Serious Sir Samuel and the Friendly Floral Faerie

Serious Sir Samuel stepped into the pleasantly warm night air. The luminous full moon cast a cerulean aura over the nearby homes. He breathed deep and smiled wide at his fortunes. His mom worked this evening as the dinner cook at The Happy Hideaway inn. That meant Miss Mindy watched his sister at her place, and he stayed home alone.

The sweet sensation of freedom filled Sir Samuel’s body with excitement.

He nearly started skipping out of the yard, but he stopped himself. Tonight wasn’t all fun and games. Tonight was serious business. Tonight he was the night watchman, and night watchmen didn’t play.

He adjusted his new weapon, a hammer forged by a dwarf artisan (really his mom’s meat tenderizing hammer). The rest of his outfit consisted of standard regulation night-watch gear: an iron helmet (a cooking pot), rugged boots (just his normal shoes), and a tunic over chain mail (mom’s apron over his roughspun shirt).

Satisfied he had everything he needed to keep the peace, Sir Samuel set out to begin his patrol.

The moon shined overhead, a giant silver coin casting a powerful glow over the whole village. When he arrived at the market square, he stood for several moments gazing vigilantly across the empty stalls and shadowed corners of the usually familiar area. The lunar light bathed the open space in the center, the single large tree there blocking the illumination temporarily as he walked beneath the canopy of leaves.

A rise of nervous energy buzzed in his belly. He hadn’t expected night watch to be so unsettling. He took a moment to breathe and tighten his grip on his hammer (mom’s meat tenderizer). The weight of the hammer’s head and the smooth wood’s solid handle comforted him into resuming his rounds.

Everything looked different in the lack of light. The stalls loomed ominously, like a smiling assassin hid in the deep darkness behind them. The few items that were left out, Farmer Gerald’s empty strongbox and Old Lady Elsie’s quill and ink pot, cast menacing shadows.

“Nothing to worry about, Sam.” Serious Sir Samuel whispered reassurances to himself. “Just the market square. Same as ever.” He continued his route around the stalls before heading down the main thoroughfare through the center of the village.

He paused.

Movement along the street. A small figure picking its way through the gloom pooled along the side of the road. Scared Sir Samuel considered a tactical retreat (running away, really), but stood still instead. He watched the figure. It crept along, a bit shorter than his height, and moved from shadow to shadow. It stuck close to low walls as it headed toward the big church at the end of the path.

Serious Sir Samuel made a snap decision and slunk along, following as stealthily as he could manage. He spied the dark figure as it suddenly leapt up on light legs and sped toward the back of the church. Sir Simon’s nerves rattled in his chest, but he followed, ignoring his own poor attempt at stealth to sprint. He arrived alongside the church, the mortared stone walls climbing high to dark stained-glass windows. His rugged boots (just shoes) tamped down the springy grass as he rounded the corner.

The shadow had already climbed the high wall surrounding the rear garden of the church. Sir Samuel caught just a glimpse of the figure dropping from the top to the other side. He ran ahead to investigate where the figure had scaled the wall. It towered above him, easily more than double his height. There were obvious gaps between the stones, maybe even enough to get up there himself, but a night watchman didn’t perform clandestine wall scaling with a perfectly good gate in walking distance.

He hurried to the rear gate, a wooden barrier that stood nearly as high as the wall itself. He tried the handle and grinned when it opened. He stepped across the threshold and entered a completely new world.

He’d seen the fragrant garden several times before. The monks carefully maintained every plant, flower, and tree to assure they grew strong, vibrant, and healthy. He attempted to close the gate quietly behind him, but it clattered shut with an echoing racket. He froze in place, as if that would somehow reverse the noise he just made. When he didn’t hear anything from deeper inside the garden, he flicked his eyes around to make sure no one watched him and stooped to sniff a nearby lavender plant. They were his favorite, after all.

The path just inside branched left and right. Serious Sir Samuel seriously considered which route to take. He kept his steps soft and slow as he veered right, admiring the many beautiful ferns and flowers along the way. A few tulips shone soft purple in the moonlight, the cups of their petals closed tight against the night. He rounded a curve, then chose a left down a side path. Just ahead, around another right turn, he heard the tinkle of a girlish giggle.

Drapes of flowering wisteria blocked his view in cascades of oblong purple petals at the head of the path. He pushed through the thick, sweet-smelling curtain and entered an astonishing scene.

The church monks built a wide fountain in the middle of the garden and surrounded it with four wisteria trees. Their limbs draped across the paths and stretched overhead to form a cave-like sanctuary of isolation. The crystalline droplets sprayed from a stack of river-worn rocks at the center. Sir Samuel recalled the story the monks told of the founder of the church finding the natural spring that pushed water up through the rocks and how he declared it a sacred place.

A little girl, probably a bit younger than him, stepped along the smooth stone lip of the fountain. Her nimble movements caught his eye as she hopped from one foot to another on the narrow ledge. Between the moonlight and the wisteria, her skin glowed pale periwinkle. She let out another giggle as he watched her from just inside the floral curtain.

He hesitated to speak, but knew a proper member of the night watch would stop her childish behavior immediately. He waited a few more moments until she appeared to have her feet steady.

