The clock in the hallway ticked softly in the dark, each sound marking the slow drift of midnight.Noah lay awake, eyes open, staring at the faint moonlight spilling across the floorboards. The house was utterly still. He could hear only the occasional sigh of wind through the trees and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
Sleep would not come.Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the shimmer of the journal's pages—the faint writing that glowed under moonlight. He saw the runes drawn around the gnome, the strange words, the promise of secrets waiting to be found.
He thought of his grandmother's face that evening, pale and tired under the kitchen lamp.If there's even a chance Grandpa left something real behind… I have to try.
Noah swung his legs off the bed and stood carefully. The floor creaked once, and he froze, listening. Rose's room down the hall stayed silent. Slowly, he opened his door and crept into the hallway.
The old stairs groaned under his weight, but he moved with the practiced care of a cat. When he reached the kitchen, he turned on the small lamp on the table. Its golden light pooled across the wood, pushing back the shadows.
He sat down, pulling the journal from under his arm. His hair was a mess, his eyes tired, but his determination burned steady.
He opened to the same page—the one that had glimmered faintly two nights before.By lamplight, it looked ordinary again: just a sketch of the garden gnome and a few scrawled notes along the margin.
Noah ran a hand through his hair and muttered to himself.
"There's something here… I know there is."
He tilted the page toward the lamp, bringing it closer until the edges grew warm. Nothing changed. He squinted, turned it sideways, even breathed lightly across the paper as if heat or air might wake the words.
Still nothing.
Frustrated, he sat back and stared at the ceiling. The lamp light flickered slightly, catching the edge of the windowpane. His eyes followed it—and then it hit him.
When he had first seen the writing, it wasn't under lamplight at all.It had been in his bedroom. With moonlight shining across the page.
Noah turned off the lamp. The kitchen fell into cool darkness. Through the window, the world outside shimmered faintly silver. The moon was full—huge and round, bathing the fields in pale light.
"The moonlight," he whispered. "That's it."
A thrill ran through him. He didn't know why, but he felt almost lucky—as if the world had timed this night just for him. If the moon hadn't been full, he might have had to wait weeks for another chance.
He grabbed the journal and slipped out the door.
The night air was cool and damp with the scent of grass. Crickets sang their steady rhythm, and every blade of grass seemed tipped with silver.
Noah stepped into the open yard, the journal clutched tightly in his hands. His breath made soft clouds in the air. The full moon hung directly overhead, so bright it cast faint shadows behind every fencepost and flower.
He opened the book.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, faint shapes began to crawl across the page—thin lines of light, curling and spreading like veins of silver ink. Words formed where before there had been only blankness.
Noah's eyes widened as the script brightened to a soft, living glow. Oak's handwriting, delicate but confident, seemed to rise from the paper itself.
He read aloud in a whisper, the words flowing like a poem:
"When the moon crowns the sky, the guardians shall stir.Beneath their stone watch, the gate shall breathe.Bring to the circle the gifts of wing, hive, and metal light.At midnight, speak to the soil, and the world shall open."
The letters pulsed once and then faded back into faint silver. Noah's heart pounded.
"Gifts of wing, hive, and metal light," he murmured.He glanced at the symbols sketched beside the text: a feather, a piece of honeycomb, and a silver key.
The gnome drawing was there, too, surrounded by the same runes he'd seen before.His pulse quickened. Grandpa's code wasn't just a story—it was instructions.
Noah looked out over the yard, his eyes sweeping across the rows of flowers, the shadow of the old shed, the line of trees in the distance.
Nothing moved. Everything lay silent under the full moon.
But then—there.A faint glow.
One of the garden gnomes near the fence shimmered softly, its red hat catching the light in a strange way. He blinked, then realized it wasn't just reflection. The glow was real—pulsing faintly, steady as a heartbeat.
Noah's feet moved before he could think. He crossed the grass, his shoes whispering through the dew. The gnome stood exactly as it always had—stubby nose, cheerful grin—but a soft blue-white aura haloed its stone edges.
