“Even Wiley is multilingual.” Luna snickered and scanned the café to be sure everything was in place. She snatched the drawing from the easel, the letter, and the wooden slat, then shut and locked the sliding front doors. The three of them entered Cullen’s showroom from the adjoining entry. “Hi-di-ho!” Luna’s voice sang through the showroom as Cullen greeted them with a big smile.

Ellie was coming through the main entrance of Cullen’s place with Ziggy and Marley wagging their tails behind her. “Hi-di-ho to you,” Ellie chimed back. “So where is this mystery project?”

“This way.” Cullen turned toward the workshop with Luna, Chi-Chi, Ellie, Wiley, Ziggy, and Marley in tow. For their size, Ziggy and Marley easily maneuvered between the refurbished pieces of furniture and antiques without thumping their tails on anything.

In the workshop, Ziggy, Marley, and Wiley spotted the plush blanket Cullen kept for Wiley. After circling the blanket several times, the three dogs chose their spots and made themselves comfortable in a big doggie heap. Chi-Chi couldn’t help but repeat what she had said a few minutes ago. “Ti o dara ajas.” Ellie looked at her quizzically.

“It means ‘good dogs,’” Chi-Chi explained.

“Wiley already knows how to speak Yoruba,” Luna said with a straight face.

Earlier that afternoon, Cullen had moved the trunk away from the wall and made enough room for everyone to circle it.

“That surely has a distinct odor,” Ellie noted.

“It must have been very close to a fire,” Luna said. “Close enough to pick up the smell but far enough to survive it.”

“And you don’t know where it came from?” Ellie knew she was asking a rhetorical question.

“No. Luna, you have the letter?” Cullen asked.

“Yep. I also tried to get some vibrations off it.” She handed Cullen the roughly drawn sketch. “I believe those pointy objects represent the fire. The stick figure seems to be a young boy, but I couldn’t zero in on the age. I also got a sense of terror, abandonment, loneliness.” She shrugged.

“Maybe it was someone’s son who died in the fire?” Ellie suggested.

“Oh, that would be a most terrible thing.” Chi-Chi folded her arms and shook her head.

“That’s just it. I didn’t get a vibration that the person had crossed over. It was much more a sense of abandonment.” She paused for a moment.

Chi-Chi asked softly, “But who? The person in the drawing or the person who wrote the letter?”

Luna thought hard. She placed her hands on the trunk. A swarm of images swirled through her head. Like a movie in fast-forward. She steadied herself.

“Are you all right?” Chi-Chi unfolded her arms and placed a hand on Luna’s shoulder.

“Yes. Wow. That was weird, even for me.” Luna sucked in a big gulp of air through her nose and took a step back, away from the trunk.

“What was it?” Chi-Chi gently urged.