Chapter 5
I couldn’t sleep last night. So this morning I decide to clear my head of Macho Marshall, of the anonymous review, of Zala cancelling her session, and go to the one place that brings me peace: Doomwood Falls waterfall. Though, even here dread tags along on my hike.
Something about nature brings comfort when nothing else does.
Maybe it’s because the pine trees never change, even when everything else surrenders to winter.
Like wizened old men who have seen the rise and fall of civilizations, their pointed tops reach up toward a sky that’s a vast, indifferent blue.
There’s tranquility here, and I need it to rub off on me and push all worry out of mind.
I press my back against a hibernating oak and shiver, the rough bark scraping a polite hello through my ill-equipped sweatshirt. Or maybe it’s less polite and more like, You really should have worn something thicker, you idiot.
Raising my camera to my eye, the familiar weight is a comforting anchor in a world that’s decided to go off-kilter. I manually adjust the zoom lens and capture my shot.
Click.
The waterfall is less of a gentle cascade and more of a full-blown tantrum, loud enough to drown out thought.
To be honest, that is my current goal, to put that hateful review out of mind, along with whoever is dead set on ruining me.
Cough—Marshall—Cough. After advancing the film, I catch the way the afternoon light filters through the spray like tiny diamonds suspended in air.
I’m focusing the lens when something strange lingers along the edge of the frame.
The color is out of place here in nature: neon pink. Lowering the camera, I search for it again and easily spot it, clothing strewn along the mossy bank. A neon pink shirt sits on top of a crumpled heap of clothes, as if their owners were in a hurry to get out of them.
Teenagers, probably, swimming in the frigid pool beneath the falls, testing boundaries, trying to feel alive.
Or maybe they’re just trying to catch hypothermia.
I don’t see anyone in the water, which leads me to think they’re hiding in the hollow behind the curtain of falling water.
It’s a popular place for clandestine hook-ups and adventurous indiscretions.
I smirk with fleeting amusement at the na?ve joys of adolescence that I wish I could go back to, and I lift the camera.
Maybe I’ll catch their silhouettes in a frozen moment of rebellion against parental curfews and questionable life choices.
Peering through the viewfinder, I readjust the focus and—
Click.
The tinny sound is followed by voices. I lower the camera and listen. A girl speaking joins the rush of water, but her words are drowned out. She’s talking rapidly, growing louder as I approach the waterfall. This time a single word is clear:
“Stop!”
It doesn’t sound like the playful shriek of a girl in cold water who’s just lost her bikini top. No, this is distinctly sharp and terrified. Trekking along the path that winds behind the falls, I scan the rocky ledge beyond the cascading water, looking for signs of where she could be.
“Hello? Is anyone out here?” But I doubt they’d hear my voice over the roar.
The birds, who were in the middle of a cheerful singalong, go silent. Even the wind seems to hold its breath. Where did the voice come from? It’s impossible to tell. The falls mask everything, a natural sound curtain.
“Do you need help?” I call out again, attempting to inject authority into my voice.
Once again nothing. No splashing. No giggling teens trying to get arrested for public nudity. Just the relentless crash of water.
I move closer, stepping over a tangle of roots that resemble grasping fingers, and I duck beneath a low-hanging branch.
My boots sink into the damp earth, squelching in the mud.
I scan the opposite bank through the blinding glare of the sun.
The clothes are still there, but no people are in view.
Ripples skim over the water’s brown depths. I wait, but no one surfaces.
The plea Stop! plays on a loop in my head, but now I’m starting to doubt what I heard. It probably is nothing. They saw me coming and don’t want to get caught. But the danger felt so real… Stop!
I advance the film and bring the camera to my eye again, my hands shaking so much the viewfinder wobbles. It could be hunger blurring my vision, but I snap a picture of the bank anyway, along with the clothes and the empty space near the waterfall where the clothes’ owners should be.
Click.
I don’t know why I feel compelled to take these pictures, but something warns me that I need to prove I was here, that this happened. That I didn’t just imagine a woman screaming. Or maybe it’s just my traumatized subconscious begging for a therapist.
The wind picks up, sending a flurry of crispy red leaves swirling around me like a morbidly beautiful ballet.
I step back, and the heel of my boot slips on the wet rocks.
My breath catches as I almost fall into the water.
I need to leave. My feet are already eager to put as much distance as possible between me and whatever is happening here.
I’ve got enough of my own problems that I don’t need to go chasing other people’s.
I turn to leave, but something stops me. A nagging in the back of my mind, probably the same one that tells me to check if I closed my hidden bookshelf door all the way. When I glance back I see it, a disturbance behind the spray. Movement. And a streak of something pale.
Naked skin.
My finger, now numb with cold, hovers over the shutter release button on the 1954 Leica that my dad gifted me on my wedding day, now worth over $10,000 and irreplaceable. Not just because of its sentimental value, but it’s literally impossible to find.
The zoom feels like an extension of myself, over the years capturing so many secrets and memories of my husband before…
well, I try not to think about that. I watch two figures, shrouded by the ceaseless deluge.
Anyone else would have walked right by, oblivious to them, but the camera, with its almost malevolent ability, sees what the human eye can’t.
I twist the zoom ring, each slow rotation deliberate. The lens tightens, sucking them into focus. The shutter snaps, and they’re ripped from their hazy world and dropped clearly into mine. I brace myself, expecting the usual suspects—two teens. But it’s not. It’s so much worse.
My stomach lurches with a threat of dragging last night’s dinner up my throat. A man’s face is caught in a shard of light that pierces the waterfall’s veil. He turns just enough for me to identify his face. Then he looks directly at me.
Our gazes lock, only for a moment. But I know those eyes.
I duck, terrified of getting caught. Scared of what he’ll say to cover up what he’s done. Somehow he’ll turn it around to make me the villain, even though I have the truth locked inside the heart of my camera. Something horrible just happened here, and I am the only witness.