Even despite getting to be up close and personal with so many gorgeous flowers, the charm of the game wore off before too long. Matt’s legs burned from all the kneeling and crouching, and he thought that he might be allergic to one of the types of flowers, because all of a sudden he couldn’t stop sneezing. From somewhere to his left, he heard Miguel yelp as he ducked to avoid an irritated bumblebee.

“Keep going,” Kylie called to them. “I know it’s tedious, but we have to stick with it or we’re never going to find the key.”

“What would happen if we just tried to climb over this gate?” Miguel wondered, stepping back to take in the scale of the black iron gate. “Just skip the key altogether?”

“There’s no way we could do that safely,” Matt advised, looking at the pointy tips of the gate that reached into the sky like swords. “The key is the only way, unless you want to go back into that maze of weeds.”

“No thank you,” Miguel said, moving back to the spot of flowers where he’d left off. “I’d rather search the flowers.”

They continued to work as quickly as they could. Matt wondered again what Becca and the others were up to in that creepy old house. He let his imagination run wild as far as what sorts of things they might have encountered in there—ghosts, werewolves, vampires. Whatever was in there, he knew Becks would be able to handle it, and the others, too. He just hoped that whatever they were doing wasn’t taking nearly as long to complete as the stuff his team had gone through so far. Maybe soon they’d all be able to get back together again.

“I think I found it!” Miguel cried out, reaching his arm deep into a thicket of roses. “Wait, sorry, never mind. It was just a snail.”

Matt had to laugh as he watched Miguel put the snail back with a wince on his face, wiping the snail slime on his pants before continuing to search. Kylie looked so deep in her search that Matt panicked for a moment—what if he hadn’t been doing as thorough of a job as he’d thought he was? What if the key was in his section and he already passed over it? Suddenly filled with paranoia, Matt wasn’t sure if he should continue working down the line or if he should start completely over.