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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/SunHeadPrime on 2025-07-12 00:16:28+00:00.

"That's my childhood home."

I wasn't turning down the street I grew up on. I wasn't standing near the large oak in the front yard of the house where I'd lost all my baby teeth. I wasn't sitting inside the kitchen, where, on my fifteenth birthday, I accidentally dropped the cake my mom had baked, which made my family laugh so hard that we shed tears. No. I was holding an oil painting at a Goodwill on the other side of the country.

"That can't be possible," my husband said.

"It can be possible, Parker, because I'm holding the flipping painting and telling you."

"One, language. Two, can I say something without you jumping down my throat?" Parker asked, his voice even.

"Yes," I said.

"Is there an outside chance that this just looks like your childhood home? I mean, you grew up in the burbs. A lot of cookie-cutter homes, no?"

I hated to admit he had a point. But as I stared at the house, I couldn't come around to that line of thinking. This was my house. Hell, the roses in the flower beds were the same size and color as I remembered them. "No. I mean, I hear you and you're not off base. But, dude, this is my house." I pointed at the porch. "I broke that railing trying to do a ballet spin and fell into the bushes."

"You? Miss Two Left Feet? Senorita Trips-a-lot? Tried to do a ballet spin?"

"To be fair, I did the spin. I just didn't stick the landing."

"A minor detail in the world of dance. The landing part."

"I landed…on the bushes right here," I said, pointing to the painting. "Hold on, I have to send a photo to my mom."

"Does she have old house photos?"

"Of course she does. You've met her, right?"

I had Parker hold the painting and snapped a few pictures. I sent them over to Mom and asked if she had a photo to compare it to. The message came back a minute later. "OMG! That's our house! Weird." Another ding brought us a house photo. It looked exactly like the artwork in my hand.

I showed Parker. "Christ," he said. "That's it."

"Told you."

"That's wild. Is it a print or a real painting?"

I ran my hand across the art. There was a palpable texture to the brush strokes. Sometimes, a print may have varnish applied to give the impression of brushstrokes. This wasn't that. "I think this is real, but let me check something else," I said, walking toward the wall of ugly lamps.

I turned on a lamp and held the painting in front of the bulb. Some artists will draw the picture first in pencil before painting. Sometimes, you can see those marks when you hold it up to the light. Staring at the oak tree in the painting, I saw graphite streaks underneath.

"It's real," I declared.

"Who painted it?"

A slash of red paint in the corner mimicked a signature, but Parker and I stared at it as if it were written in Minoan Linear A. Parker traced the paint with his finger. Forwards and backwards. "The first name may be George or Jeff? I think George. Look at how it flows." He retraced the letters, and it made sense to me.

"Okay, what's the last name?"

"Hell if I know."

I tried Parker's finger tracing. It felt like I was tracing a line drawing by someone with too much caffeine in their system. These didn't seem like actual letters.

"Might be Moffit," a soft voice said from behind us.

We turned and saw that a Goodwill employee had materialized. She was a short, frail-looking elderly woman with a hairstyle that resembled a well-constructed cumulus cloud in both color and shape.

"Moffit?" I said.

"I think that's an 'm'," she said, pointing to two humps. "Then it kind of circles into an 'o' and the double fs. The 'I' and the 't' are somewhat stylized, I think. Artists being artists."

I looked and, yeah, it kinda looked like Moffit. "I can see it. George Moffit, you think?"

"I do. Beautiful piece. Don't you think?"

"Yes," I said. "It looks exactly like the house I grew up in." I showed her the photo my mom sent.

"How strange!"

"Right? I grew up across the country. Why is this even here?"

"When I was younger, there was a company that would paint your home for you."

"Painters?" Parker deadpanned.

"Ignore him," I said. "He doesn't know how to act in public."

She laughed. "I understand. I have one just like him at home. That's why he's at home."

I laughed. "You're teaching and I'm taking notes, ma'am."

"Anyway, they would come paint portraits of your house. It was a thing for a few years. This looks like one of those. There may be a company name on the back, under the frame."

