“That painting’s not finished,” he says.

“No. My mother never had the chance to complete it. That’s what I intend to do.”

Atlas shifts to study the image on the screen while Dewey stares at me. He clicks his tongue three times. Then he takes his hat off the desk, turns it over in his hand, and jams it on with a sigh. “It’s too noisy for me to read with all these people underfoot.” He jumps to his feet and disappears around the corner of the bookshelf next to his desk. A moment later, he appears again. “I’m assuming your feet work. Or did you plan on me carrying you?”

“I still have no idea what’s happening,” Atlas admits as we scurry after Dewey, who darts around Stewards preparing for lockdown and weaves through shelves. “Why didn’t you tell me about your mother’s paintings?”

“I’ll explain everything later,” I say as I rush to keep up. Finally, Dewey leads us into a small area in a dimly lit back corner of the Lyceum tucked away under scaffolding used to reach the upper bookshelves.

Dewey glances around the edge of shelves to make sure no one is nearby. Then he asks, “Do you recognize anything?”

I’m about to say no, when something catches my eye. A book shelved near the bottom, placed so that the image on the front is facing out. The cover is torn and faded, but even in the dim light I recognize the red stars at the edge of a black background and the faded pale lines that point to an image in the center. An image my mother never got the chance to paint. Not a door, as I drew so many times while trying to re-create my mother’s vision, but an eye—wide-open—determined to see.

“What are you waiting for?” Dewey asks. “Take it.”

I lean down, pull the book off the shelf, and brush my hand over the front.

I found it, Mom, I think. I know what you wanted me to see now. And I’m here.

Dewey’s voice pulls me back. “There’s a switch. You might have to feel around a bit. No good having a secret room if anyone who pulls a book off a shelf can find it.”

My fingers find a cool metal inset in the wood and I pull. Something clicks, and a section of the shelves shifts.

“Now stand back.” Dewey helps haul me to my feet, and I scramble out of the way as he carefully pivots the shelf.

“Atlas’s grandfather created this when he and his friends built the Lyceum.” He waves us inside the darkness. I reach for Atlas’s hand and step over the threshold. Dewey follows. “Atticus decided it should be used for this.” Dewey hangs a battery-operated lantern on the wall and pulls the door shut behind us as I blink at the contents of the small, hidden space.

In a movie a room like this would contain treasure or some kind of alien device that could destroy the world. Instead, there are stacks of red books and neat piles of paper and dozens and dozens of bags on slightly rusted metal industrial shelves.