The Photograph in the Garden

The sun hung low over the clapboard house when we moved in, painting the peeling white paint in shades of amber and rust. Old Man Jenkins, the previous owner, had died a month before, and the place had the feel of a held breath. The garden, though, was a riot of overgrown roses and weeds, and in the center stood a stone bench, almost swallowed by vines. I was eight, and my name was Marcus. My parents, Clara and Arthur, were busy hauling boxes, but my attention was on the garden, specifically on the strange, circular patch of light that seemed to shimmer just above the bench. When I looked at it directly, it vanished, but out of the corner of my eye, it pulsed, like a heartbeat made of sunbeams.

That first night, I woke to a faint hum, a sound that seemed to come from the garden. I crept to my window, which faced the back. The moon was full, and I could see the bench clearly. A woman in a long, old-fashioned dress sat there, her head bowed. She wasn’t solid; she flickered like a faulty TV. I blinked, and she was gone. I told my mother at breakfast, and she went pale. ‘Don’t speak of such things, Marcus,’ she said, her eyes darting to the garden. ‘Your grandmother spoke of such things. It’s best to ignore them.’ But I couldn’t ignore them. Every time I played outside, I felt a presence just beyond my field of vision, and I heard a soft, repetitive whisper, like a song, but the words were always just out of reach.

It was in the spring that I found the photograph. I was digging for worms near the stone bench when my shovel clinked against something hard. It was a metal box, rusted and dented. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was a photograph. It was a woman, the same woman I had seen, but younger, smiling. On the back, in faded ink, was written: ‘Anna, 1963.’ I showed it to my mother, and she gasped. ‘That’s the woman who lived here before the Jenkins,’ she said. ‘She drowned in the river, not a month after this was taken. They never found her… or they said they didn’t.’ She took the photograph from me and locked it in a drawer.

After that, the hum grew louder. It wasn’t just at night anymore. It was a constant, low drone, like a power line, but with an undercurrent of grief. I began to see Anna more often, always in my peripheral vision, always near the garden. But now, I could hear her, not just the hum, but a voice, thin and water-clogged, saying my name. ‘Marcus,’ she would sigh, and the sound was like wet leaves. My mother grew anxious, and my father grew angry. He blamed my ‘wild imagination’ and forbade me from going near the garden. But the garden was the only place I felt close to the truth.

One evening, I was sitting on my bed, doing homework by the cool light of a lamp, when I heard a clear, distinct knock on my window. I looked up, and there was Anna, her face pressed against the glass, but her skin was the color of river mud, and her eyes were milky white. She mouthed, ‘Let me in,’ and the hum became a shriek in my ears. I screamed, and my parents burst in. When they looked out the window, they saw only the dark reflection of the garden. But I saw her retreating, her dress dripping onto the stones.

My mother, finally believing me, took me to the river. It was a gloomy place, overhung with willows, the water black and sluggish. She told me that Anna had been a new bride, and that her husband, a jealous man, accused her of infidelity. She was found drowned, but her body was never recovered. As we stood there, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I turned, and there was Anna, solid for the first time, but translucent. She pointed to the water, and I saw something bobbing beneath the surface: a white dress, entangled in the roots. My mother screamed and pulled me away.

We moved a year later, but the photograph came with us. My mother kept it in a box in the attic. For weeks after we left, I heard the hum, but it grew fainter. By the time I was a teenager, I told myself it was a dream. But now, as an adult, married, with a child of my own, I know it was real. I see Anna in my peripheral vision, standing in our new garden, or at the edge of any body of water. And when I sleep, I feel a damp hand on my forehead, and a voice, barely a whisper, saying, ‘Remember me.’ I don’t tell my wife. I don’t tell anyone. But sometimes, I catch my child staring at a corner of the room, and I see that familiar flicker. I am terrified that one day, the photograph will find you, too.