Page 64 of My Darling Girls

“Smile, girls,” Ada drawls. “You seem all backed up. Not a good look for my dolls.”

A few produce tight smiles that never reach their eyes.

Jo looks over her camera. “No need to smile. Do what feels right.” She might be waging a war by contradicting Ada, but she doesn’t care. She wants to capture the girls just like they are—tense and vulnerable and young. Ada frowns, but there is a collective sigh from the girls, and Jo smiles. “Much better.”

Ada snorts but doesn’t say anything else.

A chilly breeze blows through the room. It curls around Jo, and the hair on the back of her neck stands up. The breeze carries the stench of something sweet, a drop of some flowery perfume, and spoiled meat. The odor thickens and twists and curdles in the air like sickness. The girls stare at the camera, and Jo knows she must take a picture, but her fingers won’t move. Has she made a mistake coming here? Maybe she should’ve asked Grace for more time? They could’ve asked Finn to help. Why hadn’t they asked Finn?

She needs to get a grip on her nerves. There is no time to waste.

Jo takes a half step back to give herself more distance, a better angle, and when she looks through the lens, there are not seven but eight girls in the frame.

Sally stands in the back, the last in line of three girls. Jo’s heart leaps from her chest when Sally tilts her head and looks right at the camera, a slow smile coiling her lips around her bloodless gums. There’s a quick flash of teeth. A swollen, blackened tip of the tongue. Sally’s head rolls to the side, but with a quick and powerful jerk, she straightens it. She keeps smiling and smiling, her gaze stuck on the camera.

Jo’s hands shake so violently, she almost drops her Kodak. The room is too small. Suffocatingly so. The reek of rot is too thick. Too pungent.

I don’t want to look backed up. A strained whisper.

Jo gulps for air. Her knees are weak. She can barely hold herself upright.

“Is everything all right?” Ada asks quietly from her corner. “Is your camera not working?”

The girls turn in unison and look at Ada, then at Jo. Lula stirs in her seat, uncrosses her ankles, and raises an eyebrow at Jo.

“The camera’s fine,” Jo pushes out with a great effort. Only seven girls are at the table. No sight of a pale, grinning ghost with a bruised neck and a swollen tongue. “I’m trying to find the right angle.” She shouldn’t be as frightened as she feels. But there’s something crawling on her skin, like tiny spider legs, and the familiar bone-deep chill slithers around her spine, and she knows. If she looks through the camera, she’ll see Sally standing with the girls, waiting for Jo to snap a picture.

Jo lifts the camera closer. Closer. Teeth clasped against the fear, fingers tingling, she pushes it to her face. She stares through the lens.

Sally folds her arms across her chest. Her eyes are deeply socketed, rimmed with shadows. Dread spikes in Jo’s veins, but she holds on to her camera, her grip unnaturally strong.

Take the picture already. Ada’s weary.

Sally winks, pushes her locks away from her face, and rolls her shoulders. Her head dips to the side at a sharp angle. Jo tries not to look too closely at the girl’s warped neck and the white bone cutting through the skin. Sally presses her hand to the side of her face and forcefully pushes her head to the vertical position.

I don’t have much time. Please, Jo, take the damn picture.

“I’m trying,” Jo grits through her teeth. “I’m really trying.”

“What are you saying?” Ada asks from her corner. Her voice is razor sharp. “What are you trying, Josephine? What are you really trying to do?”

She knows. “I’m trying to focus,” she says.

Ada laughs. It’s a short laugh, but it’s bitter and loaded with anger.

Jo digs her fingers into the camera to keep it steady. She must pull herself together, but it’s unnerving to think of the ghost who stepped out of the shadows to be in the picture with the girls.

Jo takes a long, drawn-out breath and looks through the lens. Sally is still there, a bit faded and a bit more translucent. Gray shadows move under her skin like worms. Sally puts her hands on Flora’s shoulders, and Flora shifts awkwardly in the chair as if sensing her presence. Sally grins at Jo again, no tongue this time, and two dimples appear in her sunken cheeks.

Jo fills the frame with the girls. Shutters click.

Jo takes three more pictures in rapid succession.

I must go now. Thank you, Jo.

Sally’s expression changes from concentration to sadness and then to something so vulnerable, so raw, Jo’s eyes begin to burn.

Tell Grace I’m really sorry. Tell the girls I miss them.