Written by: Sakura_Kinomoto
20/7. The Mysterious Painting
It's night at the museum and the security guard is making his rounds. A shadowy figure moves about outside, unnoticed by the guard. In the Avalon home, Kero is posing for Sakura as she draws him, though he's upset with the result. The next day, Sakura's class is at the museum for a drawing lesson. Madison and Sakura settle before a sculpture when Sakura suddenly screams; Kero had drawn over her original art.
Later on, while looking for the courtyard, Sakura sees a boy before a painting. A guard yells at said boy because he was trying to cut the painting. He tells Sakura his father, Douglas Mills, painted it and he was trying to fix it as someone had painted over his father's work. The original painting was named "The Smile". She thought the painting had moved and everything suddenly went quiet. The boy is then dragged away by the guard. Madison meets up with Sakura and she tells her about what happened. The former thinks it may have been a Clow card.
That night, Sakura sneaks out of her window and lands in the tree. Julian catches her in the act and she covers by saying she wanted to see stars. He's there to find Tori and he promises not to tell her brother. In Madison's van, Sakura changes as Madison tapes her and Kero says it's the Silent card. They sneak into the museum and hear a noise. That was caused by some figure below them. It was the boy from earlier and Sakura recognizes him. He's surprised when she calls him by name: Alex Mills. She saw his name on the name tag from before.
They talk about why he was there. His father had already passed on and "The Smile" was his final painting, thus the reason Alex wanted to fix it. Sakura offers to help him and Alex refuses. But they help him anyway. As Alex starts walking to it, he starts to yell at the same time Sakura prepares to seal it and they see the painting move. Everything turns still and they are all transported outside to the courtyard. Alex leads them back in and opens his kit. Unfortunately, he accidentally dropped something and they're all transported outside. The third time in, Kero sneezes, though Sakura pretends it's her, and they're sent back out. Madison's alarm rings as Alex runs back in again, but Madison stops Sakura.
The guard sees Alex and catches him. Sakura uses Shadow to knock into the guard and he loses his grip on the boy. Alex runs away and the guard continues to chase him. Sakura seals the card. The guard returns, sees the painting, get scared and runs. Alex also returns, saddened. Then Madison and Sakura show him the painting restored. The painting is now of a girl that looks just like Alex. He moves forward, happy, and his hat falls off, revealing a girl with long hair. Sakura apologizes for calling him a boy and they all bid farewell to each other as they leave the museum. Far away, there's a figure on a rooftop, illuminated by the moon. Holding a lasin board, he says there's a Clow card nearby.