The Ghost in the Night

In the bed, I wrap the blankets around me like a cocoon and drift in and out of sleep for a few hours until I hear footsteps in the hall. The guests are turning in for the night, which means my work is about to begin. First, I need to find out which room belongs to Charles.

I creep out of my room and tiptoe down the hallway until I reach a corner. On the other side is a grandfather clock. Its hands tell me it’s half past eleven, and I press my back against the wall beside it. The ticking of the pendulum seems to beat with the rhythm of my heart. Small wooden tables covered with lamps and decorations line the hallway. There’s a metal vase on one, and I can see a reflection of the stairs from around the corner. Guests of the Society pass by, nodding at me, saying good night, and I wait, watching the polished silver until I see Charles’s head rise from the steps. He’s holding a book in one hand and a candle in the other. The light glows against his dark skin, and he stumbles down the hall, absorbed in his reading, not looking where he’s going until he reaches a familiar spot. He turns into his room and—

Click. I capture the door in my memory.

That’s where the camera supplies are, and that’s where I’ll need to go.

For now, I return to my room and lie in bed, forcing myself not to drift off. The grandfather clock doesn’t chime at night, so I wait an hour, maybe two, until the house is quiet.

Now is the time.

I slink back into the hallway, but it’s silent now, except for the wind in the trees outside, and in my stocking feet, I am as soft as the passing breeze. Each floorboard is different, but I know them now. They’re familiar friends. I start each step with my big toe, then follow with the ball of my foot, then the heel. I test each board before setting my full weight down, moving in slow motion. Blood pounds in my ears.

When Charles’s door is in reach, I press my ear against it and listen to his soft breathing. I turn the knob and lean in. He’s sprawled on his stomach, and the moon shines through the window and casts a soft light on the side of his face.

His bedroom is the same shape as mine, but a bit smaller, and it’s clear he’s lived here for a while and doesn’t keep it as clean as the guest rooms. The dust makes my nose itch and I close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out, trying not to sneeze. There’s a pile of clothes stacked on a chair and a dresser under the window. A folded paper bag sits beside it. It’s just the right size, and I slink forward, timing each step to Charles’s snores. What will I do if he wakes up and sees me? He’d tell Ms. Eldridge and then everything would be ruined. It’s hard to believe your whole life can hinge around one little moment. I look at the heavy bronze lamp in the corner. I’d have to—

No. No, I couldn’t hurt him. Best not to think of those things.

My hand curls around the bag and I unfold it, each tiny sound seeming as loud as thunder. Finally, it’s open wide enough that I can peek in.

A pocketknife. A hardback book and a tortoiseshell comb. A small, framed photograph of Margaret. Some pennies and a lone nickel. Nothing’s ever easy.

I open the top drawer and shuffle through his clothes, letting my hands feel for shapes.

Not here.

The next drawer down reveals similar results, same with the one below it and the next, but then in the final drawer, under a pile of clothes, I feel a box wrapped in paper. I know what it is from the touch. I pull it out, softly, and move to the door. Charles stops snoring and I freeze in place, but then he changes positions, and the soft snores continue.

I return to my room, faster now, following the path of silent boards. I reach the bend in the hallway and check the reflection in the silver vase. The hall is empty.

Inside my room, I open the suitcase and slide my fingers over the false bottom, removing the supplies from my Hidden Place to do my work.

I think back to years ago, before I ever doctored a photograph, when we first started living with Mr. Spencer.

It was a warm spring night, not at all like today. The windows in our rented room were open, crickets were singing, and the air smelled like sweet flowers.

“Look at this,” Mr. Spencer said. He pulled an image from a box and slid a picture of a woman over to me.

“This is Mrs. Turner. Died last month in childbirth. Her husband owns a business in town. I think there may be some money for us if we’re smart.”

“What do you mean?” I whispered.

