Nightfall Gardens Read Free Page B

now and they could see into the office. Their father and mother were behind the desk, and Jonquil was facing in a chair opposite.
    “I take no pleasure in this,” their uncle said. “But the gates will close in three more days and when they finally reopen, I’m afraid Deiva will be dead.”
    “We left that world behind,” Moira said.
    “You never leave behind the place you came from,” Jonquil said. “Especially Nightfall Gardens. If the dark should escape, no one will be safe.”
    “An old wives’ tale,” Thomas said. “Meant to scare us when we were children.”
    “Things have changed. Our mother was powerful then, but now she grows weak. The plowmen see red-eyed things in the dusk. A three-headed calf was born to the miller in Priortage. The mist comes closer and closer to the Gardens. New rooms appear in the house, each with something horrible to behold.”
    “Lock the gate, throw away the key and let Nightfall Gardens crumble to the earth like it should have centuries ago,” Thomas said.
    “And what about the people of the mist? What happens to them?” Jonquil said. “What happens if the gate buckles and the darkness escapes?”
    Heavy silence fell between the three of them. A spider scuttled over the bac k of Silas’s neck and he almost screamed in surprise. Lily grabbed his hand and squeezed.
    Moira was the first to break the quiet. “You ask for the impossible. We left Nightfall Gardens exactly because we couldn’t condemn our daughter to what awaited her.”
    “No, instead you’d rather doom everyone else,” Jonquil said scornfully. He pulled a leather bag from under his cloak. “Mother said to give you this,” he tossed the sack and it landed with a thump on the desk. “Consider what I told you. I’m staying at the Bucket of Blood tonight and tomorrow I head back north. Gods help us all if Nightfall Gardens should fall because of your arrogance.” With a whisk of his cloak, Jonquil turned and was gone.
    Their mother put her arms around their father and kissed him on the forehead.
    “What if what he says is true?” Thomas said.
    “It can’t be. Living in perpetual dusk does funny things to a person,” Moira said. “You remember how mad they are. Why do you think Jonquil helped us escape when your mother tried to take Lily?”
    “But I saw shapes in the Gardens, and the house — I swear it was alive,” Thomas said. “How can you forget what happened in the tunnels? What about the attic?”
    “Don’t talk about that!” Moira said.
    Silas and Lily exchanged another glance. They heard fear in their mother’s voice.
    She continued. “We left because of what that place was and what Deiva would do to our daughter. You heard your brother. The gate closes in three days and then it won’t open again for another year. All we have to do is wait.”
    Thomas picked up the bag Jonquil had left. He opened the drawstring and poured out the contents. Gold coins, yellow as butter, spilled on to the desk. Their father held up one of the coins.
    “My mother thinks to buy our daughter from us,” he said examining it.
    “Send it back,” Moira said. “We made a vow to protect Lily from that evil woman and Nightfall Gardens.”
    Their father scooped the coins back in to the bag. Thomas sighed. “Let’s check on the children. We’ll tell them as much as we dare in the morrow.”
    Silas and Lily climbed back up the ladder into the prop room.
    “What do you think it all means?” Lily asked, right before they separated.
    Silas shook his head. “It sounds like something out of one of father’s plays.”
    They exchanged goodnights and rushed to their rooms. Silas had barely slipped under the blanket on the straw mattress where he slept, when the door cracked and his parents stared in at him.
    “I promise we’ll tell you more about your uncle and grandmother in the morning. We wouldn’t have lied to you without good reason,” Thomas said.
    The door closed and Silas was left with his