Keeping Holiday (2 page)

When the service ended, the man in the pew gave a deep sigh. Then he stood up. “Well, that’s done till next vacation. It
was
lovely, wasn’t it? Nice sitting by you,” he said to Dylan’s family and walked away.

“Is it okay if I walk back?” Dylan asked his mom. The little Holiday church sat on the very end of the street, with the forest coming right up against it. Dylan wanted to take his time, walking back down the street to their hotel, savoring the Holiday sights and sounds one last time.

“I don’t see why not,” she answered. “Just don’t be late for lunch. You wouldn’t want to miss our last big Holiday get-together. You know we go home tomorrow.”

Dylan made a face. “Don’t remind me,” he said. Slipping out a side door in the church to avoid the crowd, Dylan found himself in a quiet little garden he had never seen before. The winding brick path led to a gate in the little fence. Even from a distance, Dylan could see something bright red leaning against the fence, as though it had been propped up there on purpose. As he drew nearer however, he saw that it was only a piece of paper with some lettering on it—an advertisement for something. He bent to pick it up, then stared at it, startled. It read:

“Would you like to KEEP Holiday?”

That was what Dylan’s mom had said at breakfast: “You’ll just have to look for a way that you can
keep
Holiday, even when we go home.” He had wondered what she meant when she had said it, but then they had hurried off to church, and he had forgotten about it. Besides, Mom was always saying things like that, things that made you wonder what in the world she was talking about. Dylan read the rest of the flyer. It contained only these few words: “Pass through the church garden gate for more.” The path that led from the gate was immediately swallowed up by the thick woods that came right up to the garden fence.

Dylan felt that he must at least start down the path, to see if he could find out what the red paper meant. He would hurry, just for five minutes, then make it up by running back to the hotel.

As it turned out, it took Dylan only three minutes of winding through trees and around corners to learn what he needed to know. The road emerged from a particularly thick stand of trees into a clearing, then turned abruptly to avoid going over the edge of a precipice. Dylan stepped out to the edge and looked down into a valley. Nestled in this valley was a town. Dylan had never seen a town like this one before.
Every building had its own unique and beautiful appearance, as though a school of architects had held a contest here to see who could design the most wonderful building. The whole town was surrounded by a high wall, which glistened in the sunlight with bright gleams of first one color, then another. The city was not so far below that Dylan could not hear sounds floating up from it. He held his breath to listen and caught traces of music unlike any he had ever heard, so beautiful that he immediately decided he had never really heard music until that moment. Every now and then, a fragrance wafted up to him from below as well, a fragrance so delicious that he closed his eyes and breathed in as deeply as he could.

“What
is
this?” he whispered to himself, looking around for some clue to the astonishing city. Then he saw the signs. “VISTA POINT,” the small one by the side of the path read. The second line of the same sign said, “City of Holiday.” Another sign stretched from tree to tree over the top of the path, which continued along the edge of the precipice, evidently to a way down into the valley. This sign said, “Entrance to Holiday straight ahead.”

If that’s Holiday down there,
Dylan thought,
where have we been
all this time?
He stepped under the sign and turned around to see what it said on the other side. To his amazement, he read the words, “Holiday Visitors’ Center” and saw an arrow pointing back the way he had come. He looked back down into the valley at what was, evidently, the
real
Holiday. The streets of this town held sights and sounds and smells that made the old Holiday, the one Dylan had always loved, seem like just a little model of something.
Visitors’ center?
Dylan thought.
We’ve spent every vacation of my life in Holiday and we’ve
never gotten past the Visitors’ Center?
Well, it was time to remedy that now!

Intent on seeing the “more” promised by the flyer, Dylan hurried off down the path. From somewhere very close, a motor whirred. A long wooden barricade slammed down in front of Dylan. Only then did he notice the little guard booth with the man inside. “Sorry,” the man said to Dylan, “authorized personnel only.”

“Well, then what does this mean?” Dylan asked him, polite but insistent. He held up the flyer. “It seems to be an advertisement of some kind, and it tells people that they can see more of Holiday. Why does it say that if people can’t really go down there and get in?”

The guard examined the bright red flyer. A minute went by in silence. Then the guard said, “It doesn’t say if they want to
see
more; it just says ‘for more.’”

Dylan did not see how that made any difference. “Okay, but still,” he said, “how can that be if people can’t get in?”

The guard examined the flyer for another silent minute. “And,” he pointed out, “it doesn’t say ‘if you want to
see
more of Holiday’; it asks if you want to ‘
keep
Holiday.’”

Dylan sighed. “But the point is,” he said, “that it tells people to go through the church garden gate, but you’re saying they can’t get into Holiday.”

“I’m not saying people can’t get into Holiday,” the guard protested. “I’m saying only
authorized
people can get in. I don’t make the rules,” he added, “I just help keep them.”