I flipped the painting over and gingerly removed the frame. Sure enough, there was a small, faded sticker that read "Cozy Home Portraits Company." There wasn't any other information. I made an impressed noise. "Look at that. Have a jumping off point to find out what this is all about. Thank you so much…."

"Marge."

"Marge, thank you. Sorry again for this guy."

"Marge, please forgive me. You're a gentlewoman and a scholar."

Marge leaned into him and nodded at me. "You're punching above your weight with her, kiddo. Keep her happy."

Parker laughed, wrapped his arm around my hip, and pulled me in for a hug. "Marge, that's the best advice I've ever received from a Goodwill employee."

"If only your barber had given you good advice. You could've avoided that haircut."

I burst out laughing. Parker did too. "Marge, I hope to grow up to be just like you."

"You found a guy who can take a joke. That's a start. You guys wanna get that or still debating?"

I looked at Parker, and he nodded. "How can we not get this? Even if it's just for the story."

Marge smiled. "See, you can learn. Come on, kids. I'll ring you up."

When I got home, I immediately began researching the Cozy Home Portraits Company. I had a hard time finding anything. Most of the search results were links to people on Reddit asking the same questions. Apparently, there were a lot of folks like me who were surprised to find their childhood homes immortalized on canvas. One commenter said something that stuck with me.

"Parker, listen to this," I said, reading the post. "My mom says she remembers someone approaching her and asking if they could take a photo so they could paint the house later. She told them no at first, but they said they'd do it for no cost. Mom agreed and assumed she'd get the painting at some point, but she never heard from the company again."

"What's the next commenter say?"

"This sounds fake," I read. "Kind of a dickish response, no?"

"It's Reddit," he said, shrugging. "Maybe they just used the houses for inspiration and sold the paintings to commercial houses for reproductions?"

"Then why bother involving the homeowners at all?"

"Maybe to assuage their worries of someone standing outside their home snapping photos of their house?" Parker suggested.

"I mean, anyone could take a photo of our house, and I'd have no idea unless I saw them do it."

"True. It's weird, I'll grant you, but I think I'm on the right track. Commercial art. Americana stuff. That was to be it."

He may have been onto something, but that answer didn't feel right. I couldn't work out the logic. If this company had been around for a while and painted portraits of homes all across the country for commercial sale, why wasn't there any record of them? No stories online. No official business records. No known CEO or lists of artists or anyone. Hell, even searching for the name George Moffit didn't yield results.

My mind told me there was something off about this. A sense of dread loomed over the whole thing. I let it marinate all day to see if I'd reconsider. Shocking no one, I didn't. I told Parker as much as we got ready for bed.

"You're reacting that way because of what's happening in the world right now," Parker said, yawning. "There are real evil people out there, but they aren't painting pictures."

"Hitler painted pictures," I said.

He gave me a deadpan stare. "You know what I mean."

"I just can't let it go. It's odd. Odd that it was done at all. Odd that it traveled all the way out here. Odd that I found it. Odd stacked on odd stack on odd."

"Turtles all the way down."

"What?" I said, crinkling up my face. "What do turtles have to do with anything?"

He laughed. "Nothing. Just a dumb expression." He yawned again. "Why is this bothering you so much?"

"Some random company painted and sold pictures of my childhood house with no one knowing about it. It's…."

"Odd," he said with a smile.

"Very. It's just not sitting right with me."

Parker yawned for a third time. "My melatonin is kicking in here. Get some rest and see how you feel in the morning. Maybe call your mom, see if she has a story to tell. She might know something."

He didn't wait for my response. Instead, he rolled over, shut off the lamp, and turned on our sound machine. As digital thunderstorms rolled into our bedroom, I lay down on my pillows but didn't fall asleep. This whole thing smothered my thoughts as much as my weighted blanket did my body.

I would call Mom tomorrow. See what she knew. If anything. I heard light snores coming from Parker's direction and sighed. That man could fall asleep even if the house were on fire. I flipped on YouTube, found something to help me sleep, and closed my eyes.

Or would have, if I hadn't seen our front porch light turn on.

A cold touched my brain and froze the rest of my body. The light going off didn't mean a prowler was trying to jimmy open our lock. It could be a bug flying too close to the sensor or a sleepwalking squirrel. Improbable? Sure, but...

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