CHAPTER SEVEN: THE EMPTY SPACE IN THE EXHIBIT
At four fifteen, Megan parked behind the Meridian Arts Exchange, a renovated warehouse whose windows glowed gold in the late afternoon.
Helen sat beside her clutching the workshop invitation.
Both women had changed clothes after the tree inspection.
Megan wore black trousers and a dark green blouse.
Helen wore a navy coat that had once been tailored carefully but now hung loose at the shoulders.
“Are you ready?” Megan asked.
“No,” Helen answered.
They went inside anyway.
Sabine Ortiz met them at a side entrance carrying a clipboard and a flashlight.
She was a compact woman with silver-rimmed glasses and the brisk impatience of somebody whose day had been interrupted too often.
“I’m glad you came,” she said.
“Everett has been asking whether you found the pieces.
”
“He will be disappointed,” Megan replied.
Sabine led them along a service corridor past crates and folding display panels.
At the end of the corridor stood a glass cabinet containing a tiny harbor.
The sight stopped Helen in her tracks.
The painted houses were arranged around a curved street.
The lighthouse tower stood near a wooden dock.
Small lanterns glowed behind the windows.
For a few seconds, Helen seemed younger.
“I made those shingles,” she whispered.
Then she pointed sharply.
“But the roof below them isn’t mine.”
Sabine unlocked the cabinet and opened the access panel.
Helen examined the model without touching it.
“The street should turn in three uneven movements,” she said.
“The first is short, the second pauses, and the third brings the bakery past the lighthouse.”
Sabine started the demonstration motor.
The miniature houses moved in one smooth circle.
Helen shook her head.
“That’s not The Last Lantern.”
“It looks convincing from across a room,” Sabine said.
“That’s the problem.”
Megan crouched beside the display.
She could see a narrow opening where something had been attached behind the painted village.
“What belongs there?”
Helen described a small hinged panel showing a family seated around a kitchen table.
When the light turned, shadows passed over the figures so that the room appeared to change from evening to morning.
“It was Iris’s favorite scene,” Helen said.
“She called it the room where nobody leaves.”
Megan looked again at the dark rectangular space.
“Why isn’t it here?”
Sabine hesitated.
“Everett says that panel deteriorated and was discarded.”
Helen’s voice went flat.
“Iris wouldn’t discard it.”
A voice spoke behind them.
“Mrs. Brooks is remarkably confident about events that took place decades ago.”
Everett stood at the corridor entrance with two men in suits.
One carried a tablet, and the other wore a badge naming him as the gallery operations director.
“I asked that visitors wait until six,” Everett told Sabine.
“These are invited technical witnesses,” she replied.
“And they are inspecting an object the public has been told is authentic.”
Everett turned to Megan.
“You brought her here.”
“She came because you asked her to dig up my yard,” Megan answered.
“I offered to compensate you.”
“You tried to have my tree removed.”
The operations director looked sharply at Everett.
“You ordered tree removal?”
“There has been a misunderstanding,” Everett said.
Helen pointed at the harbor.
“Run the sequence with the original lighting.”
Everett did not move.
“The modern controller reproduces the effect.”
“It reproduces the appearance of movement,” Helen said.
“It doesn’t reproduce the movement.”
Megan could hear footsteps approaching from the front gallery.
Guests were already arriving.
Everett lowered his voice.
“You are all making an extraordinary fuss about a children’s toy.”
Helen stepped closer.
“Then why have you spent years trying to make it look like something else?”
For a moment, Everett’s face revealed something unguarded.
He looked not angry but frightened.
Then he recovered.
“The buyer is entitled to decide what matters.”
“And the audience?” Megan asked.
“They are entitled to what the catalog promises.”
The operations director cleared his throat.
“We need a conversation in my office.”
Everett glanced toward the doorway.
“There isn’t time.”
“We’ll make time,” Sabine said.
Before anyone moved, another voice echoed through the corridor.
“Helen Brooks, don’t you dare leave without looking at me.”
An elderly woman in a purple scarf stood beside the open loading door, carrying a long wooden case.
Helen closed her eyes.
“Nadia,” she said.
