Art Of Our Games

Chirping birds, early morning light glinting off of row after row of tidy windows in a lane of houses, each much like the other. A car engine struggling and sputtering into motion in the cold air, tires crackling slowly away over the off-white pebbles of a driveway. 

06:10 

October 30th, 1975.

A Thursday.

Every morning, Mr. Taylor leaves the house at about 06:15 and walks to the bus stop at the end of the block where the bus that heads downtown arrives at 06:25. On the bus, he sits or stands in silence in the proximity of a red haired woman. At 07:00, Mr. Taylor and said woman get off the bus and spend about 30 minutes in the diner at the corner of Herrison Alley and East Town street, at which point they either take a stroll along the river or, in the case of rain, split up as Mr. Taylor heads to his office on Main Street. 

This is what Callie’s notes say. This is what Mr. Taylor has done every morning for the past week. A man of habit, which she appreciates. She has brought her father’s camera along today, too bulky and annoying to have around her neck at all times. But also compatible with the stupidly expensive zoom lens that might get her a good picture of Mr. Taylor and the mystery woman from outside the diner’s windows. She has had too many close calls from people who (rightly) believed her to be snatching pictures of their private moments to chance whipping out her camera in a diner.

After that, she plans on following the woman long enough to figure out who she is. Then, hopefully, she’ll be able to hand her father the whole file and Mrs. Taylor and her lawyer will be satisfied with it. 

Callie sniffles and shifts in her car seat, muscles sore and stiff after a freezing cold night spent sitting in front of the Taylors' utterly anonymous, well kept house. The wife had reported her husband sneaking out after midnight two nights prior, so Callie had kept watch, but nothing had stirred after the lights had gone out.

She looks at the slate gray sky and yawns.

Boring. This job could be so boring sometimes. Callie’s eyes drift to her cluttered passenger seat, full of street maps, lists of phone numbers and addresses, torn notebook pages, her now empty thermos, and a few open books. One sits atop the rest, glossy pages printed with black and white stills of old movie scenes. She needs to be careful not to spill any coffee or tea on that; it’s due back at the library by the end of the week. 

When she looks up again, Mr. Taylor is walking down the street. 

Callie waits for him to board the bus before turning the key in the ignition, groaning when the old engine whirs loudly but doesn’t start.

“Oh, come on!” she snaps, smacking the steering wheel after the third failed attempt, “You don’t need a new car Callie, the old Ford Falcon is perfectly fine for the job Callie. Then he goes and buys Teddy a fucking Chevelle. Give me a break, Dad.” She grumbles loudly, taking the keys out and inserting them again until finally, miraculously, the engine comes back to life. 

She hurries downtown, only slowing after almost going straight off a curve on the icy road, and parks in front of the mall, a good fifteen minute walk away from the diner. 

Bulky camera bumping against her chest, fancy lens in her bag together with her notebook, she steps out of the car and into the even colder air. Suppressing a shiver as she pulls her brown coat tightly around herself, Callie starts walking briskly, hoping she won’t be too late. 

07:15

Breathing out white puffs that swirl up to catch the sunlight, Callie slows down, looking for the right place to get a good look into the diner’s windows. Mr. Taylor and the redhead sit in approximately the same area each morning and Callie spots them easily. 

Taking a few deep breaths and making a quick effort to look unhurried, she sidesteps into a narrow alleyway opposite the large window, taking advantage of the shadow between buildings to insert the zoom lens. 

The woman is smiling, holding Mr. Taylor’s hand above the table, his expression unreadable. Callie manages to snap a few pictures before he moves the hand away. She hopes they’ll turn out well. She takes another round of pictures five minutes later, as he helps the woman back into her coat before heading out. And then another as they lean their heads close to talk. 

07:35

Callie doesn’t dare take pictures in the open while trailing them on their riverside walk.

The two part ways in front of the tall building where Mr. Taylor works, and Callie makes herself look busy consulting the timetable at a bus stop on the other side of the road.

She keeps walking after the woman, keeping her distance. Mr. Taylor tends to be barely aware of anything around him, so Callie hasn’t been afraid of him noticing an average looking girl walking opposite or behind him. 

Mystery woman might very well have more sense though, so she puts effort into being inconspicuous, blending into the groups of people walking by. They cross Oak Street, and Callie slows down minutely as a series of old newspaper clippings, radio announcements and bits of a police report flash in her mind, so familiar she could recite them by memory. 

Carol and Roger Donovan had lived on that road until the early forties, the last two people to see Elaine Meadows in the summer of 1923. At least, according to any record Callie had been able to find. The actress had apparently disappeared into thin air one night after a dinner out, all of her belongings and valuables she had been traveling with left at her aunt’s house on Oak Street.

The short, impersonal description of her appearance in the police report does her no justice at all: 5’2’’, slender, brown eyes, black hair, shoulder length.

Callie has watched every single film she has been able to find in which Elaine Meadows had made an appearance. 

