“Oh yeah?” Brianna’s fur bristled with agitation, not wanting to be outdone. “It had a pretty picture of something like fruit or vegetables.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Henry argued. “It was wheat or something. Why else would it say Granoble’s Granary?” His eyes bulged. “Wait! That’s exactly what it said! I remember now because I had to look up the meaning of granary after she left.”

Coralis’s lips twitched in a half smile. “It’s amazing what the mind can recall if you just stop thinking.”

“And I’ll tell you what else I remember.” Henry was on a roll. “It had Arizona license plates.”

“Do tell.” Coralis leaned forward.

“And … and … well, I guess that’s it.” Henry’s shoulders slumped. “That’s not enough, is it? It doesn’t tell us anything.”

“On the contrary.” Coralis walked to a series of paintings on the far wall. “Have you ever been to Arizona?”

“No.” Brianna jumped in before Henry could answer.

“Did your mother ever talk about it? Perhaps she spent some time there. Did she like southwestern artifacts, perhaps an occasional cattle skull?”

“Ew, gross!” Brianna wrinkled her nose.

“No, she didn’t,” said Henry, but he leaned into a painting as he began to understand Coralis’s line of questioning. “That’s what all these paintings are. They’re of Arizona, aren’t they?” And for the first time, Henry witnessed the extent of his mother’s talent. The flowers, the cacti, the reptiles, the rock formations: Every painting was of something best described as southwestern, and though he’d never been there, the images captured a sense of place brilliantly.

“Why would she paint these?” Henry asked, but it was of himself. He leaned in closer and squinted at a tiny black vertical line in the bottom right corner. A mistake? But the paintings were perfect—even Coralis thought so. Why wouldn’t she cover over the mistake with a dab of brown paint to match the rest of it? Startled, he swung back around to face Coralis. “It’s not a mistake!”

“Of course it’s a mistake if you thought of it,” Brianna said, bristling.

Henry didn’t acknowledge her. He quickly went from painting to painting, locating other ones with marks on them. “Look!” He anxiously grabbed canvases from walls and easels and stacked them along a baseboard. “They’re numbers!”

“They’re not any numbers I ever saw,” Brianna countered.

“They’re Roman numerals!” Henry clarified. He quickly rearranged the paintings in order from I to IV. The effect was incredible. The four paintings formed a single tremendous landscape. “Ha! Look at that!” He turned to gloat at Brianna on the floor, but instead found her cupped gently in Coralis’s palm, dumbfounded and speechless.

Henry looked back at the mural. “Whoa,” he whispered.

“Indeed.” Coralis stood next to him.

“Is that, like, one of those optical illusions?” Brianna asked.