Keeping Holiday Read Online Free PDF Page A

found the slot and thrust his pass inside.
    After a few seconds, the pass came back out. The screen lit up with these words: “Rejected. First-time visitor. Proof of LIFE required.”
    “Look how LIFE is in all capitals,” Clare pointed out. “Maybe LIFE is a place that other path leads to. Maybe once we get there, we get some kind of stamp on our pass or something.”
    This made some sense to Dylan, but before he could answer, Clare pointed at the screen. “Look,” she said, “it’s saying something else.”
    Dylan looked. The letters had changed and now the screen read: “Warning. Attempts to ignore posted signs may result in permanent loss of visitor’s passes.”
    Dylan gave up. “All right. I guess there’s no other choice. We’re going to have to waste who-knows-how-much of our four days going in the opposite direction from where we can see we ought to go.” He cast one last, longing look at the city with its rich jewel colors and turned his back on it. Together, the cousins began to retrace their steps. Before long, Dylan and Clare were back where they had started, at the first sign pointing the way for first-time visitors.
    They passed the sign and followed the road through the woods, then across a grassy meadow, and up a little hill. From the top of this hill, Dylan and Clare could see another hill across from them. Nestled between the two hills lay what appeared to be a garden park. In the park, a footpath wound through tall, stately cypress trees. Stone statues and small markers dotted the park’s open spaces. Twisting up and over many of the statues, ropes of ivy grew wild and untended. Near many of the markers, golden flowers added flecks of color. A black wrought iron fence enclosed the whole park, its gate standing open. Dylan and Clare’s path led through this gate. Pointing in, one more sign read, “FIRST-TIME VISITORS. THIS WAY.”
    The cousins descended the hill and passed through the gate. “This is all very pretty,” Dylan muttered, “but I really didn’t want to visit a garden. I wanted to get to Holiday.”
    “It is pretty,” Clare agreed, “and peaceful. Almost too peaceful. It feels very serious, like a place for having some kind of ceremonies.” She and Dylan were walking on the footpath now, as it wound in and out among the trees. The only path to be seen, it led the two deeper and deeper into the garden, toward the base of the second hill, where it appeared to dead end. Once they reached the base of that hill, though, Dylan and Clare found that the path continued, leading into a rounded opening that had been cut in the rock.
    Dylan and Clare peered into this entrance. The path seemed to go straight back, through a long hallway or tunnel, into the hill itself. Clare looked at Dylan. “So what do we do now?” she asked.
    “I guess we go in,” he answered. “The sign at the gate said, ‘First-time visitors, this way.’ There’s no other path. This must be where we go.”
    “Are you sure that’s wise?” a man’s voice asked.
    Dylan jumped. He turned to see where the voice had come from. Off to the side, on a bench half hidden by a bush, Mr. Smith sat watching Dylan and Clare.
    “I didn’t see you there,” Dylan said, once he got over his surprise. He held up his green visitor’s pass. “Are you using one of these too?”
    Mr. Smith stood up and came over to Dylan and Clare. He flashed his usual pleasant smile. “Oh,” he said, “are
we talking about going to the real Holiday again?” He looked around. “Are we there now? Is this it?” And he smiled again.
    “No, this isn’t it,” Dylan said, “but all the signs point this way. They say first-time visitors need to come this way first. You must have seen the city when you came down the path.”
    “So you haven’t been to the real Holiday?” the man asked.
    Dylan and Clare shook their heads. “Not yet,” Clare said.
    Mr. Smith nodded. “Of course not,” he said. Another pleasant smile. Then he