The glimmering, almost black, large eyes framed by heavy lashes, the upturned nose and prominent cupid’s bow. Every part of her face and body is a marvel. Still, her pretty face wasn’t all that Callie had been captured by, that day in class four years ago. When their Film History professor had shown them the silent film “Peach Blossoms” for the first time, Callie had felt such a strong draw to her, that the quiet chatter of the girls next to her had faded completely away, drowned out by the intensity of her focus on the screen. Even rewatching the same scenes over and over, painstakingly analyzing the lighting, the perspective and significance of the shots, she had not been bored. There was so much elegance in every move of that young actress, in the way her fingers curved, her face turned away to be obscured by the curling hair. So much expression in the set of her shoulders, in the arch of her brow. Callie almost felt no need for words to appear on the screen at all.

She had been heartbroken to find out Elaine had starred in so few productions, disappearing at the apex of her career. 

08:15

Looking down at her watch Callie realizes with a sharp breath that, deep in thought as she was, she had lost track of time, and of place as well. Suddenly the roads she’s walking are unfamiliar. Very few people are around, and there’s so little traffic that she can hear the clacking of high heels from the redheaded woman ahead of her. To hope that she hasn’t been noticed yet would be plain stupid at this point. 

“Aw, shit.” She mutters under her breath, slowing down as she takes in her surroundings. This is bad, this is so bad. The woman stops in front of a butcher’s shop and, with her hand still on the door handle, turns her face just enough to look straight at her. 

The eye contact lasts less than a split second, as she enters the shop, but it leaves Callie choking. She’s screwed this whole thing over. So many hours wasted. Her dad is gonna rip her a new one.

Callie knows she needs to get away immediately, but she hesitates, taking a few steps closer in the wild hope that maybe she could follow the woman inside, ask her questions, figure out who she is and what the nature of her relationship with Mr. Taylor is. But moments later, when she’s close enough to see her own reflection in the darkened shopwindow, a huge man wearing a once-white apron throws the door open, scowling and shouting at her. Callie startles and takes off running. The sound of the man’s heavy footsteps behind her makes her heart thud painfully in her throat. She hadn’t expected to get chased. She’s no athlete, but the man is big and slow, so she’s reasonably confident she can outrun him and quickly hide somewhere. She doesn’t make it far enough for that. Someone rushes out of an alleyway so narrow she hadn’t even noticed it, and slams straight into her side, sending her crashing onto the pavement. 

The force of the impact makes her roll once. Disoriented, she tries to get up to her knees, only for a rough hand to grab her by the hair and slam her face against the cold ground again. 

As her head slowly clears and the pain in the side of her face starts to register, panic rises up her throat, turning her breathing shallow and uneven. Her eyes flit nervously between the man who stopped her from running away, now crouching down in front of her, and the one looming over her, whose face she can’t see. She’s about to scream, but a hand almost as big as her head is suddenly squeezed over her mouth and nose, silencing her. Before she can think any better of it, Callie is already biting down. The hand is withdrawn with a sharp “Fuck!” but immediately after that same hand smacks her in the face so hard her vision goes dark for a moment. Then a knee is driven into her back and her head is forced down harder, the pressure so strong she’s afraid he might just squash her skull.

“Stop that. We don't wanna ruin a pretty face, do we?” the man crouching in front of her says, and the pressure relents just enough for her to think straight. About mid-thirties, brown hair slicked back, a thin moustache, blue eyes, average build, a scar on his chin. 

He smiles at her, but his eyes stay cold, “If you scream, I’ll just have to let him bash your head in.” He stands, and now Callie can only really see his well shined shoes and the slightly frayed hem of his pant legs. 

"Pull her up.” He says and the mountain of a man on top of her finally stops pinning her down with his knee. Instead, she’s roughly lifted off the ground as if she weighs nothing, and made to stand on legs that are much shakier than she had expected. He twists his fist in her hair one more time for good measure.

Half of her face feels raw, the other half slightly numb, and her heart is hammering away in her ears.

“Give me your bag,” the other man says, and when she doesn’t, fingers instinctively clutching around the band across her chest, the man in the apron squeezes her arm so tight she gasps. 

Callie hands the bag over.

“You have been a bit of a pain in the ass, girl. You, and especially your dad.” He says, upturning her bag and letting the contents fall out.

She closes her eyes at the sickening crack from the zoom lens hitting the ground.

When she opens them again, he stomps heavily on her father’s camera, “No! Wait, don't break it!” The large man backhands her in the face when she tries to take a step forward. The movement is so casual she has no time to register it at all before the impact has her nose bleeding and her ears ringing.

The shoe comes down on the camera once, twice, three times, and her breath catches with the last loud crack. 

“I’m sure daddy will buy you a new one,” he says in a mockery of care. Then he takes a step closer, getting right in her face, and she can’t step back because the other man is still squeezing her arm in a deathgrip, twisting it painfully every time she tries to move. 

He looks at her for a while, before leaning in next to her ear and whispering, “Make sure to tell your dad to stop bothering us, or he’ll be sorry.”

