A Short Story by Theresa Crozier
The shot is overexposed in dappled noon summer sun, the shadow of the bridge is the only part of the photo in focus, drawing the viewer’s eye to the spiritual sensation that broke the internet four weeks ago. Often compared to a romantic depiction of a Catholic saint, the “lady”hovers over the water, her feet arching and gracefully crossed. Her moon-white face looks up, exposing an unnaturally long neck. Gauzy white robes flow around her as both hands tenderly touch the blue glowing orb at her chest. The question on everyone’s mind? Is this the work of Lori Bachman? If so, how and why did she pull it off? -Lloyd, Stanton, Newsweek
Lori Bachman shot Sacred Heart Creek in 1989 when she was fresh out of art school and working as a second shooter for a denim ad. Eager to please everyone involved, Lori showed up a day ahead of schedule. She took rolls and rolls of film, circling under, around, and over the bridge, as the light changed. She didn’t have the money or the time to develop all of her test shots so the film traveled with her throughout her shining career, ending up in her studio loft in Philadelphia. That’s where her intern, Justin, found the dusty old film canisters, only days into working with his favorite fashion photographer.
He had been systematically developing Lori’s old film for a retrospective that Lori’s publisher insisted would be one of the top coffee table books published in the last five years. That’s who Lori was talking to on the phone when the intern stumbled in from the dark room with wild eyes, holding a photo still dripping with fixing solution. She was still on the phone with her publisher, phone tucked between her ear and her linen-clad shoulder when she took the colored 8 X 10 from his hands, they were clad in blue nitrile and trembling but Justin was still star-struck whenever he had to approach his employer so that was the norm. She gave him a distracted pat as she silently took in the photo.
She frowned slightly, glancing at Justin’s bewildered expression. Then she smiled. She hadn’t realized this young man had so much spunk. This was great. Great stuff. Then he said it wasn’t a joke. No, the box had been sealed when he opened it. He hadn’t done it, honest. He denied it and denied it and Lori believed him. Then she did some sleuthing, looking at the photographs before and after. She called everyone who had access to the studio and gave them a vague third-degree, refusing to admit what was wrong. At some point, in all the confusion, Justin had taken out his iPhone and snapped a photo.
At the end of the day, as far as Lori could tell, whether it was through double exposure or divine intervention, she had captured the image of a spectral woman who seemed to glow from within. The mystery woman was floating in the shadows under the Sacred Heart bridge. The photo had been captured more than thirty years before but she hadn’t seen a thing in the moment. She destroyed the strange print and its negative, burning it on the studio balcony in an old flower pot. That night Justin sent the picture out in a Tweet, changing Lori’s world forever.
***
“Of course, he’ll never work in the industry again. Maybe he can find a job as an international spy, the little creep” Lori growled, pouring cream into her tall glass of cold brew. Her sister, Anna, sat across from her, folding and unfolding a linen napkin and twisting her head as if searching for the waitress. “You know me. I don’t like cheap tricks. I would have never let that photo see the light of day. Kids and their cell phones… you know what, fuck that. This isn’t about technology. It’s about loyalty. He said he was a fan. My ass. If he’s a fan he wouldn’t have tweeted a career-ending photo, my career-ending photo. I’m suing, of course, but once the damage is done…”, Lori took a sip of her coffee, “It’s done.”, she sighed.
Anna murmured in agreement while twisting her wedding ring around her finger. She studied the wall of photos above Lori’s head as if the waitstaff planned to test her on the content before she could leave. Lori frowned at her sister but continued.
“ Bernard asked me how I rigged the film. Can you believe? No outrage on the breach of privacy. Just, how’d you pull it off, Lor? And honestly, his reaction was far from the worst. There are people I’ve worked with for thirty years who won’t talk to me. Stone silence, like I planned the whole thing out. Like this was good for my career or something. Sure, my name is out there but it’s pretty much mud.”
Lori stared at her sister, waiting for her to disagree. Anna didn’t seem to notice so Lori shot a look behind her to make sure nothing ominous was looming over her head. Seeing only the standard black and white mom-and-pop cafe photos framed over her head, Lori snapped her fingers in front of her sister’s distracted expression, “Anna, out with it. You can’t even meet my eyes. What? You think I’m a hoax too?”
Anna broke her stare. She glanced around the room before leaning in, slipping her hands under her knees and gripping them like a child waiting to see the principal. Their gaze locked across the wooden table. Anna’s expression hardened in determination. She frowned slightly before speaking.
“If you mock me for this, you’ll have another person icing you out”, she warned.
Lori put her left hand on her chest and raised two fingers in the air in the scout’s honor salute, nodding her agreement.
