The Garden Beneath the Moon

There was a garden that existed only when no one looked for it.
Those who searched with desire never found it, but those who wandered with quiet hearts sometimes stepped through its gate without knowing how. Some called it a myth, others a mirage. But the moon knew better it watched over the garden every night, feeding it with silver light and silent dreams.

Linh found it on a night when she could no longer sleep.
The world outside her window was pale and restless, filled with the soft hum of unseen tides. She walked without reason, following a path she didn’t remember knowing. The air was cool, heavy with the scent of jasmine and distant rain. Then, between two breaths, she saw it: a gate made of branches and shadow, half open, as though waiting only for her.

Inside, time dissolved.
The flowers were unlike any she had seen petals that shimmered with faint starlight, stems that swayed though no wind touched them. Pools of still water reflected not her face, but fragments of her dreams half-remembered places, nameless faces, feelings without owners. Every step she took seemed to stir memories sleeping beneath the soil.

At the center of the garden stood a tree so vast it seemed to hold the sky itself. Its bark glowed faintly, breathing in rhythm with the night. The moon hung low above it, its light dripping like slow rain. Beneath the tree sat an old woman in a gown woven of mist.

“You’ve found it,” she said without looking up.
Her voice was soft, as though spoken from a great distance. “Few do. Even fewer stay.”

“What is this place?” Linh asked.

The woman smiled faintly. “A resting ground for forgotten dreams. They come here when people no longer have room for them.”

Linh looked around. Between the flowers, she began to notice shapes faint outlines of sleeping forms, translucent as dew. Some looked peaceful, others restless. They were dreams, she realized abandoned, incomplete, or waiting to be remembered.

“I didn’t mean to find it,” Linh whispered. “I was just walking.”

“That’s why you did,” said the woman. “The garden reveals itself only to those who no longer ask for meaning.”

The old woman motioned to the pool beside her. Linh peered into it and saw herself but not as she was. She saw every dream she had ever lost: the ones she had let die quietly, the ones she had forgotten out of fear, and the ones she had traded for certainty. They shimmered like fallen stars beneath the water’s surface.

“Can they return to me?” Linh asked.

The woman shook her head gently. “Dreams do not return. They transform. You carry them differently each time.”

The moonlight thickened, silver and slow. Linh felt warmth spreading through her chest the kind that did not burn but healed. For the first time in years, she did not feel the ache of absence. Instead, she felt connection to everything she had ever been, to everything she had let go of.

As the night deepened, the flowers began to close, folding their starlit petals. The woman stood, her form flickering softly like candlelight.

“You must leave before the moon sets,” she said. “Those who stay become part of the garden their dreams root themselves and forget the sky.”

Linh hesitated. “Will I find this place again?”

The woman smiled, eyes luminous.
“When you no longer search yes.”

Linh turned back toward the gate. The air shimmered, and she felt the world shift the scent of jasmine fading into dawn. When she opened her eyes, she stood once more beneath her window, the first light of morning seeping into the world.

In her palm, she found a single silver petal, warm and alive.
When she placed it on her desk, it dissolved into a drop of light that lingered there, faint but steady a quiet promise that even forgotten dreams still bloom beneath the moon.