When she keeps quiet he grabs her jaw, pulling her face to the side, and she winces as he sinks his thumb into the forming bruise.

“Do you understand?” He asks, squeezing her face with a force that belies the calm of his tone.

Callie nods “Yeah, yeah I understand…”

“Good girl.” he gives her that same cold smile then pats her cheek just hard enough to sting, “If I see you again, you won’t be this lucky.”

He steps back from her, then picks up her notebook from the pile of objects that had been in her bag, “I’ll take this too, just in case.” He says, before walking back into the narrow alleyway he had run out of earlier.

With one last painful twist of her arm, the big man lets her go, and follows him.

Callie stands there for a few seconds until the two are out of sight. Then she wipes her hand under her nose, where the dripping blood is drying. She tries to be quick in gathering her things, not wanting to stay in that street a minute longer than needed, but her eyes fill up with tears as she picks up the broken pieces of the camera. Sniffling furiously, she inserts the dark slide in the thin slot that separates the back of the camera, where the film is stored, from the front, hoping against hope that not all of her pictures are lost. Then she stuffs everything back into her bag and walks away quickly, legs still a little unsteady.

09:15

When she finally, exhausted, circles back to the mall’s parking lot, Callie is fairly certain nobody has been following her. Finding her way hasn’t been too complicated after asking for directions. She’s thankful that the cold is keeping most of the aches in her body in check, but walking around with bruises all over hasn’t been fun. With fingers shaky and slightly numb from the cold, she turns the key. Once again, her car doesn’t start. 

Callie tries to keep it together, but after one more failed attempt she lets go of the steering wheel and presses her hands against her eyes, crying as quietly as she can. Her nose hurts, the whole left side of her face hurts, as does her scraped knee and bruised arm and back, and her stupid car won’t start. Her father’s camera is broken, and so is his lens and she’s just ruined everything. Again. 

She just wants to go home, crawl into bed and hope to dream of Elaine. She hasn’t seen Elaine’s face anywhere else than in a dream or a picture in almost four years. Which is a good thing. Callie knows it’s a good thing. She doesn’t want to go back to catching glimpses of her in people walking down the street, in reflections, in women at the park. 

Dreams are safe, normal people have dreams, she doesn’t have to feel like she’s breaking some rule when dreaming of Elaine.

Her father did the right thing when he gathered all the films she had managed to find, all the old files, all the pictures and posters, and burned them. He did the right thing taking her home from her dorm and not letting her go back after what she had done. Exactly how he had done the right thing and slapped her when she, half delirious with lack of sleep and almost too weak to stand, had screamed and protested and tried to cling on to her roommate. Her roommate, who always smelled like rose water, had freckles across her nose, and whenever she let Callie kiss her, she could hear bells ringing. Her roommate, who got so worried about her she decided to call her father about it. 

Because you can’t refuse to attend lessons for weeks, break into an archive to get some very old files that would have taken you months to get approved to consult, stop eating and sleeping, only drinking coffee to stay up each night rereading the same reports and coming up with new theories until you start seeing people who cannot be there in the first place and then eventually crash, screaming and crying that you need more clues, that you’re sorry you can’t find her. Callie has a very vague recollection of breaking a mirror at some point, a pale scar still runs across the palm of her hand from that.

Those are all things one can’t do and expect no repercussions for.

Callie still wonders where her roommate is sometimes. She never meant to scare her like that. 

9:30

Once she’s mostly done crying, Callie gets out of the car again, wiping at her wet cheeks and shivering slightly in the cold. She walks along the main road till she finds a phoneboot.

As far as she knows her father is still out working, so she doesn’t bother calling home. She dials her brother’s dorm number instead, waits for some kid to pick up, then begs him to ask Theodore Johnson, on the second floor, to call her back at this number.

She waits, standing next to the phonebooth, watching people walk by, for a long while. Long enough she closes her eyes and mindlessly quizzes herself on her surroundings: how many windows does the corner building have? How many street lights along the road? What color are the clothes of the people waiting at the red light? 

She's always been mediocre at this game. Not bad enough to make her father angry, not good enough to make him happy. She’s better at gathering data and observing people. At least she’s supposed to be. 

10:20

Her fingers are so cold they’re beginning to hurt despite being shoved into her pockets, and she’s getting worried her brother might have been somewhere else, or busy, or simply unwilling to put up with her. Then the phone finally rings.

“Cal?” his voice sounds rough and she wonders if he’d been sleeping in.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“So, are you dying or what?” 

“My car won’t start, it’s at the mall’s parking lot, near Brewer’s Street. Can you come pick me up?”

“Why don’t you just take the bus home?”

Because she’s cold, miserable and sore all over, because it’ll take money and over an hour to get home that way and, although she won’t admit it, because she’s still scared after getting shoved onto the ground.

When she takes too long to answer, her brother huffs through the phone, “What have you done this time?”

She shifts from one foot to the other, “The person I was tailing saw me, and I got Dad’s camera broken…” A low whistle from the other side, “Wow Cal, you really screwed up again.”