“You remember the summer in Wheaton when Grandma and Grandpa watched us while Mom and Dad worked that gig down south? I was twelve so you must have been fourteen. You started carrying around Dad’s old Nikon that year. I still have bug bite scars from all the times you made me pose for photo shoots.”
“Oh, yeah. The summer of love. I dated Arnold Speckman for three whole weeks that July. Wonder where that kid is. We ran so wild that summer. God, they don’t make summers like that anymore.”
Anna smiled slightly before continuing, “Yeah, well, do you remember how we used to go to the falls outside town? The altar that was set up there in a little cave behind the waterfall? There was a woman painted on the wall. Maybe she was supposed to be a knock-off of the Virgin of Guadalupe? She had a white veil and her face was all washed out. We made offerings and asked for things, I think we called them miracles” Recognition dawned on Lori’s face and she smiled.
“Holy cow! Aw, we were such cute little witches. I kind of remember little-you sneaking a backpack full of mom’s candles out of the house and wishing for the lead role in your middle school musical.”
“Yeah, that didn’t work out”
“Not even a miracle would allow anyone in our family to carry a tune.”
“Okay, so yeah. I know, it was innocent fun. Far more innocent than other things we did that summer. But there was that one time, at the end of the summer that you went there alone. I remember you coming home wet after Grandma and Grandpa were in bed. Your hands and face were all bloody. You said you had fallen off the falls. You begged me to keep it a secret from Grandma and Grandpa. I remember watching you get changed that night through a crack in the door. It sounds creepy but I don’t know, I just wanted to make sure you were safe. Lori, I remember the markings. They were deep red, carved into your belly. I saw them. What did you do out there?”
Lori was silent, her hand traveling back and forth in a line along her stomach. Her thick eyebrows were raised above her straight-cut bangs, eyes unreadable as she stared across the table at her younger sister’s strained, reddening eyes. Her bark of laughter broke the silence.
“I’m sorry, Anna. I’m not mocking. I promise. It’s just, I haven’t thought of our little occult phase in, like, forever.”, Lori once again reached over the table to coerce her hands from beneath the table. Anna slid her hand over the table, its gold wedding band catching the overhead light. Lori squeezed it, her palms were cold and moist and Anna squirmed out of her grasp, frown lines deepening between her brows. The waitress slid two plates between the two sisters, interrupting the current of silent conversation and causing both of them two jump.
The sisters smiled up weakly at the waitress’s canned pleasantries, avoiding eye contact with each other until she was out of earshot.
“I just. I don’t know how you could have survived a drop like that. And you just… you looked different when you got back. Your eyes looked strange. You wouldn’t talk to me at all for like, three days. You wouldn’t talk about what happened at all. I went back to the waterfall a week later and the altar was broken. The cave had collapsed.”
Lori busied herself, seasoning her plate, looking down with a stone face.
“Anna, I’m sorry but I don’t remember this at all. Sounds like maybe I had been playing up my incident for dramatic effect. The altar had probably been dug out by stupid teens, it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. I just don’t really understand what you’re getting at.”
“Well… remember what you promised. No mocking. Lori, if you asked the lady at the altar for your dream job that summer then you kind of got your miracle. You made it in fashion photography. How many people, much less women have become one of the top photographers in that world? I’m not saying you didn’t work hard, I’m just saying that maybe you had a little help. That spirit in the photograph. Don’t you remember the saint in the cave had a blue orb painted in the middle of her chest? Maybe you promised her something… something more than hard candies and our mom’s Christmas candles. Maybe you gave her something and she granted you your miracle.”
Lori sat, her mouth twitching as she thought. Anna forked at her eggs cooly, her expression drawn. Shaking her head and letting a long sigh escape from her chest, Lori peeled a pad of butter, melting it between the pancakes.
“I’ll tell you what, that’s a stretch. I’d like to think my career success is due to hard work, alone. If I’m under the guidance of a cave saint, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”, Lori gazed at her sister and smiled sadly, “If I’m being honest, I feel awful. I can barely remember this incident and it seems like it made such an impression on you. Those markings were probably attempts at stick-and-poke tattoos. All of my friends were doing them that summer. Jenny still has a star done in Indian ink on her back, poor thing. If I had gone out after dark, I might have met some people to smoke dope at the top of the falls. That’s where we used to meet up so it tracks. I don’t remember falling off though. God! It makes me glad I don’t have kids. This sounds super scary. I’m sorry I made you keep it a secret.”
