Since I’m grouchy from lack of sleep, I’m not careful to school my expression, so when the seminar is over, Michael approaches me. “Something’s bothering you,” he says.

Yeah, something’s bothering me. But I’m not about to expose my critical views about Maker lifestyle. Except my mind and my mouth seem to be at odds with each other because the question spills out before I can stop it.

“The painting in Headmaster Bloche’s office, is it Rembrandt’s The Sea of Galilee?”

Michael grins. “You have a good eye. Yes. It’s a magnificent piece, isn’t it?”

I feel a flush of confusion and anger. “That painting was stolen over thirty years ago.”

He must hear the accusation in my tone. “The Makers had nothing to do with the theft. Bloche rescued the painting from the thieves.”

“Then why didn’t he return it?” I honestly hope he has a good explanation. I want to respect him. I want to respect the Makers.

“Return it to the people whose carelessness allowed thieves to slash it from its frame? Here it was faithfully restored and is in a place where it can be better protected and properly appreciated.”

“Properly appreciated?” I rub at my scars, feeling my frustration build. “How many people, on this tiny hidden island, get to appreciate it when it hangs in one man’s office? You think provincial people can’t properly appreciate art? Do you know how much the loss of that painting was mourned? Is still mourned? The museum still has the empty frame on display.” I bite my lip, realizing too late that I’m showing my hand. But when our eyes meet, it feels impossible to try to pretend, so I don’t stop. “You’re the one who told me about how much history has been stolen from the provincial world by the Inquisition. And you think more should be taken?”

Michael’s expressive brows are drawn tight. “Tell me about the empty frame,” he says.

“At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston,” I explain. “Where the Rembrandt was stolen along with a bunch of other works. The empty frames are left on the walls, waiting for the works to be returned to them.” Grandfather had brought me to the museum a few years ago. I’d found the empty frames to be truly haunting. And the feeling of loss they evoked in me lingers in my memory in a way so many other exhibitions I’ve seen over the years don’t. “There’s a ten-million-dollar reward for their recovery.”

Michael listens earnestly, nibbling at his thumbnail.

“Thank you for sharing that,” he says. “I hadn’t considered the implications of the loss to provincial society.”