Odile could not sleep, and so, at midnight, she went to the window.
The garden was dark. The moon was a thin slice, no brighter than a fingernail. But on the sill, outside the glass, sat a very large moth. Its wings were pale green and soft as velvet, and at the tips of each wing, a tiny light glowed, like a lantern.
"Hello," whispered Odile.
The moth fluttered. Then it lifted off the sill, drifted down to the garden path, and waited, with its little lights shining. It seemed to be inviting her to follow.
Odile crept downstairs, in her socks, and slipped out the back door. The grass was cool and damp under her feet. The air smelled of earth and night-blooming jasmine.
The moth drifted ahead, past the vegetable patch, past the old rain barrel, to the very back of the garden, where a stone wall stood, covered in ivy. There it stopped, and its lanterns glowed a little brighter.
Odile pushed aside the ivy. Behind it was a small, round, wooden door, no bigger than a window. She had never seen it before.
She knelt down and opened it.
On the other side was another garden. A secret garden, bigger than the one she knew, and every plant in it was glowing.
The flowers glowed in soft shades of lavender and blue. The ferns glowed pale gold. The mushrooms near the roots glowed pink, like little lamps. The leaves shimmered silver, as if dusted with starlight. Everything swayed very slowly, in a breeze she could not feel.
"It only opens at midnight," said a voice, so soft that she thought it was the wind.
It was the moth. It sat on a lily pad in a tiny pond, its wings folded, its lights humming gently.
"It is the garden of things that bloom in the dark," said the moth. "Daytime gardens are wonderful, but they are busy. Everyone is working. Here, there is no work. We simply glow, and keep each other company, until the dawn."
Odile walked slowly along the path. She trailed her fingers across a bell-shaped flower, and it chimed, a clear, tiny note, like a glass bell. Another flower answered, a little lower. Together, they made a quiet tune.
"What do you do here?" she asked.
"We rest," said the moth. "Mostly we rest. But we are awake, so that anyone who cannot sleep has somewhere gentle to be."
Odile sat down on a mossy stone. She felt, for the first time that night, completely calm. The glow of the flowers filled the garden like a warm lamp, and the chimes tinkled softly in the dark.
She thought about all the other children, in all the other houses, who could not sleep. She wished that they could see it too.
"Perhaps they do," said the moth. "Perhaps, in their dreams."
Her eyelids began to droop. The moth drifted over and settled on her shoulder, light as a leaf. Its two small lanterns glowed beside her cheek.
The next thing Odile knew, it was morning. She was in her own bed, with the sun on her face and the window open a crack. On the sill sat a single pale-green feather of dust, which might have been from a wing.
At the very back of the garden, behind the ivy, there was only a stone wall. But on the stone, ever so faintly, if you looked closely, you could see a small, round outline, like a door.
And that night, at midnight, Odile was waiting.