“Y-you shouldn’t be up th-there.” Instead of commanding and clear, Serious Sir Samuel stammered.

The girl stopped and turned to look at him. She took a step closer along the lip of the fountain, and the moon lit her up, giving Sir Samuel his first true glimpse of her. She wasn’t like any of the young girls he knew from the village. Not at all. Her features were harder and more angular, her eyes gleamed a bright crystal blue, and she wore marigolds arranged in her long, flowing blonde hair.

Despite being awestruck by her, he strode forward with strength and purpose. “It’s not safe. A-and that fountain is sacred.” His words trailed off at the end to a whisper.

“Oh.” She spoke simply and dropped from the fountain’s ledge to the ground. No noise accompanied her landing, and that set Sir Samuel on edge.

He backed up an inch. “Wh-who are y-you?” Serious Sir Samuel stuttered as he questioned her seriously.

“I never really had a name before.” Her hand reached up to touch the largest of the marigold flowers in her hair, a big, bright yellow one at her left temple. “I guess I’d like to be called Mary Gold.” She smiled, a snaggletooth canine peeking out of the right side of her mouth. Sir Samuel’s heart leapt in his boyish chest. “Yes, Mary Gold suits me, don’t you think?”

Serious Sir Samuel struggled mightily to respond but remained silent.

Mary Gold started to dance, swaying her arms back and forth, her dress flowing with her undulations. She pumped her legs a few times before they joined her arms.

“Why are you dancing?” Sir Samuel grew curious about this girl.

“Because the music is so beautiful, don’t you think?”

Silence met Sir Samuel’s ears. “I… that is… there isn’t… I don’t hear music…” Serious Sir Samuel’s struggle continued.

“Maybe you’re just not listening close enough.” She had the gentlest voice Sir Samuel had ever heard, and it held a musical quality he didn’t know a voice could contain.

Sir Samuel listened again, hard. Really hard. He rolled his eyes upward a bit to try to hear the music. Maybe it was there, in the distance. Maybe at the tavern where his mom worked? But, no, there wasn’t anything there.

“Maybe you have better hearing than I do.”

She giggled at his words, and it sounded like the tinkling of bells to his ears. “Maybe, but I think you’re trying to find people music. I’m talking about the other music.”

“You’re just making fun of me now, aren’t you?” Sir Samuel’s certainty filled him with newfound confidence. “Well, I’m no fool.”

“Then, what are you?” She cocked her head to one side and squinted her eyes as if to see something new in Sir Samuel.

“I’m Sir Samuel, the night watchman, and you shouldn’t be playing here. It is sacred.” His voice held all the weight he could muster (which was quite little in reality), and he walked closer to her and the fountain.

“Serious Sir Samuel.” She sang his name as she skipped and frolicked in a circle around him. “Serious Sir Samuel has forgotten fun,” she teased.

“I have not!” he cried, his voice carrying much further than he expected. He spun in a circle to try and follow the flow of her dance.

“Yes. You. Have.” Her voice lilted in a sing-song rhythm with each word.

“Have not!”

“Have.”

“You’re such a child,” he whined childishly.

She stopped near the fountain and pretend-glared at him in a very obvious way. “I’m older than you.”

Samuel paused at her tone. It wasn’t playful this time. It was matter-of-fact. As if this statement was a simple observation.

“How?”

“I’m a faerie, silly.” She jumped up to the ledge again, her nimbleness shocking Sir Samuel.

“Get down from there!” he insisted as he ran closer and grabbed at her to pull her down. His hand seized empty air where she had just been standing. He looked around frantically, trying to find her, and a shove sent him over the fountain’s rim.

Sir Samuel splashed into the water.

He pushed himself up, sputtering and spitting in the basin, and spun around to find her once more on the ledge.

She danced around the fountain and sang, “Sir Samuel splashed and played, splashed and played. Soaking Sir Samuel splashed and played in the water that day.” Her giggle rang out with that bell-like sound.

Sir Samuel burst into laughter. All seriousness fled from him, and he splashed the water as he laughed.

When his laughing fit subsided, he noticed her smiling at him from the smooth stone lip. Her eyes shimmered, and her snaggletooth emerged. “See? Isn’t that better?”

Sir Samuel’s eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. “Huh? Isn’t what better?”

“Isn’t it better to laugh than be all serious all the time?” She jumped from one foot to the other as she spoke. “Don’t be in such a hurry to be serious, Sir Samuel. Sometimes it’s better to be silly.”

Sir Samuel swam to the edge of the pool and stood up, the cool water reaching his waist. A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Silly Sir Samuel doesn’t sound very grand.”

“But it sounds more fun. You know what’s more sacred than spring water?”

“What?”

“Having fun. Oh, you dropped your hammer.” She pointed into the pool.

Sir Samuel whirled around but didn’t see it. When he turned back, Mary Gold had gone, and his hammer sat neatly on the fountain’s ledge.

And that’s how Sir Samuel first met Mary Gold, the Floral Faerie.

If you enjoyed Sir Samuel in this story, read the next in the series:

If you'd like to support me, please heart my story, and consider sending a tip my way. Thank you!