“Are you gonna pick me up or are you just gonna keep being a dick?” she bites back.

“You’re such a fucking hassle sometimes, just wait there and don’t come up with any new dumb shit.” 

11:00

Trembling with cold, she plops down into the front seat of the Chevelle, and one raised eyebrow from her brother is enough to set her off, “Don’t look at me like that!” she snaps irritably.

“What a ray of sunshine you are.” He says with an eyeroll, “You keep screwing up, don't you?”

“Shut up and drive.”

He does drive, but doesn’t shut up, “Why do you keep trying to be a P.I. like Dad? You’re not very good at it, Cal.”

“I said shut up,” she grits out, “I’m good at this job.” She adds stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest, suppressing a wince when she moves her left elbow.

“Are you? What is this, the third time you fuck up Dad’s job this year? Didn’t they tell you not to come back to the music store too a couple of weeks ago?”

“Fuck you, Teddy.” She mutters, biting down hard on her bottom lip.

“You do know I didn’t have to come pick up your sorry ass, right?”

“I know, you tell me every single time.”

“And yet here we are again.” He dramatically waves one hand in the empty space between them.

A few minutes pass by in silence before Teddy sighs, sounding genuinely tired, “What happened? Did you space out again? Thinking about that dead woman or whatever?”

Callie stiffens up, refusing to look at him.

“If Dad finds out, he’s gonna be so mad… Callie, what is wrong with you?”

Her lip trembles a little, so she bites it harder, “I don’t know. I’m sorry…”

“Did you see her again? Are you seeing things again?”

“No! No, I’m fine now, I’m fine, I just got distracted is all.” She sits up, trying to look at his face, “Teddy, Teddy you believe me, right? I’m fine, I swear!”

Teddy glances at her bruised cheek and seems to soften a fraction, then shrugs, “Save it for Dad, it doesn’t matter if I believe you or not.”

Callie looks at his profile for a few seconds while they leave downtown behind. That serious face used to light up every time she walked into a room, when he was little. When she was normal. She leans into the backrest again. The warmth of the car makes every bruise ache more as time passes and her muscles relax. 

11:30

They’re both quiet until Teddy drives past the park where they used to play as kids, which reminds her of the one time her friend Jessica convinced Teddy that eating the sand in the sandpit would kill him. He had cried for hours, but he did stop eating the sand. 

“Hey, can you drop me off at the Library?” She asks, sitting up again and wincing at the way the muscles in between her shoulderblades ache.

“Are you serious?” “Yeah, I promised Jess I’d stop by.” She says, feeling the weight of the loaned book in her bag.

“Cal, Dad is gonna want to know what the hell happened.”

“I know, I’ll be home before him.”

Teddy shakes his head, “I’m not waiting around for you like a taxi, Cal.” “Don’t worry, I’ll walk home, it’ll be okay.” “You’re such a fucking idiot Cal,” he mutters with exasperation, “suit yourself I guess.”

He gives her one last look before she gets out of the car, “Maybe put some ice or something on your face, it looks like it hurts.”

“Yeah, thanks for picking me up. See you next week, Teddy.” Callie steps onto the sidewalk in front of the small local library, and doesn’t turn to watch her brother drive off. 

11:40

The library is mostly empty at this time, and pleasantly warm, the smell of paper and ink all around. Callie walks to the counter and, when she finds nobody there, lets herself into the tiny staff room just behind it.

“Jess?” she calls quietly, pushing the door open.

“Oh, Callie?” Jessica turns around to look at her, she’s holding a mug of coffee in her hand and has a sand colored shawl around her shoulders. When their eyes meet, she smiles in a way that makes Callie feel like life isn’t so bad after all. Callie smiles back and lets herself be hugged. 

“I’m so happy you stopped by, haven’t seen you in a few days!” Jessica’s voice is as warm as her hugs, then she pulls away and looks at Callie’s face, blonde curls bouncing around on her forehead, “Aw, did you get in a fight or something?”

“No, no, I–” Callie looks at the woman’s worried frown and makes herself smile wider, even if it hurts her cheek a bit, “I just tripped and fell, like an idiot, right on my face.” She adds a chuckle to be safe. 

“Really?” she asks, still a little suspicious, and all Callie has to do is give a confident nod, “Yeah, I was running, tripped on my own feet and this is the result.”

“You were running?” Jessica’s eyebrows rise up, almost incredulous.

“Well I didn’t want to be late.” Callie says with a shrug.

“Late to what?”

“Can’t leave a pretty girl like you waiting.” She says with a grin, and Jessica gives her a light shove, laughing. 

“You’re so silly sometimes.” That smile again. Everything is right in the world when Jess smiles like that, and if Callie needs to lie for it, then she will.

“You are right on time though,” she says, “Carl is picking me up around noon.”

“Well, I’m happy I caught you, then.” She smiles, reaching into her bag to take out the book, “I’m giving this back today, I don’t think I can come by Saturday.”

Jessica places the book aside, on a small cart, and gets a second mug for her, “Are you doing anything for Halloween?” she asks, pouring boiling water over a spoonful of coffee powder.

