The Garden Center will remain open

Tuesday is garden-centre day.
Tom knows this because of the route, the stone lions, and the familiar walk through Moorfield Garden Centre with his wife, Margaret. In a world growing less reliable by the week, Moorfield is one of the few places that still makes sense.

Then a section of paving collapses between Outdoor Pots and Aquatic Plants.

The hole should not be there. It should definitely not be impossibly deep. And it absolutely should not contain a portal to a collapsing dungeon full of frightened refugees, territorial monsters, and the kind of armoured knight who appears to have fallen out of someone else’s fantasy novel.

Shannon Buckley, Moorfield’s no-nonsense centre manager, responds to this development exactly as she responds to every other crisis: with barriers, warning tape, and a firm intention to remain open for business.

As more strange visitors emerge and outside authorities, corporate opportunists, and something far worse begin taking an interest in Moorfield, the garden centre becomes an unlikely refuge. To keep it safe, Shannon will need the help of her staff, her regular customers, and Tom — whose memory may be failing, but whose understanding of the land beneath Moorfield might be the key to saving everyone.

Warm, funny and quietly moving, The Garden Centre Will Remain Open is a story about community, routine, kindness, and what it means to protect people rather than simply manage them.