He crouched beside it. The air here felt different—thicker somehow, humming faintly. The soil beneath the gnome glowed with faint runes, just like in Oak's sketch.
A large circle had been etched into the earth, its glowing lines forming intricate patterns. Around it, three smaller circles waited, evenly spaced like points on a compass.
"An offering to the moon…" he whispered, remembering the phrase.
He could feel a hum under his fingertips when he touched the soil—something alive, ancient, expectant.
The gnome's round stone eyes gleamed faintly in the moonlight, and for a moment Noah swore it almost looked aware.
He needed the three items.A feather, a honeycomb fragment, and a silver key.
Noah turned toward the house and ran, careful to keep his footsteps light. The door creaked faintly as he slipped back inside.
The kitchen looked almost eerie in the moonlight. He searched the drawers and cabinets first, pulling them open one by one. Nothing. No honeycomb, no feather, no key.
He moved upstairs next, checking the bookshelves, the old boxes under the beds. Still nothing.
Then he remembered the attic.If Grandpa hid anything, it would be there.
The attic door creaked as he pulled it open. A ladder extended with a dull thud. Dust fell like mist as he climbed up, the flashlight from the hallway casting a weak circle ahead of him.
The air up there smelled of old paper and cedar. Shapes of forgotten furniture loomed under dusty sheets. Noah coughed quietly and began his search.
He opened a wooden chest near the far wall. Inside were trinkets—old postcards, a cracked compass, a magnifying glass. But tucked in a small glass jar, half-buried under a stack of notebooks, lay a single white feather, clean and perfect despite the dust.
He smiled faintly. "One."
He kept searching.In a metal box labeled Field Notes – 1993, he found a folded wax paper packet. Inside was a fragment of honeycomb, pale gold and brittle, preserved like treasure.
"Two."
Finally, in a tin marked Spare Keys, he found an old silver key—ornate, with a delicate spiral pattern down its shaft. It gleamed faintly under his flashlight.
"Three."
His pulse thrummed with excitement. The poem's instructions were clear now.
He tucked the items carefully into his pocket and hurried back down the ladder.
When he stepped outside again, the world looked almost unreal.The moon was directly overhead now — a perfect, glowing disc. The light was so bright it cast sharp shadows under the trees. The air shimmered faintly, silver against the blue of night.
Noah ran across the yard, clutching the objects tightly. The gnome still glowed, its soft hum louder now, the circle around it pulsing in rhythm.
He knelt beside it, breath visible in the cool air, and placed the feather, honeycomb, and silver key each into one of the smaller glowing circles.
As soon as the last item touched the soil, the runes flared with light. A deep vibration rolled beneath him, like the ground itself was taking a slow breath.
He opened the journal again. More faint letters had appeared beneath the poem, glowing softly.
"At the hour when the moon holds her breath,Speak to the soil, and the gate shall remember you.The way opens to those who see without eyes."
Beneath it, in Oak's familiar handwriting, was a line of strange syllables, graceful and flowing like a song:
"Lumen terralis, porta revele."
Noah swallowed. "Lumen… terralis… porta revele."
He looked up at the moon. It was exactly midnight — the sky frozen in still silver light.
He took a deep breath and said the words again, louder this time, voice trembling with excitement and awe:
"Lumen terralis, porta revele!"
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the ground beneath him shivered. The glowing circle blazed brighter, spilling light across the garden like ripples of liquid moonlight. The air stirred, cool and charged, and the scent of flowers and earth filled his lungs.
Noah's heart raced as the gnome's eyes shone like twin stars. The runes expanded outward, their light folding into itself until everything within the circle glowed softly like dawn breaking beneath the soil.
He could barely breathe. It was beautiful — wild, impossible, real.
And as the light pulsed once more, brighter than before, Noah realized something deep and certain:he had just opened the way.