The Comet’s Veil

On the first Sunday of November, I drove out to my brother’s farmstead in the rolling hills of southern Vermont. He and his wife had recently renovated their colonial-era farmhouse, and they wanted professional-quality photos for an interior design magazine. As an avid photographer, I jumped at the chance. The sky was a heavy, slate-gray blanket, and a bitter wind whipped across the open fields, carrying the scent of frost and dry leaves. I spent an hour circling the property, capturing the clapboard siding, the wraparound porch, and the gnarled apple trees that dotted the yard. I took dozens of shots, adjusting my settings for the dim, flat light. When I finished, I handed my camera to my brother so he could review the images on its small screen before I left. He seemed satisfied, and I promised to send him the files once I got home.

That evening, I uploaded the images to my desktop computer. As I scrolled through the thumbnails, most were sharp and well-composed. But one caught my attention—a photo of the west gable, where a tangle of dead ivy clung to the brick chimney. In the middle of the frame, just above the roofline, a strange smear of light appeared. It was comet-shaped, with a bright, bloated head and a tail that trailed off toward the edge of the image. My first thought was lens flare, but the sun was hidden behind thick clouds, and no other photo had a similar anomaly. I zoomed in, and the shape seemed to pulse slightly, though it was a static image. I shrugged, blaming a smudge on the lens, and resolved to clean it before my next outing.

Three nights later, I had a dream so vivid it left me drenched in sweat. In the dream, I was standing in the same spot where I had taken that photograph. The farmhouse was gone, replaced by a black, gaping hole in the earth. From the hole, a faint, keening sound emanated, like the cry of a distant bird. I raised my camera to look through the viewfinder, and the comet-shaped light filled the frame. When I lowered the camera, a figure stood before me—a woman in a tattered, white dress, her face obscured by a veil of what looked like static. She reached out a hand, and I woke up screaming. The image of the comet remained burned into my mind, and I found myself staring at the photograph again, unable to shake the sense that something was wrong.

Over the next week, strange things began to happen. My camera, which had worked flawlessly for years, started malfunctioning. Every time I tried to take a picture, the shutter would fire erratically, producing blurry, overexposed images that all contained the same comet-shaped glow. At night, I would hear a faint crackling sound, like radio static, emanating from the closet where I stored my gear. One evening, I opened the closet to find my camera on, its display glowing with a live view of the farmhouse—but it was night, and the sky was filled with swirling, comet-like lights. I didn’t remember turning it on.

My brother called a week later, his voice strained. He said that strange lights had been seen around the farm at night, and that his wife had found strange, circular scorch marks in the backyard, as if something had landed there. He asked if I had noticed anything unusual in the photos. I hesitated, then told him about the anomaly. He was silent for a long moment, then said, ‘I think you should come back. There’s something in the field.’ I drove out the next morning, my camera bag on the passenger seat, the photograph still loaded on my phone.

When I arrived, the sky was the same slate gray, but the air felt heavier, charged with an electric tension. My brother led me to the spot where the scorch marks were. They formed a perfect circle, about ten feet in diameter, and the grass inside was wilted and gray. As I knelt to examine it, my camera spontaneously powered on. I lifted it to my eye, and through the viewfinder, I saw the comet-shaped light hovering above the circle, but this time it was there in the real world. It pulsed, and a low hum emitted from it, vibrating through my bones. My brother shouted my name, but I couldn’t move. The light began to expand, and the woman from my dream stepped out of it, her static veil crackling. She raised her hand, and the camera yanked itself from my grasp, floating toward her. It hovered in front of her, and the screen displayed a series of images—the farmhouse, the field, and then a cluster of faces, all of them my brother, his wife, and me, but contorted in terror.

When the light vanished, the camera fell to the ground, its lens shattered. My brother helped me to my feet, both of us trembling. We left the farm that day and never returned. The photos I had taken were all corrupted, save for that one image. I still have it, though I can’t bring myself to delete it. Sometimes, late at night, I hear that crackling sound, and the image on my phone screen shifts slightly—the comet moves, ever so slightly, as if it’s waiting. I’ve come to understand that some things are not meant to be photographed, and that the lens can capture more than just light. It can capture a door, and once that door is opened, it may never close again.