“I see, what is it that only Aunt Celine can help with?” Michael pressed.
Max shrugged again, “No idea. Hey, you wanna see something cool though?”
“Sure,” Michael said.
“Come here.” He waved them into the sitting room. “Wait, first,” he said as he closed the door behind them, “you have to BOTH swear to secrecy on your lives to never tell anyone about this.”
Michael and Damien exchanged a glance then shrugged. “Okay, sure, we swear,” Michael said.
“Do you swear?” Maddy asked Damien.
“Yes, scouts honor!” he said, holding up three fingers.
“Okay. Behind this chair here,” Max said, pulling aside a chair placed against the wall, “it is a secret panel that leads to a secret passage that goes to another part of the house!” He pressed on the wooden wall panel and it popped open. “See!!!”
“That’s so cool!” Damien said and actually meant it.
“Come on, let’s go through it!” Max said, thumbing on his flashlight.
They all crowded into the small passage. Max closed the panel behind them so “no one could follow them.” They followed Max as he snaked around the passage hidden behind the walls, pointing out where they were in the house a few times.
“So, Max,” Michael said, as they wound around the passage, “do you remember Aunt Celine much?”
“No, I’ve never even met her. She lived here a long time ago before I was born when my mom was little.”
“She lived here when your mom was little?”
“Yeah, my mom said she remembers her, but she was only about Maddy’s age or younger when Aunt Celine lived here before.” Michael and Damien glanced at each other. The facts weren’t adding up, unless the child was wrong about what he was saying. “I can’t wait to meet her, though.”
“Oh, why’s that?” Damien asked.
“Because Uncle Gray said she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. I bet she’s really pretty.”
“Yes, she’s really, really pretty, I bet,” Maddy parroted.
They reached the end of the passage, Max fiddled with something and opened a doorway into another room of the house. This one was not being used, it was dark with furniture covered in dust sheets and random items placed around in storage.
“I bet,” he said, “if there is a painting thief, they’d hide somewhere here. Hey, maybe the painting’s even hidden here! Come on, let’s spread out and search for it!”
“Okay, buddy, we’ll check over in this corner!” Michael answered, drawing Damien to the opposite side of the room. Once they were away from the children, he said in a hushed voice, “Okay, so new theory, crazy motel guy thinks Josie is the reincarnation of Celine.”
“Seriously?” Damien asked.
“Yeah, seriously. Did you hear what the kid said? Aunt Celine lived here when my mom was little. Now, he’s like what, nine or ten? His mom looks like she’s somewhere in her thirties, around my age, give or take a year. Say she was ten when Aunt Celine was here, that’s twenty-five years ago. Josie would have been a baby, it doesn’t fit.”
“Do you really believe a kid who thinks a kindly spirit lives inside a painting here? Perhaps he just got his timelines confused.”
“He can’t be that confused. He’s never met her and like I said, he’s around ten? Even if Celine was here until he was three or four, before he can remember, Josie would have been too young to be Gray’s wife and living here.”
Damien considered it. “Yeah, no matter which way you work this, Celine and Josie can’t be the same people. So, what’s she doing here?”
“Hey, are you guys looking over there?” Max yelled over.
“Yep,” Michael called back, waving his flashlight around, “nothing but cobwebs here!”
“I mean, is she just playing along? Is this guy crazy, and she feels bad for him? Is he threatening her? Are they controlling her mind somehow?” Damien continued to muse aloud.
“I don’t know, but we’ve got to talk to her, convince her to at least give us some clue as to what is going on.”
“Yeah, perhaps we can convince the kids to take us outside and see if we can find her.”
“Good plan. Let’s head back over,” Michael said, starting toward the two children. “We didn’t find anything, how about you guys?”
“Nope.” Max scuffed his foot against the floor. “I really wanted to find it. I’d be a big hero, I bet! They’d probably even let me eat ice cream for dinner!”
“Maybe it’s not in the house, I bet your family already looked everywhere in here for it. Can we try somewhere else on the estate?”
“Hey, maybe you’re right!” Max looked off into space, thinking. “Let’s see, there’s Uncle Alexander’s house, the caretaker’s cottage, the garage, the stables, and a few sheds. Where should we start first?”
“I bet you Aunt Celine is already out looking. She left early this morning from breakfast, probably to start searching, maybe we should head out and track her down and find out where she’s checked and then we can narrow it down,” Michael said.
“Hmm, okay! We can finish looking around the house tomorrow, it’s going to rain, anyway. Do you know where she started her search?”
“No, we’ll need to rely on you two to find her,” Damien said.
“Oh, I bet she went to visit Uncle Alexander first thing this morning,” Maddy said. “Uncle Alexander told me they were really good friends. Let’s go there.”
The children led them out of the room and down a series of dark hallways until they reached a part of the house that was lit and lived in. Michael and Damien still had no clue where they were until they got to the main gallery hall that circled the foyer below. The kids bounded down the steps toward the front door. “We better keep the flashlights with us!” Max said as he pulled the door open.
The bright sun was peeking in and out of fluffy white