“Yeah, I got a ticket for the midnight screening they’re doing of The Phantom, the silent movie. They said the music is gonna be live.”

“You really like those old movies, don’t you, Callie?” She smiles, nodding at the book she’s just returned: American Silent Film, “Are you really sure you don’t want to go back to study that again?”

Callie can feel her smile going stiff, but she just shrugs “Yeah, I’m good, that life just wasn’t for me I guess.”

Jessica hands her the mug full of hot coffee and looks at her for a long moment “Really? Sometimes I wonder if you only say that because that’s what your father told you.”

Callie rolls her eyes, quick to mask the surprise on her face, “The only reason why you don’t like my dad is that he used to be a cop.” 

“Hm, maybe that’s it.” Jessica raises her shoulders, her pretty curls bouncing up and down, “Now that I think about it, your cop friend came by yesterday.”

“Mike?” Callie looks up from her mug and raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, Mike, he left you this, said you might be interested.” She says, handing her a piece of paper. 

Callie scans it quickly, it’s part of an hotel booklog, and her eyes are drawn to one of the names: Lilian Brook, the character Elaine played in Peach Blossoms. This isn’t the first time she finds one of those names being used. To rent a car, to book a room, to buy a property. That's why she’s given Mike a list of possible names to keep an eye out for, and she might just be making nonsensical connections, this might just be a coincidence, but her heartbeat picks up nonetheless as she stuffs the paper in her pocket. 

“Something interesting?” Jessica asks, and Callie is still at a loss for words, but a loud clackson sounds from outside and Jessica runs to the window, waving at her husband.

“Gotta go, Carl doesn’t like to wait,” she says with a smile, picking up her things, grabbing her jacket, and giving Callie another hug, “you know when I work here, stop by anytime, don’t be a stranger!” She hurries away, and Callie watches from the window as she happily runs to the car outside.

Callie stays, to finish her coffee, to think of why these names could be popping up around town and to avoid going home too soon. 

15:00

Callie stops after rounding the bend that leads her home. From there, she can already see her father’s car parked in the driveway. With a groan, she drags her feet for a few more steps, then backtracks and paces back and forth a few times. She had expected him to be away till evening at least. Biting at the skin around her nails, she considers her options. She could walk all the way back to the library and stay there till closing time, or she could phone Jessica’s house and ask her to spend the night on their couch, then hope to avoid her father the next morning.

She hisses and shakes her hand after biting too hard at a spot next to her thumb nail and drawing blood. Sooner or later she has to go in there and fess up anyway. So she might as well do it now.

Grudgingly, she walks up the three steps to the front door and turns her key. She shuffles inside quietly, and thinks for a moment that maybe she can just quickly get to the basement door and down to her room without Dad stopping her. Maybe he hasn’t even realized she’s home yet.

“Callista?” He calls from the living room and she cringes, taking in a deep breath before walking that way.

“Yeah, I’m back.” He’s working, looking over some files and checking his notes, he looks up when she leans against the doorframe, heavy coat in her arms. His eyes go to the bruises on her face immediately and he frowns, “What happened?”

“I–” she swallows, then starts again, “The woman saw me, I think she already knew I was observing her and Taylor and she led me into a trap.” He gives a small nod, “And you walked right into the trap?”

Callie presses her lips into a thin line, “I got distracted, she got me into a part of town I don’t know that well…”

“You should know Columbus in and out by now, Callista, didn’t I tell you to memorize the maps?”

“Yes…” she doesn’t remember all the fucking maps, she remembers maybe half of the roads, the ones she uses more often, “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head “Did you get any pictures at least?”

Callie shifts her weight from one foot to the other and her father’s eyes narrow.

“I don’t know… they broke your camera, I have to check if any film can be salvaged–”

He smacks the palm of his hand against the table, “Damn it, I told you to be careful with it!”

Callie doesn’t flinch, blinking and straightening her back instead, “I’m sorry, he went right for the camera and said to tell you to get off his tail.”

Her father looks away, pensive for a moment, stroking the beard on his chin with his thumb, “What did they look like?”

Callie gives him as accurate a description of both men as she can, then waits for him to speak again, “Hm, yeah, I thought this might be connected to the case I worked on last month.”

That makes her composure falter, “Wait, you knew?”

He gives a dismissive shake of his head “It was just a hunch, I didn’t know the woman had anything to do with it.”

Callie opens and closes her mouth twice before talking again, “You knew those people were on the lookout for us and you let me go in blind? Dad, they could have fucking killed me!” 

He scoffs, “You’d have been perfectly fine if you had kept your wits about you, what rookie mistake is it to be led in a sketchy part of town and get lost?”

"Seriously?" Exasperated, her voice raises in pitch.

“Yes, seriously. You're not a child anymore, Callista, you should stop acting like one.” He picks up his pen and goes back to looking at his notes, and Callie knows she’s being dismissed, but she’s not happy with his answer.

