The Wizard’s Garden of Floating Flowers
Lucas discovers a magical floating garden hidden behind his grandmother's cottage, where he helps Wizard Weatherby tend flowers that create shadow-pictures for forest creatures below.
- 5 min read
Lucas loved visiting his grandmother’s cottage at the edge of Whispering Woods, but he’d never noticed the crooked purple gate hidden behind the raspberry bushes until today.
“Grandma, what’s through there?” Lucas asked, pointing at the gate that seemed to shimmer in the afternoon sunlight.
Grandma smiled her secret smile. “That, my dear, leads to the Wizard’s Garden. But it only appears when someone truly curious comes along.”
Lucas’s eyes grew wide. “Can I go see it?”
“Of course,” Grandma said, handing him a basket. “Just remember—in magical gardens, you must always say please and thank you, even to the flowers.”
Lucas pushed open the gate, and what he saw made him gasp with wonder. The garden wasn’t on the ground at all! Hundreds of flowers floated in the air like colorful balloons, drifting gently on invisible breezes. Blue tulips bobbed at his eye level. Golden sunflowers spun slowly overhead. Pink roses danced in spirals, and purple pansies did loop-de-loops.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” chirped a tiny voice.
Lucas looked around and spotted a wizard no taller than his knee, wearing a hat covered in bells and moons. The wizard was floating too, sitting cross-legged on a hovering cushion of moss.
“Hello,” Lucas said. “Are you the wizard who made this garden?”
“I am indeed! I’m Wizard Weatherby Willowwhisk, at your service!” The wizard bowed, which made him tumble backward in the air. He righted himself with a giggle. “I was tired of bending down to tend my flowers, so I taught them to float instead! Much easier on my back.”
A red poppy drifted past Lucas’s nose, and he remembered his grandmother’s advice. “Excuse me, Miss Poppy,” he said politely. “You’re very beautiful.”
The poppy blushed an even brighter red and did a little curtsy in midair.
“Wonderful manners!” Wizard Weatherby clapped his tiny hands. “The flowers love when visitors are kind. Would you like to help me with my afternoon chores?”
“Yes, please!” Lucas exclaimed.
The wizard handed him a watering can that was as light as a feather. “First, we water the flowers. But remember—they’re upside down now that they’re floating, so we water from below!”
Lucas laughed as he lifted the watering can high above his head. Sparkly drops of water fell upward, and the flowers giggled and wiggled their petals as they drank.
Next, Wizard Weatherby gave Lucas a soft brush made from dandelion fluff. “Now we tickle the sleeping snapdragons awake. They’ve been napping all morning!”
Lucas gently brushed the fuzzy brush against the drooping snapdragons. They yawned, stretched their petals, and began floating higher, joining the other flowers in their aerial dance.
“Can I ask you something?” Lucas said. “Why do the flowers need to float?”
The wizard’s eyes twinkled. “Ah! That’s the best question I’ve heard all week! Come, I’ll show you.”
Wizard Weatherby snapped his fingers, and suddenly Lucas felt as light as a bubble. His feet left the ground, and he was floating too! The wizard took his hand, and together they drifted up, up, up above the dancing flowers.
“Look down,” the wizard whispered.
Below the floating flowers, Lucas could see something magical happening. The shadows cast by the floating blooms were creating pictures on the ground—pictures that moved and changed! One moment, the shadows formed a butterfly. Then they shifted into a sailing ship. Then a dragon. Then a castle.
“The flowers paint shadow-pictures for the earth below,” explained Wizard Weatherby. “The beetles and butterflies love watching the shadow shows. And at night, when the moon comes out, the shadows become bedtime stories for all the small creatures of the garden!”
“That’s amazing!” Lucas breathed.
A small daisy floated close to Lucas’s ear. “Would you like to be part of today’s picture?” it whispered shyly.
“Oh, yes please!” Lucas said.
The flowers began to rearrange themselves in the air, with Lucas floating right in the middle. He looked down and saw his shadow mixing with theirs, creating a magnificent shadow picture of a boy riding a whale across ocean waves.
All the flowers cheered and clinked their petals together like tiny bells.
“You’re a natural!” Wizard Weatherby declared. “The flowers have voted—you’re hereby named an Honorary Garden Helper!”
The wizard waved his wand, and a tiny floating pansy crown appeared on Lucas’s head.
“Thank you!” Lucas said to all the flowers, and they seemed to glow brighter with happiness.
Slowly, gently, Lucas floated back down to the ground. The wizard handed him a small envelope that smelled like honey and sunshine.
“These are floating flower seeds,” the wizard explained. “Plant them in a pot by your window. They won’t float quite as high as mine—just an inch or two off the soil—but they’ll still be special. And whenever you see them hovering there, you’ll remember our garden.”
Lucas carefully placed the envelope in his basket. “Can I come back and visit?”
“The purple gate will appear whenever you have a truly curious heart,” Wizard Weatherby promised. “And the flowers always remember their friends.”
Lucas waved goodbye to the floating flowers, who all swayed and danced in farewell. He walked back through the purple gate, which shimmered and faded behind him.
Grandma was waiting with milk and cookies. “Well? What did you think?”
“Grandma, it was wonderful! The flowers floated and made shadow-pictures, and I helped water them from below, and—” Lucas paused, patting his basket. “And I got to say please and thank you to everyone, just like you said.”
Grandma hugged him tight. “That’s my boy. Magic gardens are always kinder to those who are kind themselves.”
That night, as Lucas drifted off to sleep, he could have sworn he heard tiny bells tinkling outside his window and the faint sound of flowers giggling in the breeze. And perhaps, just perhaps, if you looked very closely at the shadows on his wall, you might have seen them forming pictures of floating gardens and tiny wizards, painting dream-stories until morning.
The End