“Why?”
“Because of how we play. Because of who we are.”
Gretchen was stunned by what they’d said, but tried to remain focused.
“Do you know Mona?” Gretchen asked. “Do you play with Mona in the mirror?”
“No Mona,” Rebecca said. “Mona wants us to leave; she can’t fix anything anymore.”
“Why does the house need fixing?” Gretchen asked.
Celia reached out and scratched Gretchen’s face savagely with her tiny nails, and Gretchen gasped in pain, held her hand to her cheek, and felt the wet trickle of blood.
“Bad pictures,” she said, “bad house.” Rebecca laughed at what Celia had said, and three oily-looking gray moths flew out of her mouth, fluttering about the room. Celia made a game of skipping around her friend trying to catch them; she plucked one out of the air and tore its wings off, making Rebecca laugh louder. Her voice was now lovely and musical and full of joy, like a child at play, not some kind of demon bent on causing pain.
Suddenly they turned their heads in unison, as if called by something Gretchen couldn’t hear. Their faces contorted with confusion or rage or fear, she couldn’t tell which, and they ran out of the room whispering their awful chant. Sufferus sufferus . . .
When Gretchen turned back around, the walls were as they’d been before, covered with nothing more than Esther’s photographs: pictures of fires, wars, children. But the stench remained.
“Bad pictures,” Gretchen whispered to herself, touching the stinging scratch on her face, two cameras now hanging around her neck. “And now they’re all mine.”
Esther’s collection of the dead, of the terrible things men did, was like the precursor to Mona’s ghost photographs. Both of them were missing the living, the here and now. They were letting the past devour the future.
She found an empty box beneath the light table and began tearing down the pictures, sweeping them off the wall with her arm onto the floor or into the box.
The car horn beeped again outside, but she was too far away and deep in the house to simply yell out the window. She hurried, trying to get as many pictures into the box as she could.
Then her blood went cold in her veins. Something was dragging, slithering along the hall. Then the sound of hooves—not tiny hooves like the night before, but clomping like a policeman’s horse on the street. She hurriedly filled the box and then stood before the door, her heart pounding; she threw the door open in time to see a grizzled naked old man with a beard and a tattered hat, his eyes yellowed and bloodshot, the irises burning orange. He had a lecherous smile and was pulling a sack of something behind him down the hall. In front of the stairs, a large beast paced back and forth, licking its teeth. It had the legs of a horse and a pointed head and black hollow eyes, but underneath its body was covered with white tattered feathers, and beneath those it seemed to be made of mud. Its face was hideous, human and terrifying. Its mouth a long thin purple line. She stood perfectly still, hoping whatever world this thing came from, it was incapable of sensing her. The car horn blared again and then she heard the sound of a door opening and closing.
Hands trembling, she picked up the Nikon and shot picture after picture, getting closer to it. When she put her camera to her eye all she could think about was composing the shot. Not what it was or what it was going to do, but how to capture its image. The camera was like a weapon, something that she could destroy the creature with, something to prove to herself that it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t hurt anyone, that it was only a shadow of the lingering evil in the world.
It sniffed at the air and looked around, not concerned with her. It seemed to be listening to something far away, then it headed down the hall toward the darkroom.
Clutching her box of photos, Gretchen ran downstairs as fast as she could. As she got to the second-floor landing she saw Hawk headed back up, looking worried. She ran into his arms, breathing hard.
“Are you all right?” Hawk asked. “Are you . . . I’m sorry I didn’t come with you. I’m so . . .”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine, got some good shots.” She was still shaken, but suddenly exhilarated, thrilled to have seen even a small glimpse of her mother, ready to shoot more pictures. Escaping danger felt like it was in her blood.
“C’mon,” Hawk said, grabbing the box from her, and they raced down the stairs, skidding across the porch and tumbling onto the lawn.
★ THE MAYVILLE EXPRESS ★
Reporting Above the Fold Since 1820 ? July 27, 1864
LYNCHING EXPECTED AT 5 O’CLOCK THIS AFTERNOON