“It has four bedrooms!” Winifred went on happily. “And Mother said that that was it! This was our chance for a real home and if Daddy persisted in taking care of the Argot and staying in the air force instead of quitting and getting a job in Sooke—one that would allow us to live in this castle of a house we’d been left—then she would just move in there with us anyway and we would all wait for him to come to his senses. And Daddy said he didn’t mind. He would continue to live on base and come down to visit when he could. Father loves the Argot, doesn’t he, Wilfred?”

“Yes,” said Wilfred.

“It’s a secret spy reconnaissance plane that can fly for days without refueling,” said Winifred.

“It also drops bombs,” said Wilfred nonchalantly, pushing his hair out of his eyes as if he were telling us about his dog who could sit and also roll over on command.

“Because the Argot is so important, Daddy is a special maintenance guy, making sure everything is in good working order so it can be taken out in seconds if an emergency arises,” Winifred rattled on.

“What kind of emergency?” I asked.

“A war emergency, of course,” said Wilfred.

“Ah, a war emergency,” I said, privately thinking how unlikely that was.

There was military all around Vancouver Island and guns set up on strategic points around our own coastline. Ever since the start of the war, soldiers had lived in a temporary barracks on land that belonged to us but which we were lending to the war effort. At first this was very exciting, the idea that our shores would be protected from our very own farm. But despite all this vigilance, nothing much ever seemed to happen. It didn’t look like the war was going to come to Vancouver Island at all, which was fine with me. Miss Macy, who was a neighbor without either job or family, liked to take long walks on our property, mostly along the coast, and visited the soldiers with Girl Guide cookies. She had told me that mostly the soldiers sat around and played poker.

“Father works every day twelve hours a day to maintain the plane’s readiness,” said Winifred. “Mother says he has no time for us anymore. That he loves that plane more than he loves us.”

“Which is nonsense,” said Wilfred. “Mother is prone to exaggeration.”

Zebediah had said not a word through all this. He had crawled back under the bed, crawled out, and pulled the mattress up to inspect the cot’s springs and tried to get to the top of the highboy dresser from the chair that was stationed next to it. Now he was at the window looking out.

“What kind of garden is that?” he asked.

I joined him. “There are several. Which do you mean?” I asked.

“The one with the fence and the big lock.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s the night garden.”

“Why do you call it the night garden?”