Anna smiled back tightly before taking a bite of egg, a gesture of reconciliation. They ate and made conversation, though they were quieter than usual when they got together. Lori paid for the meal, stating that it might make up for being a bad big sister that hot July night in the seventies.
Outside of the cafe, they stood on the street, both with keys in hand.
“Whelp, I’m going to go check out a sample sale in uptown.”, quipped Anna. Lori noted that she hadn’t tagged an invitation onto her statement.
“Sounds good, I gotta figure out what to wear for this interview with Newsweek. What outfit says, “I am not a crook?”
“Hmm, maybe you could get Nixon’s stylist to help. When are you headed to Allegheny?”
“I do look great in a suit. Leaving Tuesday. I’m just hoping this interview will clear the air. I’ll set them straight. Steer them to my thirty-freaking year career of groundbreaking work.”
“Remind them to use the term “female photographer” when writing your bio. You always love that one”
“Ha! I’m sure I won’t have to remind them to use it. Have fun at the sample sale. I’ll call you sometime this week and let you know how hardboiled Newsweek reporters are in the flesh.”
“Hey, Lori, be careful. I think you know more than you’re letting on. No, I don’t want to get into it. Just, stay away from that bridge. Don’t go looking for her. She might want more from you, more than you’ve already given, whatever that is.”
Lori opened her mouth, a quick joke on the tip of her tongue but was silenced by her sister’s face. She could still see the worried preteen when her sister’s expression was twisted into tense little knots. Relaxing her shoulders, Lori leaned in for a long hug, attempting to squeeze the fear from Anna’s slight frame.
“Don’t worry about me, Anna. This will all be over before we know it.”
***
The flow of visitors to Sacred Heart Creek had slowed over the months since the photo hit the internet. The miles of rutted road had a lot to do with it. The county planned on paving the road to the bridge to make their population of excited entrepreneurs happy. When Lori got out of the car under the same forest she had photographed decades earlier, she was struck by how that weekend didn’t seem like it happened that long ago. The effervescent scent of rushing water, the sharp tang of gravel dust at the back of her throat, and the living green fragrance of grass and newly budded leaves brought her back in time with a jolt. For so long, the shoot had been filed away in her mind, a murky negative of the start of her career. Now those photographs she took as a young hopeful meant more to the world than she ever could have guessed they would.
The spot wasn’t the same as it was when she last visited. Instead of a calm burbling creek in the height of summer, today, the creek was pushing at the banks, full of the last of the spring’s melted snow. The rushing water filled Lori’s ears as she took in the busy, sprawling shrine. The muddy banks were framed with fake flowers, layers of rosaries, and decorative crosses, plastic icons of faith hung from the bridge, threatening to tumble into the white water below. Lori closed her eyes leaning against the bridge’s stone wall, feeling the cold mist of the rapids below on her face.
She recalled the day the photograph was taken, combing over the memory with a fine tooth comb. Had she seen anything when she was at this spot so long ago? Had she noticed a glow in the shadow of the bridge? Had she seen a woman in the tangled brambles on shore? Someone who may have appeared in a double exposure? Crunching gravel interrupted her thoughts and she straightened up, dusting herself off, feeling as nervous as the young woman who had visited this very spot decades earlier.
“Stay as you were!” the photographer yelped from an open window of a black SUV. “That pose was God damned perfection.”
The Newsweek photographer got a few shots of Lori. In one, Lori leaned over the side of the bridge, her long silver hair tumbling elegantly over one shoulder. Lori pointed to where she had stood in the stream as a young woman, taking the shot that would change her career decades later. But the photoshoot didn’t last long and the photographer headed back to the city without much discussion. They both knew which photograph would be headlining this particular article and that photo was taken decades earlier and starred a very different woman than the reluctant subject of this photoshoot.
The interview with the reporter took place on the back patio of what was recently renamed Sacred Heart Inn. The interview began with questions about Lori’s career before leaning heavily into the true focus of the interview. Despite knowing it was a lost cause, Lori tried to interest Newsweek’s reporter in her unique takes on the changing fashion scene, the reigning superiority of film, and career feminism while clouds roiled above them, chasing away the gentle spring sun. He listened to all of Lori’s answers politely but only seemed to follow up on any responses when they talked about the photograph of the light-bearing figure. Straightening up with a furrowed brow that was straight out of a Noir film reporter playbook, he ended his litany of questions with what was supposed to be the perfect pull quote,
“Do you believe the lady in your photograph was a miracle?”