“Dad, those men, they threatened me, they threatened you! I’ve got bruises all over, I thought they were gonna break my fucking skull!”

“Watch your language.” He says, not turning to look at her, and Callie deflates. “You said you got distracted, by what?” He asks, one hand fiddling with the pen.

Callie looks down, “I was just thinking about things.”

“About what?”

“Nothing important…”

“Callista, are you still going on about that dead woman from the 20s?” His tone is calm, but she can hear the warning in it.

“No,” Callie shakes her head, “I was just spacing out, I’m sorry, it was stupid.” He turns to look at her and keeps his eyes on her for a few long moments, studying her. She swallows, glad to be a good liar. 

“Good, because you’d be in trouble otherwise.” He glances outside the window, “I didn’t hear you park the car, what happened? Did you break that too?”

“I didn’t break anything at all,” she protests, “the car just wouldn’t start.” She can tell from the way his mouth twitches, that he doubts she wasn’t at fault.

He sighs, back to not looking at her, “Callista, I worry about you sometimes, you know getting lost in your own head isn’t good, you know what it did to your mo—”

“I’m not like that.” She interrupts, then bites her tongue for doing that.

Her father sighs again, “Go check if any of the film can be developed.” He says waving her away with his hand, and Callie nods, walking out of the living room.

15:20 

Downstairs, Callie throws her coat on the bed and sits at her desk with a sigh, carefully reaching into her bag and taking the crushed camera out.

She runs her fingers over the cold, shiny metal of it, her chest tightening slightly when something inside rattles. Maybe Dad is right, she can’t be trusted with anything. 

Carefully, she tries to turn the little wheel that winds the film, but it turns with no resistance, the mechanism probably broken. The back of the camera seems to have taken less damage than the front, where the lens is shattered and the case so dented that part of it split open. The viewfinder is broken too, jamming halfway up when she tries to lift it. Callie detaches the back of the camera, it’s a little dented but maybe the film wasn’t exposed to light all that much before she managed to put the dark slide in. 

Standing back up, she rubs at her sore knee and walks into her small darkroom. Once she’s set the back of the camera down on the table, she closes the door behind her and takes a deep, steadying breath. This is familiar, the quiet darkness, the feeling of film under her fingers. Blindly, she manages to find the start of the roll she had been using and slowly loads it on the plastic reel. She takes her time with it, going by muscle memory alone. 

“Once you get the hang of it, it's like meditation, you’ll see!” Her mother had told her when she had gotten frustrated after ruining a roll once. She was right. This is the time Callie feels calmest, most at peace. When she was little, this was the only part of the process that she had been allowed to participate in, as it involved no chemicals. By the time she was twelve her mom had trusted her with developing her own pictures.

When she’s done loading the reel, she places it into the developing tank and twists the lid closed, then turns on the lights.

The rest of the process she’s done so many times it has become almost mindless. She measures and pours water and developer into the tank, keeping track of time and temperature.

“Don’t shake it like a cocktail, Callie. Agitate it, be patient.” Her mom had laughed every time Callie got impatient and shook the tank up and down, as if that would make the timer go any faster. 

As she goes through the same steps, this time with the fixer, she thinks back to her mother’s photography, to the beautiful framed pictures her father has taken down from the walls and stored away in the attic. She misses them sometimes. She misses her mother too sometimes. 

Callie has repeated to her dad, to Teddy and to herself so many times that she’s not like her, but the doubt is always there. Is she really not like her mom? Is there really no danger she’ll start seeing things again one day and never be able to stop? Never know what’s real and what isn’t? The thought makes her hands shake. 

Rinsing the reel with water one last time, she sighs. She’s fine, she has been fine for almost four years now, it’s not gonna happen again. 

She hangs the film up to dry and takes a step back, the whole process has taken her about forty minutes. 

Then Callie goes to the door and locks it. She moves the chair from the desk to under the air vent instead, stepping on it to reach where she hides the things she doesn’t want her father to see: the letter a girl had written to her in high school, some of her mother’s pictures, her copy of Strange Wife that she’s not supposed to own, and her Elaine Meadows folder. It might be a predictable place to use to hide things, but her father has probably come into the dark room twice in the last ten years. 

The folder is thin, she hadn’t been able to retrieve everything she had found the first time around. She sits down at the table, taking out the list of names Mike and her had found written in logbooks around the town and adding the last one with the location it was at.

She takes out one of the black and white pictures of Elaine, tracing the edges of her dark hair, “Who’s using your characters’ names?” she asks in a whisper.

19:00 

When Callie looks at her watch again, three hours have passed and the film should be completely dry. She closes the folder and sets it aside, then takes down the film and uses a small magnifying lens to check whether or not anything is visible and worth printing. Some of the negatives are ruined, splotches of white make the images unreadable, but a few seem fine. Callie smiles, a shiver of relief running down her spine. 

She cuts up the film and sets the plastic trays with the solutions she’ll need, then turns off the regular lights and turns on the safe light. This is a calming process too, the red glow of the safelight is familiar. This is something she has done reliably over and over; she won’t mess this up. 