He sat across the table from me and pulled a knife out of his shirt pocket. He smiled. I never saw him smile before, and there was something unsettling about how it looked on his face.

“What do you say we give them one last picture?”

He started to cut, tracing around her hair, her ears, her jaw. His hand was shaking hard that day, and his work was unsteady and rough. He slipped, making a long gash down the side of the woman’s dress.

“Let me try,” I said, and he slid the knife and paper over to me as if that had been his plan all along. He pulled out his pipe and a bag of tobacco and filled the bowl, tamping it down with his pinkie.

I cut around Mrs. Turner’s face, fixing the jagged edges left over from Mr. Spencer’s work until I could lick the tip of my finger and press it to the image, lift it up and away.

“Here.”

“Beautiful,” he said, taking her head and laying it on a thick wooden board that had been painted black. “Well?”

“What are we making?” I asked, still not understanding.

“A ghost,” Mr. Spencer said.

John watched from the corner. He came beside me, leaning forward so he could see above the table.

“Ain’t look like no ghost,” John said.

“No, it doesn’t look right,” I said. He hadn’t been in school for months at that point, and he was picking up bad habits from Mr. Spencer’s friends.

“Well then, what do you suggest?” Mr. Spencer asked.

I smiled devilishly at John, too caught up in creation to think through the harm. “Mr. Spencer, you got any cotton?”

“What are you doing?” John whispered in my ear, but I pushed him away.

Mr. Spencer stood and returned with a mason jar half full of cotton balls, and I pulled one out and started ripping it apart between my hands, twisting the strands. I laid it beneath the head like the stick of a lollipop.

“Ah,” Mr. Spencer said.

“Needs to wrap around it more,” John said. “Like she’s floating.”

I moved the pieces around, shaping the cotton around her hair, creating the rough shape of her body, fading away to the ground and ending in a twirl of white.

“They call that ectoplasm,” Mr. Spencer said, leaning back in his chair and grinning. He lit a match, sucked deeply on his pipe, and blew out smoke, the fine white cloud circling his head. “Say it’s spiritual energy.”

“Who says?” I asked.

“Spiritualists.”

That was the first time I ever heard that word. “Who are they?”

“Fools who will believe they can talk to the dead, and will pay a good amount to be lied to. I happen to know Mr. Turner is a believer.”

He twisted the knob on the lantern and the light dimmed. My eyes adjusted to the faint light from the moon.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, opening a box and holding up a square of glass.

I shake my head.

“This is a photographic plate,” he said, tracing his fingers along the edge. “It’s coated with chemicals. When the camera lens focuses light on the surface, it bakes it into the glass. Watch.”

Mr. Spencer slid the plate into the camera and turned the knob again, so the flame danced in the lantern. He propped the board with my picture and cotton creation against the wall and arranged the lantern to the side, just enough to make the whole thing glow.

He framed it in the camera and twisted the lens.

“When things are out of focus, people see what they want,” he said.

Click.

He held out his fingers, counting out how long the shutter was open, collecting a hint of light, just enough to leave faint shapes on the photographic plate.

“What’s he doing?” John asked.

“Come. I’ll take your portrait,” Mr. Spencer said.

“John too? I’d like one of us together,” I asked.

He growled and waved at us to follow him to a room with a curtain draped across the wall as a backdrop, and he arranged the chair and placed the tripod in front of me.

“Sit,” he said, and I obeyed. I always obeyed, never questioned. John sat close to me.

Mr. Spencer removed a Victor flashlamp from a box. It was metal and shaped like a T. A wire connected it to the camera’s shutter. He unscrewed a little glass bottle full of flash powder and poured a measured amount into a trough at the top. He aimed the camera at us, the glass lens looking like the single black eye of a cyclops, then held up his hand and—

Click.

The shutter opened and an electric current raced through a wire, ignited the powder in the flash and—

Boom!

Smoke and a shower of sparks filled the room for a moment, but the smell of burning chemicals was strong and lingered.

