The painting

Ethan walks over, uncovering the painting.

It's old. Really old. Ethan has two credits in art history that tell him that. What common sense tells him is that it's also incomplete, the bottom half of it a rough sketch.

It looks like a family portrait, with eight figures present. Three of them are only outlined in sketch form, those lines faded with time, impossible to read, but the other five are clear, but lack some finer detail.

Five women, all finely dressed stare back at Ethan. He changes his mind about it being a family portrait, the five women made up of a few different races. Two are white, one tall and blond, the other short with rusty hair and freckles. One woman is clearly black, although her features are a bit less filled in than the rest. A fourth woman is darker skinned as well, but Ethan can't guess her ethnicity in the low light of the room. He thinks Indian, but he's not sure. The last woman is clearly East Asian, Chinese or maybe even further east.

Looking at the other three rough outlines, he thinks two more of them might also be women, but the one is definitely a man, seated in the middle with all of them surrounding him.

"Huh..." Ethan thinks he knows what this is.

"Find their ghosts?"

Ethan jumps. "FUCK!" He turns, seeing Alex standing there, holding the blanket around her like a robe. "What the fuck!?"

"You took too long! I came to save you!"

"Well... Thanks? But fuck... Don't sneak up on me!"

"I was trying not to alert the ghosts!"

"There are no..." Ethan rubs his brow. "It was the window. Okay? Anyways," he turns to the painting. "These who I think they are?"

Alex looks at the painting frowning. "Yeah... Those are the mothers of Green Valley."

The two of them stare at the painting for a moment.

"They don't..." Ethan shrugs, "Look like sex slaves?"

"This was a rough copy," Alex frowns, "In the final one they're all naked."

"Oh..." Ethan cringes slightly, but also wonders where he could see it.

Sighing, Alex rubs her brow. "They weren't slaves..."

"Oh..." Ethan suddenly feels less weird about wanting to see the final draft. "Why did you-"

"Eh, the whole Harem thing is just gross." She frowns, "Truth is those ladies loved that old pervert. Even if they did cheat on him like fucking crazy."

"How do you know?"

"Hm? Well, shit, look at the town. If they weren't sleeping aroun-"

"No," Ethan shakes his head. "That they loved him."

"Oh..." Alex shrugs. "Few of them kept private journals, even after the old man died. Most of it reads like 16th-century Penthouse forum shit, but..." she shakes her head. "They really did love him."

"You read their journals? How? Why?"

"Library has copies. Women like me..." she clears her throat, "And not so much like me... We read them sometimes to help us kinda... Know our roots." Reaching out, she points to the tall blonde woman. "I'm descended from her..." and moves her finger, pointing to the East Asian woman. "And her."

"You're Asian?"

Alex snorts. "Shush." She gives Ethan a small smile. "We should head back... Finish what we started. You being all brave kinda put me in the mood..."

Ethan agrees, but he gives the painting one more look over.

Who is he descended from?