By the end of it, she has five prints hung up to dry, all reasonably good quality considering the distance she shot them from. As she tidies up the table, her stomach growls and, with a wince, Callie remembers that she hasn’t eaten since around 5am. Quietly, she goes upstairs and to the kitchen, hoping that her father won’t call her into the living room again.

Callie makes herself a sandwich and eats it over the kitchen sink, looking out the window at the now dark sky.

19:44

As she walks back to the basement door, Callie pauses, hand hovering above the handle. The door is closed, and yet she thought she had left it ajar before. Her father might have closed it, she thinks, or she might be misremembering. She goes down the stairs, pulling off her sweater and throwing it in the laundry basket, followed by her jeans and then her underwear. She shivers slightly after taking off her socks, the floor cold under her bare feet.  

She finally gets a good look at the scrape on her knee and the bruise on her arm. It still hurts but she’ll be fine, she thinks walking into the bathroom. 

20:10

After a long, hot shower, she feels better, the ache in her back less sharp. With her hair still damp, she puts on a light jumper and sweatpants. Sitting on the bed to put on socks, she glances at the laundry basket and frowns. Her jeans are on the floor next to it. She thought she had tossed them inside earlier. Callie sits still for a few moments, then reasons that she must have missed the basket after all.

When she’s done getting dressed, she walks to the dark room to take down the dry prints. Turning on the safe light, the first thing she notices is that the chair is neatly placed under the table. That gives her pause and, one hand still on the doorframe, she scans the room. The smallest of things are slightly off. The tongs she used for her prints are at a different angle than she had left them, one of the prints has a smudge in the corner, a screw from the air vent is on the floor. 

Her heartbeat spikes. Someone was here, silently rifling through her things.

Fear swelling in her chest, she takes a step back from the doorframe, then another. She has barely any time to think that somebody might still be here, when she’s yanked backwards with startling force. The back of her head bumps into someone’s shoulder. Then a cold hand quickly covers her mouth. Callie screams, but the sound is muffled. So muffled she can’t even hear herself. Eyes wide with horror, she screams louder, her throat straining, but she makes barely any noise at all. She tries to spin and run, but an arm is wrapped around her middle, its grip stronger than that of the man who had pinned her down in the morning. Terrified, she thrashes about and screams again, trying to pry the hand away, but it only presses down harder and twists her head harshly back and to the side, making it hard to breathe. She goes suddenly still when a piercing pain shoots up the side of her neck. Did she just get stabbed? Breathing shallowly, it takes her a few seconds to realize that she’s being bitten. She can feel cold lips against her skin, and a tongue lapping wetly. 

Callie shivers, knees going weak as she makes a feeble attempt at scratching the hand over her mouth. Her mind clouds fast, with each thundering heartbeat she feels the throat of the person behind her swallow, and it feels so good. Nothing has ever felt as good before. She goes limp and instead of falling to the floor, the arm around her waist holds her up easily. 

All Callie can think is that this surely isn’t real. She’s having another episode. She’s fucking everything up again. She’s letting down Dad and Teddy again. Despite the inexplicable, unwanted pleasure, tears run down her cheeks.

??:??

When consciousness slowly creeps back to her, the first thing she feels is pain. Everywhere, in every muscle, every nerve, across her skin and deep inside, in places she had no idea she could even feel. She stays as still as she can, but it does nothing to relieve the pain burning her inside and out. 

“Dad?” She cries, “Help me! Please!” Her voice comes out strangled and raw, even her throat hurts, and she cries harder, hot tears running down her nose as she curls up, cheek pressed against the cold, gritty pavement. 

In the dark all around her, something moves and touches her hand and Callie screams, “Where am I? Where am I!?” she sobs, voice shrill with panic.

“Shhh, don’t be scared, you’re safe.” A woman’s voice, low and raspy, right next to her ear. 

Callie shivers with goosebumps, the hairs on her neck raised, as if the scratchiness of the voice were a physical thing, rubbing unpleasantly at her skin. But she tries to quiet down, biting on her lip with each terrified hiccup, “It hurts, it hurts really bad, where am I? Who are you?”

“You’re in a safe place right now,” the voice sounds calm, almost tender, and Callie is tempted to believe it. 

“C-can you help me?” She chokes out, sniffling, “What’s wrong with me? Why does everything hurt?” 

“The pain will pass, I promise. You don’t need to be scared.” A cool hand presses against her forehead, and Callie, who feels like her skin is on fire, leans desperately into the touch. The hand pushes her hair back and away from her face, gently, stroking it behind her ear.

“What happened to me?” Callie asks, shaking, her voice coming out in a whine as she remembers the bite, the way her head swam as she faded. Her hand scrambles frantically at her neck, finding the skin there crusted with dried blood, but whole. 

“I made a mistake, I’m sorry darling, I thought you were a hunter.” The tone sounds apologetic, almost sad.

“What?” Callie doesn’t understand, “Who are you? What hunter?”

