By three o’clock, I’d filled seven boxes with Grandmother’s china and was questioning why anyone would ever need forty-seven serving plates! The rest of the family wouldn’t be arriving until tomorrow, leaving me to tackle the dining room alone. That’s when I found the photograph wedged behind the dresser—our last family gathering here, taken in the back garden five summers ago.
I smiled, recognising myself among the cousins arranged on the stone steps. Grandmother seated proudly in the centre, the old apple tree framing us all. But something felt wrong with the composition. A shadow too sharp in the background, disrupting the neat family lines.
I propped the frame on the mantelpiece and returned to wrapping plates.
An hour later, carrying another box to the hallway, I glanced back at the photograph. The shadow had definition now—a tall figure in what looked like a long black coat, standing beneath the apple tree. Ragged edges where fabric met air. I moved closer, squinting at the background.
“Probably just a visitor who didn’t want to be in the shot,” I muttered, though I couldn’t remember anyone else being there that day.
By evening, my back ached and my hands were grey with dust. The house felt unnaturally quiet—no birds singing outside, no settling creaks from the old timbers. Just silence pressing against the windows as daylight faded.
I paused in the dining room doorway, looking once more at the photograph. My breath caught.
The figure had moved closer. Much closer. Now it stood just behind our family group, that ragged coat almost touching my cousin Sarah’s shoulder. The face remained hidden in shadow, but something about its posture—the way its head tilted at an impossible angle—made my scalp tighten.
I grabbed the photograph, hands trembling as I studied every detail. We were all exactly as I remembered: Grandmother’s blue dress, Uncle Pete’s ridiculous moustache, my own nervous smile. But this thing that hadn’t been there, couldn’t have been there, now loomed over us all.
Outside, full darkness had fallen. Inside, the photograph seemed to pulse with its own terrible life.
I set it face-down on the mantelpiece and reached for my car keys. Behind me, glass creaked against wood as something shifted in the frame.
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