I consider the overflowing resources of a new queen!”
I spun my two hands under my chin, like the pedals on a bicycle: I’m interested. Keep going.
“Words unspoken have energy. Whereas my name shouted by so many laughing humans, like a punchline to a crude schoolyard joke, drained me of my power. I’ve lost my mystique.”
Not again! Last time, Cupid was the supposed victim. I reached out both hands, palms up.
“Right,” he said. “You’ve been very patient. Just promise not to say my name.” I nodded. He snapped.
“Your house, your rules.”
“I have a real house, with a roof, but I like the fresh air and the stars. And I can make bigger fires here.”
“Speaking of, can I ask for one creature comfort? I’m cold.” I think he liked my vulnerability.
The fire crackled, brightened, grew. Not like wood dropped from the sky, just that it bloomed. The ceremonial circle and Rumpelstiltskin grew as well, the flames dancing in his eyes. He stepped toward me. We remained eye-to-eye even as I stood!
“Better?”
With nothing for perspective, I couldn’t say whether I was smaller or he was taller.
I stayed focused, starting with a simple, practical solution: “Have you tried talking to the miller’s daughter?”
“Never again! In my experience, your kind likes something for nothing. Maybe you, too, will want some reward.”
“I’m not here for anything,” I said. “My visit is your idea. I spend my life trying to build bridges between two nations. The work is its own reward. But I have a crazy idea. In my world, you can legally change your name. Pick something unique between you and the city clerk. If the new moniker leaks out, change it again. Stay ahead of the mobs. Hold on to your mystique, if that’s the root of your power. Unless you’d rather remain the husk of a powerful hobgoblin.”
“I can do that? I can do that!” he shouted. With another snap of his fingers, the manikin formerly known as Rumpelstiltskin created two more bonfires.
A full mug appeared in each of his hands, and he began to bounce and dance happily, like he’d already had a few drinks before my arrival. He was accompanied by bouncing and dancing shadows. “Merrily this toast I’ll make. Today I’ll be brewed, tomorrow baked; Merrily I’ll dance and sing, For next day will a new name bring.”
Though I asked him not to, he shared his proposed new name. Or was he testing me? I promised not to reveal it.
I made a brief speech: “You can never go wrong when letting humans solve their own problems.”
“Step into the fire,” he said. “The first fire.”
I hesitated.
“Trust goes both ways.” The fire lifted into the air and came to me! There was no heat now, just very bright, near-blinding light.
I squinted closed my eyes and sensed a dimming. I looked around my office, and the clock on the wall resumed ticking and my beloved city’s white noise resumed its hum.
Almost immediately, Janice could be heard hip-checking the locked door, when it unlocked on its own and swung inward. She suddenly caught the doorknob and looked around. “I heard voices! Did someone slip by me?”
We both noticed the collection of small muddy footprints on top of my desk. Perhaps in some way Rumpelstiltskin had merged into my world as well. “Just the usual unusual,” I said, intentionally vague.
“You’ll tell me when you want to.”
Eventually, I’d share details, but not everything.
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Charles C. Cole
