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CHAPTER 64

Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024

“IHAVE NO IDEA,” NORA SAID IN RESPONSE TO SLOAN’S QUESTION about who was operating the camera in the photos of Annabelle and Tilly.

“How many negatives are left on the roll?” Sloan asked.

Nora went to the enlarger. “Four.”

“Let’s go. Let’s see what’s on them.”

A frantic energy filled the darkroom. As Sloan and Nora stood in the red glow of the safelight, they both sensed they were on the precipice of solving a decades-old mystery, even if they could not comprehend what they were about to uncover.

Nora worked expertly now. She was no longer a teacher taking Sloan under her wings. She was a master, running through the developing process like someone who’d done it thousands of times before, pointing and giving orders that Sloan followed without hesitation. Nora exposed the negative onto the photo paper in twelve-second increments to make sure they’d have a clear image. Then she ran the blank photo paper through the developing baths. This time, though, as they waited while the image sat in the final tray, Nora got busy working on the next negative. By the time she had the photo submerged in the developing solution, the first image was ready to come out of the fixer.

While Nora prepared the next negative on the roll, Sloan clipped the photo to the drying rack and then she used tongs to move the second image to the stop bath. Her movements were rushed, but under Nora’s guidance, each step of the process was done correctly. Finally, they had four photos hanging on the drying rack, each in different stages of development.

The first image, still dripping with fixer solution, had come to life. Slightly blurred, it showed Tilly with a handful of Annabelle’s hair and Annabelle’s head pulled down from the force.

“They’re . . .” Sloan pulled the photo off the drying rack. “Fighting.”

Nora removed the second photo from the drying rack, and they stared at it. The seconds passed at a snail’s pace as they waited for the image to form. Finally, the color came through and they witnessed Annabelle pinning Tilly against the kitchen counter with outstretched arms.

Nora grabbed the third photo from the drying rack. She and Sloan were breathing heavily, the pictures were a portal to the past that put them both in the middle of the battle being waged inside Annabelle Margolis’s home nearly thirty years earlier. Nora blew on the blank photo to hurry the developing process. As the image visualized, she gasped.

“Oh my God.”

Sloan looked at the image in Nora’s hand. In it she saw Tilly Margolis holding a long butcher’s knife.