Mr. Spencer retreated to his darkroom, worked on the plates, mixed chemicals in trays, and developed the image. Later, he emerged with a paper in his hand. It was an image of me and John, with the spirit of Mrs. Turner seemingly wrapped around our shoulders.

“It’s a double exposure,” he explained. “Like magic.”

I stared in awe at what I had created. With the face and cotton out of focus, my imagination filled in the rest, turning the blurred shapes into familiar figures. Even though I knew the face belonged to Mrs. Turner, when I squinted, it almost looked like our mother.

When things are out of focus, people see what they want.

It took us a few weeks to figure out how much flash powder to use for the portrait and how long the exposure of the face on the black-painted board should be, but I’ve still kept that photo with me ever since. It’s the only picture I have of me and John since our parents died, a reminder of how this started, how Mr. Spencer used my creation to create another double exposure, then called on Mr. Turner the next day and took his picture. He charged him five times the normal fee for him to see his wife’s spirit. Word spread quickly and so did our business. Our new life was created, traveling from place to place, stealing what we could and lying when it suited us, until we ended up here.

Tonight is another one of those little moments that can change everything. If I don’t change the plates, nothing else will matter. I get to work, hoping I can finish in time to sleep. There’s a book of matches on the windowsill and I light the lantern and uncurl the stolen package from Charles’s room. Inside is a box of ten photographic plates, and I scrape off the piece of tape that seals it and place it on my bed frame.

I flip through my stack of photos, hunting for bland faces, a mixture of men and women, ones that could pass as anyone. No kids, not yet anyway, not when we don’t know who we will be photographing. Keep it safe. Everyone’s lost an adult.

This one’s good. And this one. No, not that one. The birthmark on her face is too obvious. This one’s perfect. This one. Yes, this one too.

The stack of pictures grows, and when I have enough, I start to cut, creating ghosts, moving fast.

There’s a sound in the hall and a thumping down the stairs. I freeze, waiting to pounce on my work if someone enters my room.

Outside, a shadow moves across the lawn, entering the outhouse. Steam rises from the door.

I blow out the lantern, wait till they’re back inside to relight it and then move it to my bed and prop up the black-painted board, arranging the paper ghosts on its surface. The glass plates slide smoothly into my camera and I extend the bellows, frame the picture in front of the lens, twist the lens just slightly out of focus, hold in my breath, and—

Click.

A faint exposure, hardly visible, then on to the next one, then the next, allowing the shutter to stay open long enough to gather up the faint echoes of light.

Hours pass, and I continue working until all the photographic plates have been used, then leave drops of candle wax on the corner of each of the plates—one drop for the women and two for the men—a sign Mr. Spencer taught me. Then I pull the tape from my bed frame and reseal it, slide it back into the bag and curl down the edges, just like I found it.

Outside, the bottom of the sky has changed from dark black to a faint blue. My heart beats fast. I place my tools in my Hidden Place and camera on top, place the top back on and cover it with clothes.

The hall is silent now and I sneak back to Charles’s room and crack open the door. He’s still asleep, thank goodness, so I move directly to the bottom drawer and put the package back under his clothes.

I was never there.

Tiptoeing back down the hall, I stop in front of the silver vase. In the reflection, a shape moves at the end of the hall—the silhouette of a woman. It almost looks like two white eyes staring at me, beneath a nest of cotton-colored hair. A draft blows across my arm, and I don’t move. Don’t breathe.

The reflection is distorted, but the woman is too small to be Ms. Eldridge. Could it be Margaret? Or someone else?

I step forward, and before my eyes the shadows bleed into the wall. I blink in disbelief, and the shape seems to vanish. Yesterday, spots appeared in my vision when George shone his flashlight in my eyes. Things can appear that aren’t really there.

Back in my room, I jump into bed and pull the blankets over my head.

Deep in the house, I can hear John coughing, a soft, wet rattle that echoes in my head.