by Bill Tiepelman
Garden of Devotion
In a tiny, vine-wrapped village just past the last mushroom on the left, nestled somewhere between “What the heck was that?” and “Did that bush just wink at me?”, lived a rather suspiciously adorable pair of gnomes. Barnaby and Glimmer. If their names sound like the start of a children’s fable, I assure you—this is not that. These two were infamous for turning fairy-ring brunches into bottomless mimosa brawls and once got banned from the local pixie spa for "inappropriate glitter usage." But even still, they were madly, magically, annoyingly in love. Now, Glimmer had eyes like blueberry moonshine and a knack for growing flowers that made other gnomes weep softly into their compost piles. Barnaby, on the other hand, had a beard so magnificent it had its own zip code and the kind of smirk that could stir up trouble in a monastery. He wore his pointy red hat tilted just far enough to suggest he might know where the bodies were buried. (Spoiler: it was just a mole infestation. Probably.) Every evening, like clockwork, they’d waddle through the garden, hand in hand, to “their bench.” Not the one by the radishes (too damp). Not the one near the troll hedge (don’t ask). The one surrounded by heart-shaped lanterns, flanked by suspiciously symmetrical toadstools, and often covered in suspiciously non-native flower petals. They swore they didn’t stage it for aesthetic. (They absolutely did.) On this particular evening, Glimmer wore a sapphire-blue dress with enough lace to suffocate a fairy. Her hat brim overflowed with fresh peonies, dahlias, and one fake flower she snuck in just to mess with Barnaby. He hadn’t noticed yet. His hat, meanwhile, had been upgraded with climbing vines that spelled “Sexy Beast” if you tilted your head just right and squinted. Love was in full bloom, and so were their egos. “You know,” Barnaby murmured as they plopped down on the bench, “one day we’ll be legends. Gnomekind will sing ballads about how stunningly attractive and humble we were.” “Mmm,” Glimmer purred, resting her hand in his. “Especially the humble part.” “That’s the spirit,” he grinned. “They’ll say, ‘Ah yes, Barnaby the Bold, Glimmer the Glorious—those two caused more scandal than a squirrel in a sunflower patch.’” Glimmer chuckled, nudging him with her knee. “Only because you insisted on that skinny-dipping incident in the birdbath. We’re still banned from the finch sanctuary.” “Totally worth it,” Barnaby whispered, kissing her hand with the exaggerated flair of someone who had clearly practiced in front of a mirror. “Shall we cause a little more mischief tonight, my petal of chaos?” “Oh, absolutely,” Glimmer whispered back. “But first, let’s sit here and look devastatingly in love while the fireflies get ideas.” And so they did, two fabulously overdressed garden delinquents, bathed in the warm glow of devotion and mild narcissism, plotting whatever mayhem came next with a twinkle in their eyes and matching socks. (A first, by the way. She finally labeled his drawer.) The Gnome with the Golden Pants The very next morning, the peaceful hush of the Garden of Devotion was shattered by an unholy sound: Barnaby attempting interpretive dance to the squeaky rhythms of Glimmer’s enchanted wind chimes. Wearing what he claimed were “ceremonial yoga britches,” but were clearly gold lamé leggings three sizes too tight, he wiggled, gyrated, and nearly pulled a hamstring beneath the weeping willow. “I am channeling ancient earth spirits,” he gasped, mid-pelvic-thrust. “You’re channeling a lawsuit,” Glimmer replied flatly, sipping dewberry tea and pretending not to enjoy the show. But she was. Oh, she was. Later that day, Glimmer received a visit from her best friend, Prunella—an aggressively blunt garden witch whose opinions were as sharp as her pruning shears. “Darling,” Prunella said, eyeing Barnaby’s glitter-infused beard from across the yard. “Is he... moulting? Or just molting all over your hydrangeas on purpose?” “It’s performance art,” Glimmer deadpanned. “He’s in his expressive phase.” “Mmm. Yes. Very expressive. I think your begonias just filed a restraining order.” The three of them ended up sitting beneath the Heart Lantern Tree, the same one Barnaby proposed under during a meteor shower that turned out to be an exploding gnome-made cheese wheel experiment gone wrong. Glimmer remembered that night well—mostly the flaming ricotta falling from the sky, and Barnaby declaring it “a sign from the Dairy Gods.” “So,” Prunella said, glancing between them, “you two are still disgusting and in love, I assume?” “Inexplicably,” Barnaby confirmed, licking sugar from his fingers. “We’ve decided to renew our vows.” Glimmer blinked. “We have?” “Yes,” Barnaby said proudly. “Right here in the garden. At sunset. With live music and possibly a fire juggler who owes me a favor from that time with the caterpillar circus.” “You made that up just now,” Glimmer said. “Did I? Or is it fate?” “It’s indigestion, dear.” Still, she found herself