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that? What inspired
you three to do some redecorating on level three of the house and
coincidently position the painting of the pond in exactly the right
spot on the wall?” she asked in disbelief.
    “A book we found in the library,” Jack said
as he went on to explain the events of the day, starting with the
discovery of the magic book in the library, to finding the attic
and then their discovery in the Rear garden. “Which is when you
arrived, and saved us,” Jack finished.
    “How did you do that anyway Grandma?” David
asked. “We didn’t know you could do magic.”
    “And if you hadn’t gotten yourselves in
mortal peril like that, you still wouldn’t know.” their Grandmother
snapped at them. Then, sighing heavily continued, “On the other
hand, if you hadn’t uncovered the illusion in the rear garden,
things could have gotten a lot worse before we had time to do
something about it all. I just wish Maggie had come to me
first.”
    “Don’t you think I tried?” The curator said
from behind her. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for two
days. Why do you think your brother had your grandchildren walking
around the grounds blowing things up? Even he noticed my signs and
knew something was wrong. Firing off dynamite might have been one
of the dumber responses I could think of, but at least he tried
something and didn’t just ignore me!” she finished angrily.
    “You’re right Maggie, I’m sorry. I did feel
you calling and I ignored it,” their Grandmother replied
solemnly.
    “Thankyou,” the curator replied, happy with
her small victory. “So what are we going to do? The blue emerald is
gone!”
    “And?” David said.
    “And!” replied the Curator incredulous.
    “Well I get that we need to get rid of the
statue and that horrible mist, but that batty book told us that the
emerald prevents people coming through the portal, nothing about it
stopping wolves appearing to scare the pants off of everyone. So if
that’s all it does, who cares? Let the portal be open, let people
come and go as they please. The stories say that’s how it used to
be, so why not let it be that way again?”
    “That ‘batty book’ is one of the first
relics our family collected when we went exploring through the
portal.” Their grandmother replied after a pause. “Tooted to tell
you whatever you need to know in any given circumstance. ‘How do I
make a chocolate cake?’ you could ask out loud, and a chapter would
appear on exactly how to make a chocolate cake. I’m guessing that
you found the attic because Maggie’s need for assistance was so
great, that it presented itself to you with the information you
would need to find her.”
    “It wasn’t that easy though,” Jack said.
“The book knew a lot of things, but it didn’t just lead us to the
attic, it gave us some cryptic clues for us to figure out.”
    “And that is the flaw with the book,
although it took our family some time to figure this out. They soon
learned that the content of the book was only as good as the
knowledge of its previous and current owners. If one of its owners
had been a master chef, the chapter on chocolate cake would be of
the perfect recipe, a delight to eat. If none of its owners had
ever cooked in their life?”
    “A chapter on chocolate cake wouldn’t appear
in the book?” Rosie guessed.
    “Oh it would appear, but you probably
wouldn’t want to use the recipe. The book would be smart enough to
know one of the ingredients of chocolate cake is chocolate, but as
for the rest of it? You could be told to mix in broccoli or manure.
The book was created as a way of passing knowledge down through
generations of owners, but for some peculiar reason if you want to
know about a topic it has no knowledge of, it’s still compelled to
give you an answer. So if it doesn’t know something…”
    “It makes it up! I told you I never cried
for mom in the gardens!” David said. “Grandma, so what you’re
saying is that the book