They couldn't move from their spots let alone comprehend how such a thing could exist.
"More light...I need more light." Helen finally says and forces her hand down into Max's pants pocket- digging for his phone that she finally finds on the other side of him.
"Hold on..." Max puts the light on and they take a step back to get a better look.
"Give me something to take this rock down!" Helen tries in vain to remove the rocks with her hands and chip away at the porous cement that was clayed over it.
Yet the painting itself is perfectly preserved.
Max looks around, but all there is are boxes full of paperwork. There is no shovel or pick or anything that could be used to scrape away the cement and stone to weaken it.
"Anything in your purse?!" Max asks and Helen has a light bulb moment. Dropping to her knees, she begins digging through her purse and sure enough in the very bottom are two metal rat tail combs with sharp pointed ends. Handing one to Max- they begin to chip and chisel away at the rock- slowly loosening it as they hold their lights in one hand and excavate with the other. "Find a name plate! There has to be one on a painting this size right?!"
"I don't bloody know. A better question is why the hell is it here and covered up?!" Helen chips fast and dust flies throughout the space until they hear a crack from somewhere down the wall.
"Um...back up..."
"It's fine..."
"No—BACK UP!" Max grabs Helen and pulls her from the collapsing rubble that comes falling down towards their ankles. In the dark it sounds like an avalanche, and as they shine their lights back at it, they find the entirety of the pseudo-wall is in a large pile on the floor. As the dust settles, they find a large 60x90 inch painting before them- placed in a gold painted wooden frame- it makes their stomachs twist hard inside them.
Before them is an accurate painting- a life like painting- of Helen standing on a backroad somewhere with a whole in her chest. In the background is Georgia's Red Nissan and Mo's Black Subaru. The Nissan is seems to have a huge hole in the front windshield and father into the picture Ida body laying amongst leaves- but if that wasn't enough to startle them both, in the far corner of the painting is an Angel in the sky that looks like Georgia, and the black and white dog with the heart on its back and the pink nose. The closer Helen looks the more fucks up the picture becomes.
In the whole of the Painted Helen's chest is a key that looks exactly like the one Lauren found in the attic.
"Oh my God...oh...my...my God..." Helen says as she examines her own painted face.
"This is so fucked up. What the fuck?! Who painted this?!" Max growls and they search for a name plate, but they don't find one. As Helen examines it closer, in the bottom corner of the painting are the initials HAW and MMM 2008.
"HAW! That's the art teacher and the person who wrote the letters." Helen says and Max continues to gaze at the entire scene.
"But who's MMM?" Max asks and looks closer at the Angel in the sky. "This was painted in 2008–Georgia died in 2018."
"How can someone...why is this covered up and down here?!" She panics again and Max just shakes his head.
"I don't know...but we should probably head up. We can do some more digging later—maybe read those letters for some answers." He starts walking away, but Helen doesn't move. She notices in Mo's car, she can see her boys' silhouettes as well as Mo's presses to the steering wheel. But why is she out of the car?
Why is she painted so vividly?
"Helen... come on- Honey. We gotta go." He says and she struggles to pull herself away, but she does.
YOU ARE READING
Intertwined
Fanfiction****Alternate Universe: New Amsterdam*** Helen Sharpe has been trying her best to simply keep her head above water. As a single mother of two teenage boys: she has to do all she can to not only keep them from burning their world down, but also find...
