Free Lavender-Green Magic by Andre Norton

Though she did see what she thought was an odd-looking, cramped-up little rose, its petals all squeezed together, twining in and out among the hedge plants at one place.
    Judy led them confidently onward, always to the right when there was a choice of ways. Holly had lost all sense of direction, and, though she thought that they might indeed be circling inward as the lines on the pillow top had gone, yet she could not even be sure of that.
    Twice more they passed tall hedge cats, each facing in upon the way. However, there was nothing in the least frightening about them. Crock got as close as he could to the last, trying to figure out how the hedge itself had been trained to grow, or had been clipped, to make that living green figure.
    They had all shed their jackets now, slinging them over their shoulders. For, while they could not see much of the sky overhead, a summer sun surely hung there. Holly paused to push up the long sleeves of her T-shirt. But Judy plodded steadily ahead as if she were on some very important errand.
    The maze tunnel took a sharp turn, bringing them into the open. Holly blinked. Where—how—? She stared at what lay ahead of them now, and could only believe that somehow this was after all a dream, one which had begun realisticallyenough with the events of the morning and then turned into a kind of fairy tale.
    Before them was an elaborate garden. But such a garden as Holly had never seen, even pictured in a book. Immediately ahead their path led straight into its heart. Plants and flowers grew in carefully measured clumps, some beds round, some narrow, some curved in half circles. Each bed held a different plant. However, the path itself cut straight across the garden, except in the very center, where it ringed around a pool.
    Beyond the garden (which bore a likeness to Grandma’s quilt with its precisely shaped pieces here being the different colored plants and flowers rather than cotton bits), was a house.
    It was much smaller than the barn. And it had an odd appearance as if it had not really been made by men, but had somehow grown out of the ground. The roof had wide shingles, which were gray but patterned with a growth of green moss. And the boards that covered the outside walls were unpainted also, green-moss grown, running up and down, instead of crossways as in most of the frame houses Holly had ever seen.
    A very large chimney of rough stones stood in the middle of the house. Small ferns grew between its cobbles here and there. The windows were small and quite high in the walls, while their panes were cut as glass diamonds fitted into dark metal strips. To one side of the house was the round top of a well. And, farther beyond that, a bench on which there werestraw-covered, cone-shaped hives from which bees came and went.
    The big front door stood open, and on the doorstep sat either Tomkit or his twin brother busily washing a hind paw, looking entirely at home.
    Judy moved forward, down the path which led around the pool straight for the house. Holly thought she could see a faint trail of smoke curling upward from that very large chimney. It was plain someone lived here. The garden was very well tended, there were the bees—but who? And why didn’t Grandma know or tell them about this near neighbor?
    â€œI don’t get it.” Crock threw his jacket on the ground. “I just don’t get it! This is summer, not October! And who—”
    Crock was right. It was summer, only Holly refused to admit it. She did not dare think what
that
might mean. This was a dream, it had to be a dream! She closed her eyes—she’d just be waking up in the barn-house.
    But when she opened her eyes, it was to see Judy almost through the garden and nearing the door. Suddenly it seemed to Holly that that door was waiting—maybe waiting to catch them—like a trap.
    â€œJudy!” she screamed at the top of her voice, beginning to run again. “Judy,