The only problem was it stated in the article Crenshaw was twenty-eight when he did the mural in 1948. If that was accurate, it meant he was nearly one hundred years old. No doubt, Crenshaw looked old, but certainly not a century—he got around well enough to live on his own. Owen would have pegged him in his seventies. Another article listed some of the painter’s more famous pieces and what they’d gone for at auction. Each painting was worth at least ten to twenty thousand dollars, and a few were a lot more. The same article mentioned museums that had bought and displayed his work. On more than one site, he was said to be an adherent of the Brandywine School of painting, centered around the artist Howard Pyle. Owen could see the influence—Crenshaw’s work had the same effect of no hard lines, of obvious dry-brushing, a technique that gave a scene the look of memory.

Back home, at bedtime, he went to sleep revisiting all the coincidences and vague synchronicities of the night world, trying to sort out the actual from his own fanciful speculation. There were elusive interludes of near-solution and long whirling storms of incidents and numbers until finally, perched on the verge of an answer, he woke to the paralysis and began, again, his struggle for freedom. Equally as tantalizing as the dream, escape from the loathed state of live burial harried him for hours. At one point, he even began praying, certainly not his usual practice. And, finally, he found himself rising away from his bed and body.

As Melody approached the picnic table, Owen called to her from the other side of the hedge. She passed through and asked, “What are you doing over here?”

“A little girl who lives in the house over there saw me last night.”

“Saw you? How do you mean?”

“I heard her crying to her parents there was a ghost in the backyard.”

“Very rare,” said Melody. “We’ll have to steer clear of her.”

They made their way toward the side fence and passage to the road. “What happened last night? I had to go it alone,” said Owen.

“My kid was sick. He had a fever and was puking. It’s going around the junior high like the Black Plague. My apologies.”