Lori pulled her leather jacket in close as she thought for a moment, tilting her head and gazing at the heavy clouds overhead as if concentrating on some far-off sound. Then she shook her head and frowned, the toe of her shiny black boot tapping the patio brick, ire crossing her tight expression, “If you want to know the truth, this whole ordeal feels like a trick to me. This photograph has thrown my career for a real curveball. I can’t see how anything other than this one image will be my legacy. Since I have many photographs that I’ve truly put my heart and soul into, this iconic fluke eats at me.”
Thunder rumbled and Lori paused in her monologue with her manicured finger held aloft before pulling her oversized leather tote to her lap and rustling through the pockets along the side. She slipped a sealed packet of cigarettes and a cheap lighter out of the designer bag. Pulling the packaging off the box, she raised her eyebrow at the reporter,
“Listen, Loyd, this part didn’t happen. According to my doctor, I’ve been smoke-free since the early aughts. But this shit…” She was silent as she concentrated on getting the flimsy lighter to work, only speaking again after taking a deep drag off her cigarette. “Well, it’s brought me back to a lot of my old vices. The religious among us would like me to declare my faith. My many atheist colleagues are on pins and needles waiting for me to declare this a hoax. And listen, I don’t belong to either camp. I’ve always been open-minded but I’m not even close to religious. Here’s what I think. Don’t saints show up out in the open? Like on hilltops or in sunbeams? What the hell is a saint doing under a shadowy bridge? Just take a look at that woman, she’s far from heavenly. That’s not the kind of miracle I want in my life”
Loyd’s eyes softened, taking Lori in as she huddled around her cigarette on the darkening patio. His mousy assistant, Joanna, took a step closer with the recording equipment.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
Lori met his eyes sharply before a heavy raindrop fell on her cheek. Thunder rumbled deep and close, causing the Newsweek reporter to jump. He didn’t see Lori’s hands tremble, her polished ivory fingertips tumbling ashes onto the Italian leather of her purse. In two beats rain was battering the table, the glassware, and all the cameras and recording equipment. Lori scooped up her tote and hurried her cigarettes into the tiny pocket of her leather jacket while the reporter and his assistant scurried to cover and pack the valuable interview equipment.
The deluge broke the professional tension of the interview. Once Loyd and Joanna returned to the pub on the ground floor of the inn after thoroughly drying and inventorying their equipment, they found Lori at the bar, relaxing with a glass of red wine.
“They have shepherd’s pie,” she announced. “How quaint. It’s like we’ve been planted in a Victorian Gothic.”
When they got settled in they found that it was just as she said. Flames crackled in a stone fireplace, shining off the old-fashioned wainscoting and whitewash of the empty dining room. The group gathered near the hearth and shared horror stories of the magazine trade rather than the ghostly sort. Lori was agreeable and talkative, laughing at the stories the Newsweek crew had to share. If they noticed her furtive glances at the dark windows of the inn, no one said anything. If she got a little too drunk to stay professional at dinner, she wasn’t alone.
They laughed as they said goodnight, promising to meet up in the morning for the hot and greasy country breakfast provided by the inn.
***
The last person to see Lori alive was the busboy. He was taking out the trash in the pouring rain and saw a beam of light flashing in the woods. Confused, he spun around and spotted a woman at the window of the inn, taking pictures of the dark forest. He couldn’t see her face. The next afternoon, when the maid complained to management of symbols painted in thick white grease on the outside of Lori’s windows, the police were called.
Anna never forgave herself for turning off her ringer that night. In the morning, she read:
“Are you pranking me? Something really messed up is happening, Anna. I don’t know. Maybe the reporter? That god damned intern? Anyway, I’m forwarding you a picture. I’ve got to go to the bridge. I know what you told me but I can figure this out if I get there before the rain washes what I need away. Call you when I get back.”
When the Sacred Heart Creek burst its banks no one thought to look for fashion photographer, Lori Bachman, in the turbulent waters. After Anna called the local police, sending them a photo of a blurry blue light that seemed to be caught moving through the scrubby brush behind the dumpster at the inn, they sent an officer to Lori’s room for a wellness check. When she wasn’t there and her bed wasn’t slept in, the authorities put two and two together. They sent out search and rescue, combing the rushing creek as well as the flash flood would allow.
The photographer was found a day later, cast into an oak tree’s low, wide branches. She was draped in rosary beads and other detritus left by visitors to the stream throughout the winter.
The Newsweek article was critically acclaimed. Lloyd Stanton completed his series on Lori Bachman and the Sacred Heart Creek photograph by waxing poetic about the strange scene he witnessed, stating that she looked like a sacrificial offering on an altar. Her DSLR camera was twisted around her neck and though hours of work went into recovering the footage, the only photograph left on the hard drive was a flash-blinded, blurred selfie backlit by a brilliant blue light.