The Night Gardener

Kip and Alistair make their way across the yard, each distracting the Night Man when he gets too close to the other. Kip tells himself it’s like playing hide-and-seek, but really, it isn’t, because in this game, “getting caught [doesn’t] make you ‘it’—getting caught ma[kes] you dead” (327). When they are near the garden, the Night Man attacks, and Alistair grabs Kip to make a run for it.

At the house, Penny asks if Kip and Alistair will be all right, and while Molly wants to tell her a story to make her brave, she can’t because she now understands that “there [are] some things that stories [can’t] do” (329). Instead, Molly tells Penny honestly that she doesn’t know. Mr. Windsor notices the cannisters of oil that Kip put in the wagon earlier and decides to burn down the house in hopes that it will destroy the tree.

Kip and Alistair run toward the glowing garden, but the Night Man shrouds everything in pitch darkness, taking the light from the moon “and with it, their only hope” (333).