I told myself I was imagining things.
Photographs didn't change.
Dead girls couldn't look at you.
And whatever my grandmother meant by "she came back," there had to be a reasonable explanation.
Then I noticed the boy.
He was standing in the background of the photograph, beneath the old apple tree.
I had never seen him before.
He looked about twelve.
His clothes were dark, and his face was hidden in shadow.
I brought the photograph closer to the lamp.
The boy seemed to be looking toward Clara.
I turned the photograph over.
There was something written on the back.
Four words.
SHE WASN'T THE ONE.
My stomach tightened.
I immediately called my mother.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Mom, who was Clara?"
Silence.
Then she said, "Where did you hear that name?"
"Grandma told me."
Another silence.
"Listen to me," she said. "You need to stop asking questions."
"Why?"
"Because some things in our family were buried for a reason."
"Who was the boy in the photograph?"
She hung up.
I called again.
She didn't answer.
The next morning, I went back to my grandmother's house.
She wasn't in the kitchen.
I found her sitting in the garden beneath the apple tree.
For the first time, I noticed that she looked very old.
Older than she had the day before.
"Tell me the truth," I said.
She looked at the tree.
"Clara was my little sister. She was ten years old when she disappeared."
"What happened?"
"We were playing outside. I was fourteen. Our parents were inside preparing dinner."
She swallowed.
"Clara wanted to show me something."
"What?"
"A little boy."
My heart stopped.
"The boy in the photograph?"
She nodded.
"He used to appear near the tree. Clara said he was her friend."
"Who was he?"
"We didn't know."
"Then what happened?"
Grandmother's eyes filled with tears.
"One evening, Clara followed him into the woods."
"Did she come back?"
"No."
"The police?"
"We searched for weeks."
"And then?"
"Three months later, they found her dress."
My throat tightened.
"Just the dress?"
Grandmother nodded.
"Near the river."
I looked toward the old apple tree.
"Then why is she in this photograph?"
My grandmother's face changed.
"That photograph was taken six years after Clara disappeared."
I couldn't breathe.
"What?"
"That's why we destroyed every copy."
I looked at the photograph in my hand.
"But this one survived."
"No," she whispered.
"It was never supposed to exist."
A cold wind moved through the branches above us.
I heard something.
A child's laughter.
I turned around.
There was nobody there.
When I looked back at my grandmother, she was staring at the photograph.
"She's back," she whispered.
"Who?"
"Clara."
The photograph suddenly felt heavy in my hand.
I looked down.
Clara was still standing beside the apple tree.
But the boy was no longer looking at her.
He was looking at me.