“Beard,” said the child, and he laughed. The paint curling on the neck and lower chin of the fairy tale princess did resemble the shaggy beard of Aaron Feit. Upon looking at the mural, he noticed how similar the style was to the paintings in the big old house the night before. He absentmindedly handed the ABC book to the young mother, and although she thanked him, he was too preoccupied to answer. He was focused on the right-hand corner of the mural. He might have noticed before that there was a name scrawled there in tiny script, but he’d never bothered to try to decipher it. Today was different. He went to his desk and retrieved the magnifying glass he kept in the top drawer for patrons with bad sight.

Back at the mural, he leaned over and trained the glass on the signature. The name instantly became clearer. Val Crenshaw was how he read it, although it could have started with a sloppy H and been Hal Crenshaw. With this revelation, he wondered if outlandish coincidence was part of the ecosystem of the night world. His forays as a sleeper were beginning to blend with his waking life, and every evening’s journey as well as every day’s felt more and more like a concocted dream. The position of Sleeping Beauty in the mural matched that of the image of the man in the chamber below the marble statue, hanging in the painter’s dining room. He broke from his trance and checked the book out for mother and daughter, then retired to his office and computer where he began a search for Val Crenshaw.

Along his walk home from work, Owen pondered what he’d found out. The painter was fairly well known, and had done illustration work throughout the years. When he clicked on the images associated with Crenshaw, he saw a lot of the paintings he’d run into in the old house. He also found a newspaper article someone had posted online about the mural. Valentine Crenshaw, new to Westwend, volunteered to create a picture on the wall of the children’s library, which was due to open in a few months. It said in the article his one stipulation was he would have to paint it at night after his day’s work. The town was thrilled with his offer. And all agreed the finished product, the Sleeping Beauty, was sublime, attracting the admiration of both children and adults.