“Well, then, how are people authorized to get in?” Dylan asked. “Can I get authorized? I’d really like to see more—I mean, I’d really like more,” he corrected himself. “And I’ve been wondering how to keep Holiday. Who authorizes people to go in?”

“The Founder does,” the guard answered helpfully. “And I can’t think of any reason why he wouldn’t authorize you, when he’s authorized so many others.”

“Okay,” Dylan said, encouraged. “Where do I find the Founder?”

“Oh, you can’t find the Founder; he finds you,” the guard replied. “He’s not just the Founder; he’s the finder too!” He chuckled. “That rhymed!” Then he grew serious. “But until he finds you, I’ll have to ask you to go back the way you came. You can’t go in.”

Dylan’s shoulders slumped with disappointment. He turned away from the barricade and looked back down over the edge, at streets that glittered with the promise of wonders he had never known. He closed his eyes to better smell the scents that the breeze carried up. They were scents that could go to your head and make you forget everything, yet they were delicate enough to make you long for more. As he stood there, eyes closed, breathing in the wonderful fragrances, the music swelled from below so he could hear every note distinctly. It played just for him; he was sure of it. He
must
go where it called—but instead, he had to turn away and head back to his family’s lodging, the little hotel that was only a part of the Visitors’ Center.

Finding Where to Start

J
ust as Dylan had expected, Clare said nothing when he finished telling her his story. She certainly did not say (as several had), “Are you sure you weren’t imagining things? Or maybe you dreamed it.” Nor did she say (as most did), “Hmm. Interesting. Wanna go play ball?” She said nothing. She sat on the step of Dylan’s front porch, thinking about what she had heard. Dylan could tell she was thinking by the faraway look in her brown eyes and by the absentminded way she twirled a lock of her sandy blonde hair around and around with her fingers.

When Dylan had first returned from the vacation during which he had found a greater Holiday
beyond
Holiday, he had tried to tell people about it. For the most part, no one cared. His parents had listened to his story attentively and certainly acted as if they believed him. But they had exchanged those glances with each other that drove Dylan crazy. They had not said much about his discovery. No one else had seemed at all interested. So Dylan had said no more about it, although he had never stopped wondering.

Today, however, Clare had said, “Too bad for my parents that they have to be gone at Holiday time! But I’m going to have fun, going with you guys instead. Aren’t you excited about Holiday, Dylan?” Even as she was asking the question, the thought had flashed through Dylan’s mind,
Clare! I can tell
Clare. She’ll understand.
Dylan had always preferred Clare to all his other cousins. There was more to her.
She’s different from
other people,
Dylan had said to himself,
more thought-y.
So Dylan had told Clare the whole story.

Now Clare finally spoke. “What happened when you went back?” she asked. Just like Clare! Everyone else, when they said anything at all, said, “Did you ever go back?” Clare
knew
Dylan would have gone back to look at the bigger Holiday again. It was what she would have done herself.

“We’ve been back on vacation three times since then,” Dylan answered. “And each year, I’ve gone to that church every day, and out into that garden—but the weird thing is, there’s never been a gate in the garden fence. And it’s not just that someone has reworked the fence—the path that led on, away from the gate, isn’t there either. Just woods and nothing more. But I know I went through a gate and down a path. And the gate’s on the flyer.”

Clare’s face lit up. “You still have the flyer? Could I see it?” She scooted over on the step so Dylan could get past her and in his front door. In a moment, he returned with the red flyer, now worn with repeated folding and unfolding. Clare took it and read it. Sure enough, there it was.

“Would you like to KEEP Holiday? Pass through the Church Garden Gate for More.”

Clare’s eyes glowed. “How exciting—a real mystery! Trying to solve this will make going to Holiday even better than ever.”

“Well, yes and no,” Dylan answered, although he did feel better already,
now that he had someone who would help him try to solve the puzzle Holiday presented. “It’s much more than just a mystery. It’s much more than just wanting to know what happened to that door. You know how we’ve always loved Holiday—everyone loves Holiday.” Clare nodded. “But the Holiday we’ve always known is
nothing
compared to the other one I found. I could tell that just by standing there, even though I didn’t get to go in. And now I want to get into the real Holiday so much that I’m not very interested in the old one anymore.”

Clare nodded. She could see how that would be. “It must be kind of like the difference between a picture of something and the real thing—like this orange,” she added, holding up the one she had just finished peeling. “Somebody could be a great painter, but he can only paint what an orange
looks
like. It’s just a picture. You can’t smell it or taste it or feel the bumps on the peeling, because it’s not a real orange.” She paused, then added, “And I guess that if you’re really hungry for an orange, looking at a picture of one just makes it worse.”