charmed. Again. Despite the gold pants. Despite the unrequested vow renewal. Despite the fact he still alphabetized the spice shelf by color, not name, because “cinnamon should feel special.” The planning began immediately. Invitations were scribbled on pressed lily pads. Lanterns were polished until the toads could see their reflections and questioned their life choices. Even the garden bats were recruited to carry mini scrolls, which backfired when half of them ate the paper and fell asleep upside down on Glimmer’s hat rack. Prunella volunteered to officiate (“I’ve got a robe and unresolved rage—I’m qualified”), while the fairy triplets down the lane, known collectively as The Dandelion Debs, offered to sing backup. The trouble came when Barnaby insisted on writing his vows in haiku. Which would have been fine if he didn’t also demand they be whispered dramatically by a wind spirit mid-ceremony. “You want me to summon a literal elemental for your poetic vibes?” Glimmer asked, raising an eyebrow. “Only if it’s not too much trouble,” he said, holding out a single wildflower like a peace offering. “I’ll do the dishes for a week.” “A month. And you reorganize the sock drawer you turned into a snack cavern.” “Done.” As sunset approached, the garden was glowing—soft pinks and oranges filtering through every leafy crevice, fireflies doing a coordinated light show (probably bribed), and the scent of sugared petals heavy in the air. Glimmer walked down the mushroom aisle barefoot, her hair filled with blossoms, her dress catching the breeze like a silk spell. Barnaby waited in his best vest, looking like a cross between a Victorian flirt and a sentient candy apple. His beard had been brushed to shocking perfection, and someone had even woven in tiny twinkling lights. Probably his doing. Probably glitter again. Prunella cleared her throat. “We gather in this extremely chaotic and overly fragrant garden to witness the ongoing saga of Glimmer and Barnaby—two beings so tragically codependent and ferociously in love that the universe simply gave up and started rooting for them.” “I vow,” Barnaby began, “to always share my last raspberry, even if you say you’re not hungry, and then immediately eat the entire thing. I vow to dance like nobody’s judging, even when you very much are. And I vow to annoy you forever, on purpose, because it makes you smile when you pretend it doesn’t.” Glimmer laughed and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I vow to let you think your ‘gnome yoga’ counts as cardio. I vow to never tell anyone that you cried during that squirrel documentary. And I vow to grow with you, wildly, stupidly, beautifully, in this garden and every ridiculous mess we make together.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the garden—mostly because the pollen count was obnoxious, but also because something about those two brought out the softest parts of everyone, even the mossy crank that lived behind the snail pond. They kissed beneath the glowing heart lanterns, surrounded by laughter, petals, and one faint explosion in the background from an unsupervised firework gnome who misread the schedule. But nothing could ruin it. Not even Prunella accidentally summoning a wind elemental that knocked over the champagne tower and whispered something deeply inappropriate in Glimmer’s ear. (She never told Barnaby what it said, but she smiled wickedly for days.) Moss, Mischief, and Matrimonial Mayhem Three days after the “unofficially official, partially elemental” vow renewal, Barnaby and Glimmer woke up to find their garden on the front page of The Gnomestead Gazette. Well, technically it was page two—the front page was reserved for a scandal involving a rogue hedgehog and a honey-smuggling ring—but there they were: full-color, mid-kiss, mid-lantern glow, mid-magic-chaos. The caption read: “GNOMANCE BLOOMS IN UNICORN-DUNG COMPOST DISTRICT.” Glimmer snorted orange juice through her nose. “At least they got my good side.” Barnaby beamed. “And they used the shot where my beard looks like a windswept prophecy. Glorious.” The coverage, unfortunately, brought attention. The kind of attention that involves gawking garden tourists, nosy neighbor gnomes with clipboards, and three separate suitors who showed up in monocles asking Glimmer if she’d “like to upgrade.” One brought a swan. A real swan. It bit him and pooped on his hat. Glimmer named the swan Terrence and kept him as emotional support chaos. Meanwhile, Barnaby found himself the sudden object of adoration for a cult of aspiring beard disciples who pitched tents near the rose patch and began meditating on ‘the Path of the Follicle.’ One carved a bust of Barnaby entirely out of artisanal soap. It smelled like lavender and delusions. “This is getting out of hand,” Glimmer said one afternoon as two mushroom influencers livestreamed themselves doing interpretive dance in front of the begonias. “They’re tagging us in their rituals, Barns.” “Maybe we should monetize?” he offered, only half-joking. “One more mushroom dances into my tea zone and I’m starting a war.” But it wasn’t just the fans. It was the garden itself. You see, in their reckless display of affection and fairy-light-laced pageantry, Glimmer and Barnaby had accidentally awakened something old. Something leafy. Something ornery. The Mossfather. A semi-sentient, ultra-mature patch of moss tucked deep in the forgotten corner of the garden—under the abandoned birdbath, between the two gnarled roots shaped like Elvis. It had slumbered for decades, absorbing stray whispers, stolen kisses, and one particularly juicy argument about whose turn it was to pick up gnome groceries. But now, roused by fireworks, emotional vows, and a wind elemental with a flair for theatrics, it had Awakened. And it was...moody. At first, the signs were subtle. Leaves twitching when no one watched. Unusual amounts of glitter found in bird nests. Mysteriously shuffled topiary sculptures forming vaguely passive-aggressive shapes. (“Is that a middle finger?” “No, dear. It’s a tulip. With opinions.”) Then came the dreams. Barnaby began sleep-mumbling in moss dialect. Glimmer kept waking up with her hat full of lichen and strange, vaguely threatening sonnets scrawled in compost ink beside the bed. Prunella, naturally, was delighted. “You’ve awakened an ancient sentience,” she said gleefully. “Do you know how rare that is? He’s like the cantankerous grandpa of the land. Grumpy, green, and full of emotional rot.” “Is that admiration?” Glimmer asked, pouring wine. “Oh yes. I’d shag it if I wasn’t allergic.” To appease the Mossfather, they organized a festival. (Because naturally, throwing an even bigger party was the only logical choice.) They called it the “Lichen & Love Gala.” Guests were encouraged to wear moss formalwear—robes, leafy corsets, dandelion bowties. Barnaby wore a cape made entirely of creeping thyme and smugness. Glimmer had a dress spun from spider silk and dandelion fluff that shimmered when she cursed under her breath. Entertainment was provided by a band of jazz gnomes, one extremely offended satyr who thought this was a masquerade orgy (it was not), and Terrence the Swan, who now had a fanbase of his own and absolutely knew it. He wore a monocle. No one knew where he got it. Near midnight, a hush fell over the garden. The Mossfather appeared—not walking, not gliding, but simply...being. An ancient green patch of fuzz the size of a small loveseat, pulsing with magic and judgment. He regarded them all with eldritch disappointment. “WHO DISTURBS MY SULK?” his voice boomed. Flowers wilted. Tea curdled. Prunella swooned. “Uh, hi?” Barnaby offered. “We brought snacks?” There was silence. A long, mossy silence. Then... the Mossfather nodded. “SNACKS... ACCEPTABLE.” The party resumed. More wine flowed. Prunella flirted shamelessly with the storm sprite working crowd control. Glimmer and Barnaby danced beneath the lanterns again, spinning through light and laughter, surrounded by chaos, beauty, and the utterly deranged family of misfits they had somehow assembled. Later that night, as they collapsed back onto their favorite bench, Barnaby sighed contentedly. “You know, I think this might be the weirdest thing we’ve ever done.” “Mmm,” Glimmer said, curling into his side. “You say that every time. But yes. Yes, it is.” “You think we’ll ever settle down? Live a quiet life? Garden. Nap. Bake things that don’t explode?” “No,” Glimmer said. “We’re terrible at normal. But we’re excellent at spectacularly odd.” “True. And spectacularly in love.” She smiled. “Don’t get mushy on me now.” “Too late. It’s the moss.” And beneath the twilight glow of heart-shaped lights and dancing fireflies, they kissed once more. Their garden pulsed with magic, mischief, and devotion that could melt the iciest root-witch. The Mossfather purred. Terrence the Swan bit someone in the distance. And the night bloomed on, forever strange and perfectly theirs. Bring a little Garden of Devotion into your own world... If this story left your heart a little warmer and your cheeks a little more sore from smiling, you’re not alone. Glimmer and Barnaby’s perfectly peculiar romance has a way of lingering like the scent of honeysuckle and scandal. Now, you can keep that whimsy blooming wherever you are. From glowing love-lit scenes to gnome-level sass and enchantment, Garden of Devotion is available as a framed print for your gallery wall, a cozy fleece blanket to snuggle under during mischief plotting, or even a throw pillow that politely encourages your guests to be just a little weirder. There’s also a full tapestry edition if your space needs a dramatic garden flair—and yes, there’s a puzzle too, for those who want to piece the magic together one mischievous corner at a time. Framed Print | Tapestry | Jigsaw Puzzle | Throw Pillow | Fleece Blanket Celebrate the love that grows wild and the laughter that echoes through magic gardens. And remember—every good garden needs a little chaos, a lot of heart, and maybe just one slightly judgmental moss patch.
