figure out how to lock it. He sat back down, close enough so that their shoulders touched.
“Why would anyone have all those statues?” she murmured.
“To…scare people away? When she was alive?” he suggested.
“That’s effed up. Since this happened to my dad, I’ve never felt so alone in my life. It’s horrible.”
James nodded, then glanced at her. “Does it help that you get to say goodbye?”
Lenora rubbed her eyes. “It probably would…if I got say goodbye only once instead of again, and again, and again.”
James took a deep breath. “Yeah.” He pulled his coat tighter around him as a breeze came up.
“I want to know why my grandfather made these things. I also wanna know what’s up with that painting? My GOD,” exclaimed Lenora. “I just didn’t see it coming. How it felt, I mean.”
“Kind of like a mystery to solve…or, like a hundred of them,” he said.
“Yeah,” Lenora nodded.
A breeze dislodged a lock of her hair from behind her ear. James exhaled.
“It’s not going to be here much longer,” he said.
“Oh…yeah,” Lenora agreed, with a note of uncertainty.
“Do you think there’s a key to that room upstairs?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “Hidden somewhere, I bet.”
“Under that fake baby,” James suggested.
“Ew, good call, who’d wanna search there?” Lenora frowned.
He looked back at the dragon claw doorknob. His mom would
“Do you want to meet here next Saturday?” he asked. “Like, two o’clock?”
She tucked the lock of hair behind her ear, breathed in and out, deep and slow.
“Absolutely,” she said.