She wasn’t exaggerating. Between one breath and the next, I was halfway to a panic attack.

Sergei pointed behind him at the stack of boxes Bram had helped me drag up from the basement. “What are you doing with those flyers?”

“I was thinking about using them as wallpaper when I find an apartment.”

“How about selling them?”

“Who would buy them?”

“Who wouldn’t? They’re good quality prints by Violet Velar. They have all her hallmarks, the color, the movement, the boldness. And…” He cleared his throat again, his expression turning apologetic. “Violet is gone. Sorry. It’s deplorably insensitive to say, but she won’t make any more art. Everything she created in the past is already in museums or private collections. The flyers could be a way for new collectors to have a piece of her legacy. People would eat up a sale authorized by the family, with letters of authenticity. She was the quintessential New York City artist.”

Strena walked over to the boxes and examined a handful of flyers. “He’s right. And if he can’t move all of it, I have friends who can. The museum shop at the MoMA, for one, would probably stock them. How many different designs are there?”

“A couple of dozen? But all the boxes aren’t in good shape. The ones that were on the bottom have some water damage.”

“Even better.” Sergei’s eyes glinted. “The fewer copies of each design, the more they’re worth. I—”

The doorbell cut him off.

All I could think was It’d better not be Trey coming back. I didn’t have it in me to go another round with him. I would rather have spent the night in the basement with the bear.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Johanna

August 1891, Bussum, Netherlands

In the end, I did leave Paris. I wanted to see Vincent’s talent recognized and celebrated, but I also wanted to raise my son in happiness and health. With a child in tow and with my imperfect French, I could not find respectable work in France. I returned to the Netherlands, but not to my parents’ home. I embarked on my own venture. I faced the future with a straight back, ready to be tested.

“I saw Janus at the baker’s this morning,” my friend Anna told me with a meaningful look as she walked through my kitchen door, holding a crock under one arm and carrying her daughter, Saskia, in the other. “He said to tell you that he would be by to see you today.”

Anna and her husband, Jan Veth, had settled in the village of Bussum and tempted me there.

She set her daughter down, then held out the crock for me with a smile. “The sauerkraut, as requested.”