My stomach churns. I haven’t taken part in a garden ritual in almost twenty years, and this one promises to be uniquely painful. I take a deep breath and turn the brass knob, pulling the door open. The crisp, fresh scent of lily of the valley washes over me, and my eyes catch first on the carpet of white bell-shaped flowers. As I close the door behind me, I’m overwhelmed by the breathtaking beauty, exactly as I remember it yet somehow even more brilliant than my mind could reproduce. Red hibiscus the size of dinner plates bloom beside a pod of purple hydrangeas. Roses, the color of blood, vine above me, their trellis laboring from the weight of fist-sized blooms which intertwine with coral-colored clematis. Rhododendron fill in the gaps, the edges of their honey-colored flowers ending in a deep blush.
The floral fireworks welcome me forward, and I inhale the heady scent of the blooms, mingled now with the slight jasmine of the lily of the valley and a wisp of gardenia from a tree that blooms a few yards down the stone path.
“Mom?” Arden calls from around the bend. Breathless and beside herself, she gapes at me, for once looking younger than her sixteen years. “Grandpa showed me where you were born, and it’s super weird.”
Once I reach her, I find my father nearby, previously concealed by the lush foliage that lines the curving path. We lock eyes for a moment. I haven’t seen him since I arrived, but my mother has offered no explanation for his absence.
The only word I can use to describe my dad isformidable. People assume that male pixies are slight, but nothing could be further from the truth. They do have wings, but just like the rest of our kind, they’ve adapted to look human. Matthias Larkspur looms over me, six feet tall with a thick head of hair the same color as mine except for a smattering of silver over his ears. His wings are silver too, but more steel mesh than gossamer. Today, there’s steel in his blue eyes as well.
“You grew a beard,” I say.
“It’s a goatee.”
Arden waves a hand between us. “Are we going to talk about the fact that you literally formed on a vine?” She points both hands at the plant where I was born.
“Sorry, Arden, I guess I should have explained this when we talked about sex. But honestly, it’s not something you’ll have to worry about, being human.” I shrug.
“Half-human, half-pixie,” my father insists. “And old enough to know about the birds and the bees.”
Arden’s eyes widen. “Are there literal birds and bees involved here? Because I’m having trouble getting my head around this.”
I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “When a female pixie and a male pixie love each other very much, they spend time together, and when the time is right—”
Arden covers her ears with her hands. “Oh my God—”
“Both of them will cough up a seed.”
She lowers her hands. “That is not what I was expecting.”
“If they own land and are ready to start a family, they plant both seeds in their garden. There must be two, and if both pixies don’t plant their seeds, nothing happens. When the seeds sprout, their roots tangle together and only one plant grows from the two seeds. That plant can bear zero to three children. I was an only child.”
Arden’s eye twitches. “You grew… in like a pod or something?”
“It’s more like a glass ball. You might as well know that genetics works differently here as well. Pixies of multiple colors and shapes can grow on the same vine. Never assume that someone isn’t part of a family because their skin color or the bones of their face are different. It doesn’t work that way among pixies.”
“Holy crap.” Arden marvels at my birthplant, her fingers coming to rest on her parted lips.
“The mother and father fairy tend the birthplant, and when their child is the size of a normal human baby, they ritualistically shatter the glass and bring their baby into the world,” I explain. “And that’s how pixie babies are born. After that, our development mirrors human development.”
“Normally, that’s how babies are born,” my father says, staring at Arden. “Except for you. You were born the human way.”
“The normal way,” Arden says, her eyebrows shooting up with her nervous giggle.
“Notthe normal way for pixies,” he says, and there’s an edge to his tone that I don’t like him using around Arden.
I place a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t listen to Grandpa. Leprechauns and satyrs have children the same as humans. Pixies are the exception, not the other way around. And our bodies… well, obviously I wascapableof having you the human way, just like I was capable of living the past sixteen years without a pixie garden.”
My father purses his lips and gives a reluctant nod, conceding that what I said is true. A muscle jumps in his jaw. This is no longer about educating Arden. It’s about me and the tip of an iceberg of pain we’ve all been hauling around with us for over a decade.
“Arden…” I swallow hard and rub her shoulder supportively. “I bet Great-Grandma Betty would love to get to know you better. Why don’t you go inside and sit with her until Grandpa and I are finished here?”
“I thought we were getting lunch?” she asks, but then glances between me and her grandfather and changes her tune. “Um, right, I’d like to talk to Great-Grandma, and I’m sure I can find something in the kitchen.”
“We’ll get lunch. I just need to talk to Grandpa about something first.”
She nods, seeming to understand far more than I expect her to. She strides quickly toward the door and disappears inside the house.
“Dad, I—”
