Granny stepped forward. “Don’t worry, I know a thing or two about plants. Gardening is what I mostly use my magic for, anyway.” She faced the vines, shaking her cane at them, and said firmly, “Now, you don’t belong here. There’s no sunlight, no good soil, no water. How do you expect to thrive? This isn’t natural at all.” The leaves on the vines started turning yellow and wilting and Granny nodded sadly. “Yes, that’s what’ll happen to you if you stay here. But isn’t there somewhere better for you? I think you should go there now.” Her voice turned to iron at the end, making that last statement into a command.
The vines receded, shrinking back into the ground as though they’d never been there. “No wonder your lawn always looks so nice,” I said to Granny while Sam unlocked the door.
“Don’t tell the garden club,” Granny said with an impish grin. “I don’t want to have to give back all my Yard of the Month plaques.”
We’d just made it to the doorway when a group of men approached from the depths of the garage. “Looks like they weren’t just counting on Mother Nature to keep us out,” I warned, pushing Granny inside ahead of me. The men mouthed spells and sent them in our direction, but they had no effect on Owen or me, so we were still able to get through the door. Owen hit the elevator button while Sam sealed the door and put an extra spell on it. When the elevator arrived, Owen leaned in, hit a floor button, and let the doors close while he gestured us toward the stairs.
“Maybe they’ll be waiting to ambush the elevator instead,” he said as he led the way up. I’d worried about Granny’s ability to climb the stairs, but she was practically running, confirming my mom’s suspicion that she carried that cane as a weapon, not as a walking aid.
We reached the top of the stairs only to nearly run into a great wall of fire hanging in the air less than a foot away from the staircase, blocking us from entering the museum. I felt its warmth on my skin, so I knew it wasn’t illusion. It was probably magical, since it was hanging in midair, didn’t create any smoke, and hadn’t set off the museum’s fire alarm, but it would still probably hurt us. We had no choice but to remain in the relative safety of the stairwell. Then footsteps on the stairs behind us told me that the men in the garage had made it past Sam’s spells. We were trapped.
Chapter Ten