Thin, bony arms wrap around her and pull her closer with a terrifying amount of strength. The same arms that held her still in her room. Callie shivers at the touch but then, to her own surprise, curls up closer to the cold body the voice belongs to, hugging it back, trembling like a leaf.

“I’m Elaine. Don’t you recognize me? You’ve been looking for me quite keenly.”

Callie looks up towards the voice, but it’s so dark she can only see a vague, darker shape, “Elaine?” Callie raises her hand to touch the face of the person holding her in her arms. Has she really found her? After looking for so long? With so little to go by?

Then, before she can touch her, Callie’s mind clears, “No. Nonono, you can’t be her, she’s dead, SHE’S DEAD! WHO ARE YOU!?”

“I am Elaine, calm down, there’s no need to scream.” The voice is calm, practical, that of a teacher with an unreasonable child, placating a tantrum. 

But Callie is breathing fast again, the bony hand casually holding her wrist grips it so tightly she can’t move an inch, “Am I– am I going insane again?” She bawls, almost choking as she struggles to catch her breath, “Am I seeing things again? You’re not here, you’re only in my head, aren’t you? Please don’t do this, I don’t wanna be crazy, I don’t wanna be like Mom–” Callie is sobbing again, her breathing hitching uncontrollably.

The arms around her are gentle, a hand strokes her hair, “You’re not crazy, not seeing things, I’m right here, I’ll take care of you.”

The voice is so reassuring that Callie tries hard to obey, to stop panicking and take in slow breaths. Her abdomen cramps harshly and she whimpers, feeling as if the fire consuming her is growing hotter still, making it hard to breathe.

“You’re hungry,” Elaine says soothingly, “be good now, I’ll give you something to drink.”

Callie nods, desperate to be good, for her, for anyone.

There’s some rustling, and a pouch of sorts is placed in her hand.

The moment the smell hits her, a low growl rumbles in her chest, and she chugs the viscous liquid in seconds, a slight sense of relief spreading through her.

“I know it’s not enough, but you can wait, right? You’ll do as I say?”

Callie nods again, “Yes, yes I’ll do anything you say.”

And, for some reason, Callie means it. The more she looks, the more she thinks that she can kind of see Elaine’s face in the dark shape in front of her. With a start, she realizes this is the first time she hears her voice. There had been no recordings of it that she could find. Relaxing as much as the constant pain will allow, Callie sighs, “Even your voice is beautiful.”

Elaine goes rigid at her words, but doesn’t answer. 

“Why is it so dark in here?” Callie asks.

“I don’t need much light.” 

Callie squints up at her, “What does that mean?” 

She can feel Elaine shake her head, “If you promise that you’ll be good and stay put I’ll go get you more to drink.”

Callie doesn't want her to go anywhere, being left alone is the last thing she wants right now, but her stomach keeps cramping, her throat clenches painfully when she thinks of the smell that came from the plastic pouch – did it smell kind of like blood? – and, above all else, she wants so badly to be good.

So Callie leans into the embrace, thinking of the Elaine she saw on the screen and the one she glimpsed where she wasn’t meant to be, and nods, “I promise.” She says in a whisper. It’s almost a surprise when Elaine seems to believe her.

“Don’t move from here or I won’t let you feed,” she says sternly.

Callie nods once more, but doesn’t let go until Elaine firmly pries her arms open and stands up, stepping away from her.

Curling up on the cold floor, she can hear her take a few more steps, then suddenly there’s complete quiet. In pain, confused, and scared, Callie hugs herself tightly and retreats to something safe: reciting back to herself the police report about Miss Meadows's disappearance, all of the roles she has played, the director of each film, and some of the scenes she has analyzed enough times to remember by heart.

Laying down in almost complete darkness, fear grips her lungs every now and then, fear that none of this is real, that Elaine won’t be coming back because she was never there to begin with. Callie pinches herself hard whenever she feels her thoughts speeding up, rushing with panicked undertones, threatening to swallow her. Eventually, when that stops working, she bites down on her lips until the thin skin breaks. The lack of blood trickling in her mouth makes terror claw at her throat, hot tears gathering in her eyes.

She’s losing it. This isn’t happening. The teeth breaking into her lip had hurt just like the pinching on her arms had, yet this makes no sense, no sense at all, she can’t trust anything her body is telling her right now. Shaking uncontrollably, Callie balls up even tighter, fingernails sinking deep into the palms of her hands. If she doesn’t move, she can’t do anything wrong, right? If she just stays still long enough, eventually she’ll go back to reality, just like last time. She just needs to be patient. 

Callie startles when she hears a soft step close to her head, and flinches away.

“It’s just me,” Elaine’s voice washes over her like warm water, loosening her muscles and letting her take in a large breath after what feels like forever. Has she been breathing at all? Callie is so relieved she feels tears run down her face again, and finally dares to look up, 

“I– I thought you wouldn’t come back…” She sniffles, taking in the harmonious face looking down at her, the dark, long eyelashes and the red lips. Callie has to squint a little to see her, the lines slightly hazy, as if haloed with soft light.